Joshua Knobe and Jesse Prinz
Article in Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences

Abstract
When people are trying to determine whether an entity is capable of having certain kinds of mental states, they can think of it either from a functional standpoint or from a physical standpoint. We conducted a series of studies to determine how each of these standpoints impact people’s mental state ascriptions. The results point to a striking difference between two kinds of states-those that involve phenomenal consciousness and those that do not. Specifically, it appears that ascriptions of states that involve phenomenal consciousness show a special sort of sensitivity to purely physical factors.

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Chimpanzees make judgments about the actions and dispositions of strangers by observing others’ behavior and interactions in different situations. Specifically, chimpanzees show an ability to recognize certain behavioral traits and make assumptions about the presence or absence of these traits in strangers in similar situations thereafter. These findings, by Dr. Francys Subiaul - from the George Washington University in Washington DC - and his team, have just been published online in Animal Cognition, a Springer journal.

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A new issue of Self & Identity is out, with articles including topics such as cultural differences in self-esteem, the self in change, and the self in life transitions.

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APPLICATION DEADLINE 1 March 2008. Please let your grad students know about this.

The European Science Foundation and the ESF project Consciousness in a Natural and Cultural Context is sponsoring a one-week interdisciplinary collegium/summer school on contemporary research in the area of social cognition, theory of mind, and narrative theory at the University of San Marino in San Marino (geographically within Italy). See the collegium website.

Organizers: Shaun Gallagher, Dan Hutto, Dan Zahavi.

The collegium/summer school is open to a limited number of graduate students and post-doc researchers interested in theory of mind and the role of narrative and embodied intersubjectivity in our understanding of others. Research presentations, discussions, and tutorial sessions will allow researchers and students to share knowledge and interact. Students will have the opportunity to earn 15 points in the ECTS system.

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The key to successful social interactions is the ability to assess others’ intentions — be they friend or foe. A new study in 6- and 10-month-old infants shows that humans engage in social evaluations even earlier than was thought, before they can use language. The infants could evaluate actors on the basis of their social acts — they were drawn towards an individual who helps an unrelated third party to achieve his or her goal, and they avoided an individual who hinders a third party’s efforts to achieve a goal. The findings support the claim that precursors to adult-like social evaluation are present even in babies. This skill could be a biological adaptation that may also serve as the foundation for moral thought and action later in life.

Editor summary in Nature

Nature article by Hamlin, Wynn & Bloom

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From physorg.com: A forthcoming study from the Journal of Consumer Research looks at how consumers anthropomorphize products, endowing a car or a pair of shoes with human characteristics and personalities. The researchers, from the University of Toronto and the University of Chicago, find that people are more likely to attribute human qualities or traits to inanimate objects if the product fits with their expectations of relevant human qualities – and are also more likely to positively evaluate an anthropomorphized item.

“We sometimes see cars as loyal companions going so far as to name them. We argue with, cajole, and scold malfunctioning computers and engines,” explain Pankaj Aggarwal (University of Toronto) and Ann L. McGill (University of Chicago). “We find that if the product has a feature that is typically associated with a human prototype, then people are more likely to humanize the product, and also evaluate it more
positively.”

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Although feeling pain and touch has long been considered inherently private, recent neuroimaging and neurophysiological studies hint at the social implications of this experience. Here we used somatosensory-evoked potentials (SEPs) to investigate whether mere observation of painful and tactile stimuli delivered to a model would modulate neural activity in the somatic system of an onlooker.

Viewing video clips showing pain and tactile stimuli delivered to others, respectively, increased and decreased the amplitude of the P45 SEP component that reflects the activity of the primary somatosensory cortex (S1). These modulations correlated with the intensity but not with the unpleasantness of the pain and touch ascribed to the model or the aversion induced in the onlooker by the video clips. Thus, modulation of S1 activity contingent upon observation of others’ pain and touch may reflect the mapping of sensory qualities of observed painful and tactile stimuli.

Results indicate that the S1 is not only involved in the actual perception of pain and touch but also plays an important role in extracting somatic features from social interactions.

Bufalari et al. in Cerebral Cortex

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Preschoolers are more introspective than we give them credit for, according to new research by Simona Ghetti, assistant professor of psychology at UC Davis.

Ghetti and her co-investigator, Kristen Lyons, a graduate student in psychology at UC Davis, will present their findings Friday morning, Aug. 17, at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association in San Francisco.

Scientists have demonstrated that dolphins, monkeys and even rats can engage in some form of “metacognition,” or an awareness of their own thought processes. But developmental psychologists have assumed that human children do not develop this capability before about age 5.

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Does the ventromedial prefrontal cortex play a role in personal moral judgment? Medscape.com has a nice report on 7 patients with lesions in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex that find that “the ventromedial prefrontal cortex is necessary to oppose personal moral violations, possibly by mediating anticipatory, self-focused, emotional reactions that may exert strong influence on moral choice and behavior.”

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Recent studies have shown that the brains of sperm whales is second in size only to human (relative to body size). It is about 60% larger in absolute mass than that of an elephant. How this brain evolution has occurred is the topic of a most interesting article in PLoS Biology, authored by Lori Marino et al. In this article the authors also forcefully argue that the increased brain size is paralleled by a comparable increase in cognitive complexity. As the authors write:

We believe that the time is ripe to present an integrated view of cetacean brains, behavior, and evolution based on the wealth of accumulated and recent data on these topics. Our conclusions support the more generally accepted view that the large brain of cetaceans evolved to support complex cognitive abilities.

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How do people reason about personality, and how people change or stay the same over time? In a study by Nick Haslam and colleagues lay theories of personality over time was explored. Among other things the researchers found that beliefs about normative personality change generally corresponded to research evidence on adult trajectories of the Big Five factors; and that recalled and anticipated personal change tended to be more positive than these norms

One potential shortcoming of the study is that it used only undergraduates. It would be interesting to see how the perception of personality continuity would also change according to ageing (as well as across different educational groups).

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Why do we punish others? And why do we punish when it is personally costly? In a recent review in Nature Review Neuroscience Ben Seymour and colleagues discuss the neurobiology of punishment.

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Some people find angry looks from others so rewarding they go out of their way to encourage them, Michigan researchers said.

“It’s kind of striking that an angry facial expression is consciously valued as a very negative signal by almost everyone, yet at a non-conscious level can be like a tasty morsel that some people will vigorously work for,” said Oliver Schultheiss, University of Michigan associate professor of psychology.

His study may explain why some people like to tease each other, he said.

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