"... In two studies, the authors investigated 2- and 3-year-old children’s awareness of the normative structure of conventional games. In the target conditions, an experimenter showed a child how to play a simple rule game. After the child and the experimenter had played for a while, a puppet came (contr ..."

In two studies, the authors investigated 2- and 3-year-old children’s awareness of the normative structure of conventional games. In the target conditions, an experimenter showed a child how to play a simple rule game. After the child and the experimenter had played for a while, a puppet came (controlled by a 2nd experimenter), asked to join in, and then performed an action that constituted a mistake in the game. In control conditions, the puppet performed the exact same action as in the experimental conditions, but the context was different such that this act did not constitute a mistake. Children’s normative responses to the puppet’s acts (e.g., protest, critique, or teaching) were scored. Both age groups performed more normative responses in the target than in the control conditions, but the 3-year-olds did so on a more explicit level. These studies demonstrate in a particularly strong way that even very young children have some grasp of the normative structure of conventional activities.

... or what is usually done with it, without understanding the act as what is to be done conventionally, that is, without understanding that there are “right” and “wrong” ways to do it (Tomasello, 1999; =-=Tomasello & Rakoczy, 2003-=-). Casler and Kelemen (2005) thus used a new measure 875876 BRIEF REPORTS that went beyond mere imitation of actions with artifacts. They found that children as young as 2 years of age not only imita...

...at infants are sensitive to some aspects of goal-‐directed activity, can attribute goals to actions and can discriminate between intentional and accidental actions (Gergely et al. 1995; Csibra 2008; =-=Tomasello and Rakoczy 2003-=-; Woodward 1998; Woodward and Sommerville 2000). However, and this is my third remark, evidence for an early understanding of goal-‐directed activity isn't yet evidence for an early understanding of ...

"... Despite sharing a recent common ancestor, humans are surprisingly different from other great apes. The most obvious discontinuities are related to our cogni-tive abilities, including language, but we also have a markedly different, coopera-tive breeding system. Among many nonhuman primates and mamma ..."

Despite sharing a recent common ancestor, humans are surprisingly different from other great apes. The most obvious discontinuities are related to our cogni-tive abilities, including language, but we also have a markedly different, coopera-tive breeding system. Among many nonhuman primates and mammals in gen-eral, cooperative breeding is accompanied by psychological changes leading to greater prosociality, which directly enhances performance in social cognition. Here we propose that these cognitive consequences of cooperative breeding could have become more pervasive in the human lineage because the psycho-logical changes were added to an ape-level cognitive system capable of under-standing simple mental states, albeit mainly in competitive contexts. Once more prosocial motivations were added, these cognitive abilities could also be used for cooperative purposes, including a willingness to share mental states, thereby enabling the emergence of shared intentionality. Shared intentionality has been identified as the original source of many uniquely human cognitive abilities, including cumulative culture and language. Shared intentionality rests on a fun-

"... Sperber and Wilson among others) have viewed basic communicative acts as essentially involving the attitudes of the participating agents. Developmental data poses a dilemma for these accounts, since it suggests children below age four are competent commu-nicators but would lack the ability to concep ..."

Sperber and Wilson among others) have viewed basic communicative acts as essentially involving the attitudes of the participating agents. Developmental data poses a dilemma for these accounts, since it suggests children below age four are competent commu-nicators but would lack the ability to conceptualise communication if philosophers and linguists are right about what communication is. This paper argues that this dilemma is quite serious and that these prominent accounts would be undermined if an adequate more minimal alternative were available. Just such a minimalist account of commu-nication is offered, drawing on ideas from relevance theory and situation theory. 1.

"... Given the premise that joint action plays some role in explaining how humans come to understand minds, what could joint action be? Not what a leading account, Michael Bratman’s, says it is. For on that account engaging in joint action involves sharing intentions and sharing intentions requires much ..."

Given the premise that joint action plays some role in explaining how humans come to understand minds, what could joint action be? Not what a leading account, Michael Bratman’s, says it is. For on that account engaging in joint action involves sharing intentions and sharing intentions requires much of the understanding of minds whose development is supposed to be explained by appeal to joint action. This paper therefore offers an account of a different kind of joint action, an account compatible with the premise about development. The new account is no replacement for the leading account; rather the accounts characterise two kinds of joint action. Where the kind of joint characterised by the leading account involves shared intentions, the new account characterises a kind of joint action involving shared goals.

"... concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilm or in any other way, and storage in data banks. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the German Copyright L ..."

concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilm or in any other way, and storage in data banks. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the German Copyright Law of September 9, 1965, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer. Violations are liable to prosecution under the German Copyright Law. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. Cover: Photo by Etsuko Nogami, Kyoto University A mother chimpanzee uses a pair of stones to crack open oil palm nuts; watched by the son, 7 years old, and the daughter, 1.5 years old.

"... Abstract. Philosophy, artificial intelligence and cognitive science have long been dominated by the presupposition that intelligence is fundamentally individual. Recent work in cognitive science clearly undermines that notion. Increasingly, intelligence is seen not as having its locus in the individ ..."

Abstract. Philosophy, artificial intelligence and cognitive science have long been dominated by the presupposition that intelligence is fundamentally individual. Recent work in cognitive science clearly undermines that notion. Increasingly, intelligence is seen not as having its locus in the individual, but in the network of relationships that the individual has with the external world and other individuals. At the same time, there has been an increasing neo-Heideggerian focus on the role of embodiment and anti-representationalism, as shown by work ranging from robotics to dynamical systems. While philosophers are carefully trying to justify this development, the most significant computational phenomenon by far- the World Wide Web-is a veritable explosion of representations. In its latest stage, the Web has become increasingly more the realm of representations used for social real-time co-ordination, as a tool for “collective intelligence.” In order to make sense of these developments, we first summarize the

... ability to point in children is more than an expression of a linguistic demonstrative, but rather an effort to produce a shared intentionality by directing the attention of others to the same object =-=[31]-=-. Some evidence from neuroscience the explosion of frontal cortex, long thought to be the seat of reasoning, evolved to keep track of interactions within a social network [8], and that the presence of...

"... The contribution of this dissertation is to show how interlocutors in dialogue can reason probabilistically about natural language interpretation, dialogue state (context), and natural language generation in a way that is consistent with three fundamental claims made by mainstream theories of pragma ..."

The contribution of this dissertation is to show how interlocutors in dialogue can reason probabilistically about natural language interpretation, dialogue state (context), and natural language generation in a way that is consistent with three fundamental claims made by mainstream theories of pragmatic reasoning in human-human dialogue: 1. interlocutors track and exploit the evolving context to coordinate their individual contributions; 2. the current context depends on what the previous utterances of both interlocutors have meant (contributed); 3. what a speaker can recognizably mean (contribute) by a specific choice of words depends on the current context. Mainstream pragmatic theories depend on these assumptions to explain how a speaker can make linguistic choices that the hearer will interpret as intended, but these theories do not lend themselves to straightforward probabilistic reasoning. Engineering approaches to building dialogue systems implement straightforward probabilistic reasoning, but sacrifice one or more (sometimes all) of these fundamental aspects of pragmatic theory in order to do so. This dissertation shows how we can achieve the robustness and data-driven methodology enjoyed by engineering approaches while keeping

"... Abstract. Since the beginning of the Nineteen-eighties, cognitive scientists have shown increasing interest in a range of phenomena, processes and capacities underlying human interaction, collectively referred to as intersubjectivity. The goal of this line of research is to give an account of the va ..."

Abstract. Since the beginning of the Nineteen-eighties, cognitive scientists have shown increasing interest in a range of phenomena, processes and capacities underlying human interaction, collectively referred to as intersubjectivity. The goal of this line of research is to give an account of the various forms of human interaction, and in particular of the affective, attentional and intentional determinants of joint activity. The main thesis we develop in the paper is that so far the authors interested in intersubjectivity have neglected, or at least undervalued, an important aspect of joint activity, that is, the essentially normative character of collective intentionality. Our approach to joint activity is mainly based on Margaret Gilbert’s theory of plural subjects. Gilbert’s general idea is that joint activities should be regarded as activities carried out by individuals who stand to one another in a special relation, called joint commitment, which has an intrinsically normative nature. As we shall try to show, the concept of a joint commitment is a powerful tool to explain certain specific features of joint activities. In the paper we first point out certain explanatory inadequacies of the current models of intersubjectivity, and contend that such inadequacies depend on failing to appreciate the fundamental role of normativity in collective intentionality. We briefly sketch Gilbert’s theory of plural subjects, and introduce the concept of a joint commitment, and then discuss some lines along which a psychology of plural subjects may be developed.

...ally human structures andsprocesses appear. Here we shall comment on a few works that we findsrepresentative of this approach.sIn a paper on “What makes human cognition unique,” Tomasello and Rakoczys=-=[18]-=- compare the impact on human social cognition of two key developmentalsmoments, the first at about one year of age and the second at about four years. Insthe authors’ terminology, the first ontogeneti...

"... Subjectivity after Wittgenstein Wittgenstein’s embodied and embedded subject and the debate about the death of manILLC Dissertation Series DS-2009-06 For further information about ILLC-publications, please contact ..."

Subjectivity after Wittgenstein Wittgenstein’s embodied and embedded subject and the debate about the death of manILLC Dissertation Series DS-2009-06 For further information about ILLC-publications, please contact

...asello precisely argues that the “leaps” that children display at around 1 and 4 years of age (and especially the first leap) underlie their ability to participate in complex social institutions (see =-=Tomasello & Rakoczy 2003-=-). These leaps not being exhibited (or not in the same way) by non-human animals, Tomasello also claim that this explains the (what he takes to be) striking difference between human beings and even th...