Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Interactionism and Mindreading

  • Published:
Review of Philosophy and Psychology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In recent years, a number of theorists have developed approaches to social cognition that highlight the centrality of social interaction as opposed to mindreading (e.g. Gallagher and Zahavi 2008; Gallagher 2001, 2007, 2008; Hobson 2002; Reddy 2008; Hutto 2004; De Jaegher 2009; De Jaegher and Di Paolo 2007; Fuchs and De Jaegher 2009; De Jaegher et al. 2010). There are important differences among these approaches, as I will discuss, but they are united by their commitment to the claim that various embodied and extended processes sustain social understanding and interaction in the absence of mindreading and thus make mindreading superfluous. In this paper, I consider various ways of articulating and defending this claim. I will argue that the options that have been offered either fail to present an alternative to mindreading or commit one to a radical enactivist position that I will give reasons for being skeptical about. I will then present an alternative and moderate version of interactionism, according to which the embodied and extended processes that interactionists emphasize actually complement mindreading and may even contribute as an input to mindreading.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Although this remark refers to explicit simulation, the same point could clearly be made about explicit theorizing or about any other supposedly explicit and pervasive process.

  2. It must be noted that Gallagher (2007) does criticize implicit versions of simulation theory, which characterize the sub-personal processes in question as implicit simulation. But this is different from rejecting the notion of implicit mindreading. To reject implicit simulation theory is to reject one possible account of the subpersonal processes underlying our everyday tendency to regard others as loci of mental life and to represent their mental states (i.e. implicit mindreading), not to reject the notion of implicit mindreading.

  3. I must emphasize, as noted in Section 1, that the term “interactionism” is my own. There are important differences among the various approaches I am referring to with this term, and these differences will become especially apparent in the discussion of enactivist approaches in this section. Nevertheless, all of these positions endorse the claim that social interaction and understanding do not require mindreading. Moreover, proponents of enactivism have used very similar terms to characterize their own positions, and have done so in a way that suggests an affiliation with the other positions dealt with here—e.g. “this interactive turn” (De Jaegher et al. 2010: 441).

  4. Arguing that it does would put one at risk of committing what Adams and Aizawa (2001) have dubbed the coupling-constitution fallacy. Adams and Aizawa argue forcefully that coupling of systems with environmental features does not entail that those systems are constituted by these external features. Otherwise, one would have to accept a slew of awkward consequences, such as, for example, that nuclear fission is constituted rather than merely caused by the bombardment of the nucleus with neutrons.

  5. Cf. also Hobson 2002: 11–14.

  6. For my purposes here, it makes no difference whether these areas are fruitfully described as part of a “mirror system”. The proposal I am making is that complementary responses initiated within the motor system may contribute to judgments about observed behavior. In fact, if this proposal is correct, then “mirroring” would not be a very apt term for the functional contributions of the populations of neurons in these areas (Cf. Catmur et al. 2008).

  7. The term “mentalizing network” is commonly used to refer to a circuit of frontal areas that is comprised of superior temporal cortex, the temporoparietal junction, and the midline structures posterior cingulate and medial prefrontal cortex (De Lange et al. 2008; Castelli et al. 2002). These areas are recruited by tasks in which subjects have to ascribe mental states such as beliefs and desires even in the absence of observed biological movement, i.e. on the basis of verbally presented information or cartoons (De Lange et al. 2008; Frith and Frith 2003; Castelli et al. 2002).

References

  • Ackerman, J.M., C.C. Nocera, and J.A. Bargh. 2010. Incidental haptic sensations influence social judgments and decisions. Science 328: 1712–1715.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Adams, A., and K. Aizawa. 2001. The bounds of cognition. Philosophical Psychology 14: 43–64.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Apperly, I., and S. Butterfill. 2009. Do humans have two systems for tracking beliefs and belief-like states? Psychological Review 116(4): 953–970.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Auvray, M., C. Lenay, and J. Stewart. 2006. The attribution of intentionality in a simulated environment: The case of minimalist devices. Presented at the Tenth meeting of the association for the scientific study of consciousness, Oxford.

  • Auvray, M., C. Lenay, and J. Stewart. 2009. Perceptual interactions in a minimalist virtual environment. New Ideas in Psychology 27: 32–47.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baron-Cohen, S. 1995. Mindblindness: An essay on autism and theory of mind. Cambridge: MIT.

  • Barsade, S. 2002. The ripple effect: emotional contagion and its effects on group behavior. Administrative Science Quarterly, 47.

  • Bernieri, F. 1988. Coordinated movement and rapport in teacher-student interactions. Journal of Non-verbal Behavior 12(2): 120–138.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bower, G. 1981. Mood and Memory. American Psychologist 36: 129–148.

    Google Scholar 

  • Castelli, F., C. Frith, F. Happé, and U. Frith. 2002. Autism, Asperger syndrome and brain mechanisms for the attribution of mental states to animated shapes. Brain 125(8): 1839–1849.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Catmur, C., H. Gillmeister, G. Bird, R. Liepelt, M. Brass, and C. Heyes. 2008. Through the looking glass: counter-mirror activation following incompatible sensorimotor learning. European Journal of Neuroscience 28: 1208–1215.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cleeremans, A., and L. Jiménez. 2002. Implicit learning and consciousness: A graded, dynamical perspective. In Implicit learning and consciousness: An empirical, philosophical and computational consensus in the making, ed. R.M. French and A. Cleeremans, 1–40. Hove: Psychology.

    Google Scholar 

  • Csibra, G., G. Gergely, S. Szilvia Biro, O. Kiro, and M. Brockbank. 1999. Goal attribution without agency cues: the perception of ‘pure reason’ in infancy. Cognition 72: 237–267.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Damasio, A.R. 1999. The feeling of what happens: Body and emotion in the making of consciousness, 370. New York: Harcourt Brace & Co.

    Google Scholar 

  • Damasio, A.R., D. Tranel, and H. Damasio. 1991. Somatic markers and the guidance of behavior: Theory and preliminary testing. In Frontal lobe function and dysfunction, ed. H.S. Levin, H.M. Eisenberg, and A.L. Benton, 217–229. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • De Jaegher, H. 2009. Social understanding through direct perception? Yes, by interacting. Consciousness and Cognition 18(2009): 535–542.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • De Jaegher, H., and E. Di Paolo. 2007. Participatory sense-making: an enactive approach to social cognition. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 6(4): 485–507.

    Google Scholar 

  • De Jaegher, H., E. Di Paolo, and S. Gallagher. 2010. Can social interaction constitute social cognition? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, October 2010, 14(10).

  • De Lange, F.P., M. Spronk, R.M. Willems, I. Toni, and H. Bekkering. 2008. Complementary systems for understanding action intentions. Current Biology 18(6): 454–57.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Delevoye-Turrell, Y., A. Bartolo, and Y. Coello. 2010. Motor representations and the perception of space: Perceptual judgments of the boundary of action space. In Perception, action and consciousness: Sensorimotor dynamics and two visual systems, ed. N. Gangopadhyay, M. Madary, and F. Spicer. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dion, K., E. Berscheid, and E. Walster. 1972. What is beautiful is good. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 24: 285–90.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Di Paolo, E. 2009. The Extended Life. Topoi 28(1): 9–21.

  • Evans, J., and D.E. Over. (1996). Rationality and reasoning. Psychology Press.

  • Fogas, J., and G. Bower. 1987. Mood effects on personal perception judgments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 39: 175–84.

    Google Scholar 

  • Frith, C.D., and U. Frith. 1999. Interacting minds—A biological basis. Science 286: 1692–5.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Frith, U., and C.D. Frith. 2003. Development and neurophysiology of mentalizing. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences 358(1431): 459–73.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fuchs, T., and H. De Jaegher. 2009. Enactive Intersubjectivity: participatory sense-making and mutual incorporation. Phenomenology and Cognitive Sciences 8: 465–486.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gallagher, S. 2001. The practice of mind: theory simulation or primary interaction? Journal of Consciousness Studies 8(5–7): 83–108.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gallagher, S. 2007. Simulation trouble. Social Neuroscience 2(3/4): 353–365.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gallagher, S. 2008. Direct perception in the intersubjective context. Consciousness and Cognition 17(2): 535–543.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gallagher, S., and D. Zahavi. 2008. The phenomenological mind. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Galotti, K.M., J. Baron, and J.P. Sabini. 1986. Individual differences in syllogistic reasoning: deduction rules or mental models? Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 115: 16–25.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gergely, G., and J. D. Watson. 1999. Infant’s sensitivity to imperfect contingency in social interaction. In Early social cognition. Erlbaum.

  • Goldman, A. 2006. Simulating minds: The philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience of mindreading. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gordon, R. 2008. Beyond mindreading. Philosophical Explorations 11(3): 219–222.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Greene, J., R. Sommerville, L. Nystrom, J. Darley, and J. Cohen. 2001. An fMRI investigation of emotional engagement in moral judgment. Science 293: 2105–8.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hatfield, E., J.T. Cacioppo, and R.L. Rapson. 1994. Emotional contagion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Herrmann, E., J. Call, B. Hare, and M. Tomasello. 2007. Humans evolved specialized skills of social cognition: the cultural intelligence hypothesis. Science 317(5843): 1360–1366.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Herschbach, M. 2008. Folk psychological and phenomenological accounts of social perception. Philosophical Explorations 11(3): 223–235.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hobson, R.P. 2002. The cradle of thought. London: Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hutto, D. 2004. The limits of spectatorial folk psychology. Mind and Language 19(5): 548–573.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • James, W. 1884. What is an emotion? Mind 9: 188–205.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Konvalinka, I., P. Vuust, A. Roepstorff, and C.D. Frith. 2010. Follow you, follow me: continuous mutual prediction and adaptation in joint tapping. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 4: 1–11.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lange, C.G. 1885. Om sindsbevægelser: Et physiologisk studie. Copenhagen: Jacob Lunds. Reprinted in C.G. Lange & W. James (Eds.), I.A. Haupt (Trans.) The Emotions, 1922, Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins.

  • Leslie, A. 2000. “Theory of mind” as a mechanism of selective attention. In The new cognitive neurosciences, ed. M. Gazzaniga, 1235–47. Cambridge: MIT.

    Google Scholar 

  • Locke, K., and J. Horowitz. 1990. Satisfaction in interpersonal interactions as a function of similarity in level of dysphoria. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 58(5): 823–831.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Meltzoff, A.N. 1995. Understanding the intentions of others: re-enactment of intended acts by 18-month-old children. Developmental Psychology 31: 838–50.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Meltzoff, A., and M.K. Moore. 1977. Imitation of facial and manual gestures by human neonates. Science 198: 75–8.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Murray, L., and C. Trevarthen. 1985. Emotional regulation of interactions between two-month-olds and their mothers. In Social perception in infants, ed. T.M. Field and N.A. Fox, 177–197. Norwood: Ablex.

    Google Scholar 

  • Newman-Norlund, R., H.T. Van Schie, A.M.J. van Zuijlen, and H. Bekkering. 2007. The human mirror system more active for complementary than for imitative actions. Nature Neuroscience 10: 817–818.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Öhman, A., A. Flykt, and F. Esteves. 2001. Emotion drives attention: detecting the snake in the grass Journal of Experimental Psychology 130(3): 466–478.

    Google Scholar 

  • Onishi, K.H., and R. Baillargeon. 2005. Do 15-month-old infants understand false beliefs? Science 308(8): 255–258.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Osman, M. 2004. An evaluation of dual-process theories of reasoning. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 11(6): 988–1010.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Prinz, J. 2007. The emotional construction of morals. Oxford: OUP.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reber, A.S. 1993. Implicit learning and tacit knowledge. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reddy, V. 2008. How infants know minds. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sloman, S.A. 1996. The empirical case for two systems of reasoning. Psychological Bulletin 119: 3–22.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schnall, S., J. Haidt, and G. Clore. 2005. Irrelevant disgust makes moral judgment more severe, for those who listen to their bodies. Unpublished manuscript, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA.

  • Senju, A., M.H. Johnson, and G. Csibra. 2006. The development and neural basis of referential gaze perception. Social Neuroscience 1(3–4): 220–234.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, J. 2010. Seeing other people. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 81(3): 731–748.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stern, D. 1985/1998. The interpersonal world of the infant: A view from psychoanalysis and developmental psychology. New York: Basic Books.

  • Surian, L., S. Caldi, and D. Sperber. 2007. Attribution of beliefs by 13-month-old infants. Psychological Science 18(7): 580–586.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thompson, E. 2007. Mind in life: Biology, phenomenology, and the sciences of mind. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Trevarthen, C. 1979. Communication and cooperation in early infancy: A description of primary intersubjectivity. In Before speech, ed. M. Bullowa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Valdesolo, P., J. Ouyang, and D. DeSteno. 2010. The rhythm of joint action: synchrony promotes cooperative ability. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46: 693–695.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Varela, F.J., E. Thompson, and E. Rosch. 1991. The embodied mind: Cognitive science and human experience. Cambridge: MIT.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wells, A., and G. Matthews. 1994. Attention and emotion. A clinical perspective. East Sussex: Psychology.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wiltermuth, S., and C. Heath. 2009. Synchrony and cooperation. Psychological Science 20(1): 1–5.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Winfree, A.T. 2001. The geometry of biological time. London: Springer.

  • Woolley, A., C. Chabris, A. Pentland, N. Hashmi, and T. Malone. 2010. Evidence for a collective intelligence factor in the performance of human groups. Science 330: 686–688.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Søren Overgaard and Olle Blomberg for helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper. Thanks also to two anonymous reviewers and to the editors for a fruitful review process.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. GNOSIS Research Centre, Aarhus University, Tuborgvej 164, 2400, Copenhagen NV, Denmark

    John Michael

Authors
  1. John Michael
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to John Michael.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Michael, J. Interactionism and Mindreading. Rev.Phil.Psych. 2, 559–578 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-011-0066-z

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-011-0066-z

Keywords

Search

Navigation