Abstract
Embodied approaches to mindreading have tended to define themselves in contrast to cognitive approaches to social mindreading. One side effect of this has been a lack of engagement with key areas in the study of social cognition—in particular the topic of how we gain an understanding of the referential nature of others’ thoughts, and how that understanding develops from infancy. I argue that embodied accounts of mindreading are well equipped to enter into this debate, by making use of the notion of a joint mental state, but that doing so will require taking a less antagonistic attitude towards mainstream cognitive approach.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
There are, to my knowledge, two standard methods for determining the understanding of pre-linguistic children: Anticipatory Looking and Violation of Expectations. Within cognitive neuroscience there is also an increasing reliance on Event-Related Potentials.
Other evidence of relevance here is that to do with infant’s understanding of goals and intentions (see Caron 2009: 85–90 for a review), and their apparent understanding of other’s understanding of identity (Scott and Baillargeon 2009). Due to space considerations, I have omitted reference to these factors (although the question of identity is addressed in the section “Embodying the False Belief Tasks”). Inclusion of them would paint a fuller picture, but would not significantly affect the ideas discussed in this paper.
It is worth noting, however, that these are two separate demands, and it’s not clear why they should both be thought of as necessary conditions on psychological understanding (the authors state Davidson as an inspiration here). I shall attempt to exploit this gap in the section “Embodying the False Belief Tasks”, where I argue for a form of psychological understanding that is propositional, rather than extensional, but not necessarily holistic.
I am indebted to comments from an anonymous referee for pressing the clarification in this paragraph.
This is essentially the causal condition that John Campbell (2002) places on joint attention.
The experiential correlate of this view is spelled out by John Campbell: “… the individual experiential state that you are in, when you and another are jointly attending to something, is an experiential state that you could not be in, were it not for the other person attending to the object. The other person enters into your experience as a constituent of it, as co-attender, and the other person could not play that role in your experience except as being co-attender” (Campbell 2002: 163). My concern here, however, is with the cognitive elements of the account, rather than the experiential or phenomenological elements. For more on how the phenomenology of joint attention might be understood, see Seeman 2008, 2010.
This is not the only way of cashing out the mode of a psychological attitude (although it is perhaps the standard one in philosophical cognitive science). An alternative—or at least different—way of doing so would be in terms of a direction of fit (Searle 1983).
In various ways, infants have an innate tendency to react differentially to objects with face-like features that behave in a contingent manner towards the infant (Johnson 2005)
The infant is further incapable of the kind of holistic thinking that is involved in the second-tier. Although such thinking is essential for full-blown mature mindreading, it is a further claim (unargued for by Apperly and Butterfill themselves, who rely, not unreasonably, on the authority of Donald Davidson) that there could not be an intermediate (atomistic or molecular) form of psychological reasoning. The position I outline here allows for such a halfway house.
It is, for example, a datum within developmental psychology, that joint attention has a pivotal role to play in word learning (e.g., Baldwin 1995; Sabbagh and Baldwin 2005; Tomasello 2008). For suggestions about how joint attentional interaction might be central to normative learning see Carpendale and Lewis (2006) and Tomasello (2009).
Butterfill and Apperly do have a response to this: they claim that the infants are only tracking the agent’s capacity to make a distinction between types of objects (a detachable penguin and an undetachable penguin), and not the identity of the individual objects (this detachable penguin and that undetachable penguin). Although this might save their theory, it does have the air of a post hoc explanation. Firstly, it is not clear why the infants might understand the agent as regarding the penguins as types rather than individuals (the infants themselves presumably do not, so they have no particular reason to regard the agent as doing so). Secondly, the explanation is a hostage to experimental fortune—it would take seemingly minimal changes to the experimental paradigm to make it reasonably evident to all parties (agent and infant) that only two objects are involved, and that the agent has a particular attachment to hiding the key in that penguin.
References
Apperly, I., & Butterfill, S. (2009). Do humans have two systems to track beliefs and belief-like states? Psychological Review, 116, 4.
Baird, J., & Baldwin, D. (2001). Making sense of human behaviour: Action parsing and intentional inference. In B. F. Malle, L. Moses, & D. A. Baldwin (Eds.), Intentions and intentionality: Foundations of social cognition. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Baldwin, D. (1995). Understanding the link between joint attention and language. In C. Moore & P. J. Dunham (Eds.), Joint attention: Its origins and development. Hillsdale: LEA.
Baron-Cohen, S., Leslie, A., & Frith, U. (1985). Does the autistic child have a theory of mind? Cognition, 21, 37–46.
Bloom, P., & German, T. (2000). Two reasons to abandon the false belief task as a test of the theory of mind. Cognition, 77, B25–B31.
Brooks, R., & Meltzoff, A. (2002). The importance of eyes: How infants interpret adult’s looking behaviour. Developmental Psychology, 3(8), 958–966.
Burge, T. (2010). Origins of objectivity. Oxford: OUP.
Butterfill, S. & Apperly, I. (2011). How to construct a minimal theory of mind.
Campbell, J. (2002). Reference and consciousness. Oxford: OUP.
Caron, A. J. (2009). Comprehension of the representational mind in infancy. Developmental Review, 29, 69–95.
Caron, A. J., Kiel, E., Dayton, M., & Butler, S. (2002). Comprehension of the referential intent of looking and pointing between 12 and 15 months of age. Journal of Cognition and Development, 3, 445–464.
Carpendale, J., & Lewis, C. (2006). How children develop social understanding. Oxford: Blackwell.
Carruthers, P. (2006). The architecture of the mind. Oxford: OUP.
Corkum, V., & Moore, C. (1995). Development of joint visual attention in infants. In C. Moore & P. J. Dunham (Eds.), Joint attention: Its origins and development. Hillsdale: LEA.
De Jaegher, H. (2009). Social understanding through perception? Yes, by interacting. Consciousness and Cognition, 18, 535–542.
De Jaegher, H., Di Paolo, E., & Gallagher, S. (2010). Can social interaction constitute social cognition? Trends in Cognitive Science., 14(10), 441–447.
Di Paolo, E. A., Rohde, M., & De Jaegher, H. (2007). Horizons for the enactive mind: Values, social interaction, and play. In J. Stewart, O. Gapenne, & E. Di Paolo (Eds.), Enaction: Towards a new paradigm for cognitive science. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Doherty, M. J. (2009). Theory of mind: How children understand others’ thoughts and feelings. Hove: Psychology Press.
Eilan, N. (2005). Joint attention, communication and the mind. In N. Eilan, C. Hoerl, T. McCormack, & J. Roessler (Eds.), Joint attention: Communication and other minds. Oxford: OUP.
Eilan, N. (2007). Consciousness, self-consciousness and communication. In T. Baldwin (Ed.), Reading Mearleau-Ponty on the phenomenology of perception. Oxford: Routledge.
Fodor, J. (1992). A theory of the child’s theory of mind. Cognition, 44(3), 283–296.
Forguson, L., & Gopnik, A. (1988). The ontology of common sense. In J. Astington, P. Harris, & D. Olsen (Eds.), Developing theories of mind. Cambridge: CUP.
Gallagher, S. (2001). The practice of mind: Theory, simulation or interaction? Journal of Consciousness Studies, 8(5–7), 83–107.
Gallagher, S. (2005). How the body shapes the mind. Oxford: OUP.
Gallagher, S. (2008). Inference or interaction: Social cognition without precursors. Philosophical Explorations, 11(3), 163–174.
Gergeley, G. (2010). Kinds of agents: The origins of understanding instrumental and communicative agency. In U. Goshwami (Ed.), Blackwell handbook of childhood cognitive development (2nd ed.). Oxford: Blackwell.
Goldman, A. (2006). Simulating minds: The philosophy, psychology and neuroscience of mindreading. Oxford: OUP.
Gopnik, A., & Meltzoff, A. (1997). Words, thoughts and theories. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Hobson, P. (2003). The cradle of thought: explorations in the origin of thinking. London: Macmillan.
Hutto, D. D. (2008). Folk psychological narratives: the Sociocultural basis of understanding reasons. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Hutto, D.D. (2011). Elementary mind-reading, enactivist-style. In A. Seeman, Joint Attention: New Developments in Philosophy, Psychology and Neuroscience. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Johnson, S. (2005). Reasoning about intentionality in pre-verbal infants. In P. Carruthers, S. Laurence, & S. Stich (Eds.), The innate mind (Vol 1): Structure and contents. Oxford: OUP.
Király, I. (2009). Memories for events in infants: Goal-relevant action coding. In T. Striano & V. Reid (Eds.), Social cognition: Development, neuroscience and autism. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Leslie, A. M., & Roth, D. (1993). What autism teaches us about representation. In S. Baron-Cohen, H. Tager-Flusberg, & D. J. Cohen (Eds.), Understanding other minds: Perspectives from autism. Oxford: OUP.
Liebal, K., Behne, T., Carpenter, M., & Tomasello, M. (2009). Infants use shared experience to interpret pointing gestures. Developmental Science, 12, 264–271.
Moll, H., & Tomasello, M. (2004). Twelve- and 18-month-old infants follow gaze to spaces behind barriers. Developmental Science, 7(1), F1–F9.
Moll, H., & Tomasello, M. (2007). How 14- and 18-month-olds know what others have experienced. Developmental Psychology, 43(2), 309–317.
Moll, H., Richter, N., Carpenter, M., & Tomasello, M. (2008). Fourteen-month-olds know what ‘we’ have shared in a special way. Infancy, 13(1), 90–101.
Nicholls, S., & Stich, S. (2003). Mindreading: An integrated account of pretense, self-awareness, and understanding other minds. Oxford: OUP.
Onishi, K., & Baillargeon, R. (2005). Do 15-month-olds understand false beliefs? Science, 308, 255–258.
Perner, J. (1991). Understanding the representational theory of mind. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Prinz, J. J. (2009). Is consciousness embodied? In P. Robbins & M. Aydede (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of situated cognition. Cambridge: CUP.
Ratcliffe, M. (2007). Rethinking common-sense psychology. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Reddy, V. (2008). How infants know minds. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Sabbagh, M., & Baldwin, D. (2005). Understanding the role of communicative intentions. In N. Eilan, C. Hoerl, T. McCormack, & J. Roessler (Eds.), Joint attention: Communication and other minds. Oxford: OUP.
Scaife, M., & Bruner, J. (1975). The capacity for joint visual attention in the infant. Nature, 253, 265–266.
Scott, R., & Baillargeon, R. (2009). Which penguin is this? Attributing false-belief about identity statements at 18 months. Child Development, 80(4), 1172–1196.
Searle, J. (1983). Intention: An essay in the philosophy of mind. Cambridge: CUP.
Seeman, A. (2008). Person perception. Philosophical Explorations, 11(3), 245–262.
Seeman, A. (2010). The other person in joint attention: A relational approach. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 17(5–6), 161–182.
Shapiro, L. (2011). Embodied cognition. Oxford: Routledge.
Song, H., & Baillargeon, R. (2008). Infants’ reasoning about others’ false perceptions. Developmental Psychology, 44, 1789–179.
Southgate, V., Senju, A., & Csibra, G. (2007). Action anticipation through attribution of false belief by two-year-olds. Psychological Science, 18, 587–592.
Striano, T., & Reid, V. (2009). Social cognition at the crossroads: Perspectives on understanding others. In T. Striano & V. Reid (Eds.), Social cognition: Development, neuroscience, and autism. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Tomasello, M. (2008). Origins of Human Communication. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Tomasello, M. (2009). Why we cooperate. Cambrdige: MIT Press.
Tomasello, M., Carpenter, M., Call, J., Behne, T., & Moll, H. (2005). Understanding and sharing intentions: The origins of cultural cognition. The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 28, 675–691.
Trevarthen, C. (1979). Communication and cooperation in early infancy: A description of primary intersubjectivity. In M. Bullowa (Ed.), Before speech: the beginning of interpersonal communication. New York: CUP.
Trevarthen, C. (1995). The child’s need to learn a culture. Children & Society., 9(1), 5–19.
Wellman, H. M., Cross, D., & Watson, J. (2001). Meta-analysis of theory of mind development: The truth about false belief. Child Development, 72, 655–684.
Wilby, M. (2010). The simplicity of mutual knowledge. Philosophical Explorations, 13(2), 83–100.
Wimmer, H., & Perner, J. (1983). Beliefs about beliefs: representation and constraining function of wrong beliefs in young children’s understanding of deception. Cognition, 13, 103–128.
Zahavi, D. (2004). The embodied self-awareness of the infant: A challenge to the theory-theory of mind? In D. Zahavi, T. Grünbaum, & J. Parnas (Eds.), The structure and development of self-consciousness: Interdisciplinary perspectives (pp. 35–63). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Zawidzki, T. (2011). Mindshaping: Linchpin of the human socio-cognitive syndrome. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Acknowledgment
Thanks to two anonymous referees for very helpful suggestions and comments.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Wilby, M. Embodying the False-Belief Tasks. Phenom Cogn Sci 11, 519–540 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-011-9222-2
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-011-9222-2