The use of new paradigms of false belief tasks (FBT) allowed to reduce the age of children who pa... more The use of new paradigms of false belief tasks (FBT) allowed to reduce the age of children who pass the test from the previous 4 years in the standard version to only 15 months or even a striking 6 months in the nonverbal modification. These results are often taken as evidence that infants already possess an-at least implicit-theory of mind (ToM). We criticize this inferential leap on the grounds that inferring a ToM from the predictive success on a false belief task requires to assume as premise that a belief reasoning is a necessary condition for correct action prediction. It is argued that the FBT does not satisfactorily constrain the predictive means, leaving room for the use of belief-independent inferences (that can rely on the attribution of non-representational mental states or the consideration of behavioral patterns that dispense any reference to other minds). These heuristics, when applied to the FBT, can achieve the same predictive success of a belief-based inference because information provided by the test stimulus allows the recognition of particular situations that can be subsumed by their 'laws'. Instead of solving this issue by designing a single experimentum crucis that would render unfeasible the use of non-representational inferences, we suggest the application of a set of tests in which, although individually they can support inferences dissociated from a ToM, only an inference that makes use of false beliefs is able to correctly predict all the outcomes.
This article will expose theoretical assumptions and philosophical hypotheses that can be tested ... more This article will expose theoretical assumptions and philosophical hypotheses that can be tested using electroencephalography. Using the ERP technique (Event-Related Potentials), which makes use of EEG data, it is expected to be possible to find patterns of electrophysiological responses that "carry information" about the possession or absence of epistemic mental states, while participants are reading philosophical sentences ending in a true or false way. The idea is to include participants in the group of philosophers (graduate students in philosophy) or the group of non-philosophers (students of unrelated courses) and assuming greater familiarity with philosophical facts among philosophers, will be analyzed the signal evoked in the two conditions (i.e. false and true sentences) in both groups, especially in electrodes located in the central and parietal regions. The component of interest of the ERP will be the N400 (negative deflection whose latency occurs about 400 milliseconds after a stimulus), which is mainly associated with the difficulty of integrating a word - in semantic terms – into the context in which it appears. From the mere brain response to satisfied semantic expectations (attenuated N400) or violated (strong N400), it is conjectured to be possible to understand the causal role of the underlying epistemic beliefs that are modulating the signals and how they are recruited during reading to predict the next lexical items Keywords: Mindreading, Philosophy of Mind, Electroencephalography, N400.
Abstract: “Theory of Mind” (ToM) means the ability to attribute representational mental states to... more Abstract: “Theory of Mind” (ToM) means the ability to attribute representational mental states to others, such as beliefs and desires, and to explain/predict behaviors taking into account how these mental states commonly interact. “Moral Cognition” (CM), in a broad sense, refers to the way people make moral judgments, evaluating behaviors in the light of a system of norms. ToM and CM, skills that are part of human social cognition, although being distinct in computational terms (i.e. about their functional roles—domain of input processed and types of outputs produced) and neural embodiment, are processes that interact in various forms, with cognitive tasks that require them jointly. It is intended in this paper to analyze types of cognitive tasks in which ToM and CM interact (ToM taking as input an output of CM and CM taking as input an output of ToM), and in which ToM and CM are recruited separately. Due to the existence of clinical groups (e.g. individuals in the autism spectrum) having anomalous performance in certain cognitive tasks that recruit ToM and CM together (e.g. judging the behavior of an agent who, wanting to accomplish something good, caused an accidental injury to another person), it is necessary to investigate the exact role of each process in the production of these complex outputs to clarify the origin of the errors. Without taking into account experimental results that recruit ToM and CM alone it is not possible to determine whether the poor performance on a task that depends on the collective use of the two processes is the result of an impairment in ToM, CM or both.
The use of new paradigms of false belief tasks (FBT) allowed to reduce the age of children who pa... more The use of new paradigms of false belief tasks (FBT) allowed to reduce the age of children who pass the test from the previous 4 years in the standard version to only 15 months or even a striking 6 months in the nonverbal modification. These results are often taken as evidence that infants already possess an-at least implicit-theory of mind (ToM). We criticize this inferential leap on the grounds that inferring a ToM from the predictive success on a false belief task requires to assume as premise that a belief reasoning is a necessary condition for correct action prediction. It is argued that the FBT does not satisfactorily constrain the predictive means, leaving room for the use of belief-independent inferences (that can rely on the attribution of non-representational mental states or the consideration of behavioral patterns that dispense any reference to other minds). These heuristics, when applied to the FBT, can achieve the same predictive success of a belief-based inference because information provided by the test stimulus allows the recognition of particular situations that can be subsumed by their 'laws'. Instead of solving this issue by designing a single experimentum crucis that would render unfeasible the use of non-representational inferences, we suggest the application of a set of tests in which, although individually they can support inferences dissociated from a ToM, only an inference that makes use of false beliefs is able to correctly predict all the outcomes.
This article will expose theoretical assumptions and philosophical hypotheses that can be tested ... more This article will expose theoretical assumptions and philosophical hypotheses that can be tested using electroencephalography. Using the ERP technique (Event-Related Potentials), which makes use of EEG data, it is expected to be possible to find patterns of electrophysiological responses that "carry information" about the possession or absence of epistemic mental states, while participants are reading philosophical sentences ending in a true or false way. The idea is to include participants in the group of philosophers (graduate students in philosophy) or the group of non-philosophers (students of unrelated courses) and assuming greater familiarity with philosophical facts among philosophers, will be analyzed the signal evoked in the two conditions (i.e. false and true sentences) in both groups, especially in electrodes located in the central and parietal regions. The component of interest of the ERP will be the N400 (negative deflection whose latency occurs about 400 milliseconds after a stimulus), which is mainly associated with the difficulty of integrating a word - in semantic terms – into the context in which it appears. From the mere brain response to satisfied semantic expectations (attenuated N400) or violated (strong N400), it is conjectured to be possible to understand the causal role of the underlying epistemic beliefs that are modulating the signals and how they are recruited during reading to predict the next lexical items Keywords: Mindreading, Philosophy of Mind, Electroencephalography, N400.
Abstract: “Theory of Mind” (ToM) means the ability to attribute representational mental states to... more Abstract: “Theory of Mind” (ToM) means the ability to attribute representational mental states to others, such as beliefs and desires, and to explain/predict behaviors taking into account how these mental states commonly interact. “Moral Cognition” (CM), in a broad sense, refers to the way people make moral judgments, evaluating behaviors in the light of a system of norms. ToM and CM, skills that are part of human social cognition, although being distinct in computational terms (i.e. about their functional roles—domain of input processed and types of outputs produced) and neural embodiment, are processes that interact in various forms, with cognitive tasks that require them jointly. It is intended in this paper to analyze types of cognitive tasks in which ToM and CM interact (ToM taking as input an output of CM and CM taking as input an output of ToM), and in which ToM and CM are recruited separately. Due to the existence of clinical groups (e.g. individuals in the autism spectrum) having anomalous performance in certain cognitive tasks that recruit ToM and CM together (e.g. judging the behavior of an agent who, wanting to accomplish something good, caused an accidental injury to another person), it is necessary to investigate the exact role of each process in the production of these complex outputs to clarify the origin of the errors. Without taking into account experimental results that recruit ToM and CM alone it is not possible to determine whether the poor performance on a task that depends on the collective use of the two processes is the result of an impairment in ToM, CM or both.
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Papers by Ricardo Perera
Keywords: Mindreading, Philosophy of Mind, Electroencephalography, N400.
Keywords: Mindreading, Philosophy of Mind, Electroencephalography, N400.