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Question 1: Tracking to Representing

tracking vs representing

trackby representing

toxicity

odour

visibility

line-of-sight

belief

?

To say that someone tracks beliefs does not entail saying that she represents beliefs. In general, you can track something by representing something else.
Note that this complication is not supposed to show that we cannot make the inference from tracking to mindreading. After all, such inferences are not supposed to be deductive. Nor do I intend to suggest that we should somehow find a different inference which is deductive. Instead my point is simply this: as the inference is not deductive, there are bound to be tricky questions about how the observations support conclusions about tracking. [LATER: one further complication will be that there are multiple models of minds and actions.]

Which action a chimp or jay predicts another will perform

depends to some extent on

what the other sees, knows or believes.

This is directly evidence for tracking ...

... but what about representing?

Mindreading requires representing

‘In saying that an individual has a theory of mind, we mean that the individual [can ascribe] mental states’

Premack & Woodruff, 1978 p. 515

Some don’t see a gap here ...

‘Comparative psychologists test for mindreading in non-human animals by determining whether they detect the presence and absence of particular cognitive states in a wide variety of circumstances.’

They eliminate potential confounding variables by ensuring that there is no one observable state to which subjects might be responding’ \citep[p.~487]{halina:2015_there}.

Halina, 2015 p. 487

mindreading = using a theory of mind. So mindreading involves representing mental states
detect = track So Halina is inferring representing from tracking.

apes track beliefs ∴ they are mindreaders ?

For the purposes of this talk, I am going to assume that we can make this inference, at least in some circumstances.
But since representing does not logically entail tracking, I don’t think it’s at all straightforward ...
Three questions: \begin{enumerate} \item How do observations about tracking support conclusions about representing? \item Why are there dissociations in nonhuman apes’, human infants’ and human adults’ performance on belief-tracking tasks? \item Why is belief-tracking in adults sometimes but not always automatic? (And how could belief-tracking ever be automatic if it significantly depends on working memory and consumes attention?) \end{enumerate}

Q1

How do observations about tracking support conclusions about representing models?

Q2

Why are there dissociations in nonhuman apes’, human infants’ and human adults’ performance on belief-tracking tasks?

Q3

Why is belief-tracking in adults sometimes but not always automatic? How could belief-tracking be automatic given evidence that it significantly depends on working memory and consumes attention?

To stress: this is a genuine question. The assumption is that you can infer representing from tracking. What we need, I think, is a clearer idea of how such inferences might succeed.

Requirement 1: Diversity in Strategies

Should we conclude that all animals which can track mental states are doing so by virtue of representing them? Two versions of this objection: (a) cross-species: How confident are we that ringtailed lemurs are doing what chimpanzees are doing? (b) within an individual: In humans and other animals, tracking mental states likely involves many different processes, including plenty of which that rely on simple cues.
Requirement 1: We need a theory that allows us to distinguish mental state tracking underpinned by mindreading from other forms of mental state tracking

Requirement 2: Models

The second question concerns how various individuals (or systems within them) model minds and actions. Let me explain with an illustration ...

‘chimpanzees understand … intentions … perception and knowledge,

‘chimpanzees probably do not understand others in terms of a fully human-like belief–desire psychology’

Call & Tomasello, 2008 p.~191

‘chimpanzees understand … intentions … perception and knowledge,’ but ‘chimpanzees probably do not understand others in terms of a fully human-like belief–desire psychology’ \citet[p.~191]{Call:2008di}.
After claiming that ‘chimpanzees understand … intentions … perception and knowledge,’ \citet{Call:2008di} qualify their claim by adding that ‘chimpanzees probably do not understand others in terms of a fully human-like belief–desire psychology’ (p.~191).
This is true. The emergence in human development of the most sophisticated abilities to represent mental states probably depends on rich social interactions involving conversation about the mental \citep{Slaughter:1996fv, peterson:2003_opening, moeller:2006_relations}, on linguistic abilities \citep{milligan:2007_language,kovacs:2009_early}, (\citet[p.~760]{moeller:2006_relations}: ‘Our results provide support for the concept that access to conversations about the mind is important for deaf children’s ToM development, in that there was a significant relationship between maternal talk about mental states and deaf children’s performance on verbal ToM tasks.’) and on capacities to attend to, hold in mind and inhibit things \citep{benson:2013_individual, devine:2014_relations}. These are all scarce or absent in chimpanzees and other nonhumans. So it seems unlikely that the ways humans at their most reflective represent mental states will match the ways nonhumans represent mental states. Reflecting on how adult humans talk about mental states is no way to understand how others represent them. But then what could enable us to understand how nonhuman animals represent mental states?

Requirement 2: Models

How do chimps or jays variously model minds and actions?

‘Nonhumans represent mental states’ is not a hypothesis

... or at least not one that generates readily testable predictions.

‘the core theoretical problem in ... animal mindreading is that ... the conception of mindreading that dominates the field ... is too underspecified to allow effective communication among researchers’

‘the core theoretical problem in contemporary research on animal mindreading is that ... the conception of mindreading that dominates the field ... is too underspecified to allow effective communication among researchers, and reliable identification of evolutionary precursors of human mindreading through observation and experiment.’
\citep[p.~321]{heyes:2014_animal}

Heyes (2015, 321)

What does Heyes mean?

How confident should we be that we know how adult humans model minds and actions?

Philosophical methods (Previous issue: how accurate are humans’ models of minds and actions?; this issue: how confident should we be that we know how they model minds and actions?)

informal observation,
guesswork (‘intuition’),
imagination (including for ‘thought experiments’),
reasoning and argument,
and elegance

Aside ... we don’t know much about adults humans’ mindreading abilities

‘Nonhumans represent mental states’ is not a hypothesis

... or at least not one that generates readily testable predictions.

‘the core theoretical problem in ... animal mindreading is that ... the conception of mindreading that dominates the field ... is too underspecified to allow effective communication among researchers’

‘the core theoretical problem in contemporary research on animal mindreading is that ... the conception of mindreading that dominates the field ... is too underspecified to allow effective communication among researchers, and reliable identification of evolutionary precursors of human mindreading through observation and experiment.’
\citep[p.~321]{heyes:2014_animal}

Heyes (2015, 321)

How can we more fully specify mindreading?
Three questions: \begin{enumerate} \item How do observations about tracking support conclusions about representing? \item Why are there dissociations in nonhuman apes’, human infants’ and human adults’ performance on belief-tracking tasks? \item Why is belief-tracking in adults sometimes but not always automatic? (And how could belief-tracking ever be automatic if it significantly depends on working memory and consumes attention?) \end{enumerate}

Q1

How do observations about tracking support conclusions about representing models?

Q2

Why are there dissociations in nonhuman apes’, human infants’ and human adults’ performance on belief-tracking tasks?

Q3

Why is belief-tracking in adults sometimes but not always automatic? How could belief-tracking be automatic given evidence that it significantly depends on working memory and consumes attention?

Requirement 1: Diversity in strategies

Requirement 2: Models