scholarly journals Knowledge Attributions and Behavioral Predictions

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Turri
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Knowledge Attributions ◽  
Belief Attributions ◽  
Behavioral Predictions

Recent work has shown that knowledge attributions affect how people think others should behave, more so than belief attributions do. This paper reports two experiments providing evidence that knowledge attributions also affect behavioral predictions more strongly than belief attributions do, and knowledge attributions facilitate faster behavioral predictions than belief attributions do. Thus, knowledge attributions play multiple critical roles in social cognition, guiding judgments about how people should and will behave.

When and How Implicit First Impressions Can Be Updated

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 331-336 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa J. Ferguson ◽  
Thomas C. Mann ◽  
Jeremy Cone ◽  
Xi Shen
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Social World ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Ongoing Research ◽  
Real People ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Face ◽  
Contradictory Evidence ◽  
Implicit And Explicit

Human perceivers continually react to the social world implicitly —that is, spontaneously and rapidly. Earlier research suggested that implicit impressions of other people are slower to change than self-reported impressions in the face of contradictory evidence, often leaving them miscalibrated from what one learns to be true. Recent work, however, has identified conditions under which implicit impressions can be rapidly updated. Here, we review three lines of work showing that implicit impressions are responsive to information that is highly diagnostic, believable, or reframes earlier experience. These findings complement ongoing research on mechanisms of changing implicit impressions in a wider variety of groups, from real people to robots, and provide support for theoretical frameworks that embrace greater unity in the factors that can impact implicit and explicit social cognition.

Knowledge before Belief

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-37
Author(s):  
Jonathan Phillips ◽  
Wesley Buckwalter ◽  
Fiery Cushman ◽  
Ori Friedman ◽  
Alia Martin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
True Belief ◽  
Explicit Knowledge ◽  
External World ◽  
Knowledge Representations ◽  
Knowledge Attributions ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Belief Attributions ◽  
Learning From Others ◽  
Representations Of Belief

Abstract Research on the capacity to understand others’ minds has tended to focus on representations of beliefs, which are widely taken to be among the most central and basic theory of mind representations. Representations of knowledge, by contrast, have received comparatively little attention and have often been understood as depending on prior representations of belief. After all, how could one represent someone as knowing something if one doesn't even represent them as believing it? Drawing on a wide range of methods across cognitive science, we ask whether belief or knowledge is the more basic kind of representation. The evidence indicates that non-human primates attribute knowledge but not belief, that knowledge representations arise earlier in human development than belief representations, that the capacity to represent knowledge may remain intact in patient populations even when belief representation is disrupted, that knowledge (but not belief) attributions are likely automatic, and that explicit knowledge attributions are made more quickly than equivalent belief attributions. Critically, the theory of mind representations uncovered by these various methods exhibit a set of signature features clearly indicative of knowledge: they are not modality-specific, they are factive, they are not just true belief, and they allow for representations of egocentric ignorance. We argue that these signature features elucidate the primary function of knowledge representation: facilitating learning from others about the external world. This suggests a new way of understanding theory of mind—one that is focused on understanding others’ minds in relation to the actual world, rather than independent from it.

scholarly journals Primate Social Cognition and the Core Human Knowledge Concept

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Turri
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Comparative Psychology ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Core Knowledge ◽  
The Core ◽  
Sensory Modalities ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Folk Epistemology

I review recent work from armchair and cross-cultural epistemology on whether humans possess a knowledge concept as part of a universal “folk epistemology.” The work from armchair epistemology fails because it mischaracterizes ordinary knowledge judgments. The work from cross-cultural epistemology provides some defeasible evidence for a universal folk epistemology. I argue that recent findings from comparative psychology establish that humans possess a species-typical knowledge concept. More specifically, recent work shows that knowledge attributions are a central part of primate social cognition, used to predict others’ behavior and guide decision-making. The core primate knowledge concept is that of truth detection (across different sensory modalities) and retention (through memory) and may also include rudimentary forms of indirect truth discovery through inference. In virtue of their evolutionary heritage, humans inherited the primate social-cognitive system and thus share this core knowledge concept.

scholarly journals Primate Social Cognition and the Core Human Knowledge Concept

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Turri
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Comparative Psychology ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Core Knowledge ◽  
The Core ◽  
Sensory Modalities ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Folk Epistemology

The author reviews recent work from armchair and cross-cultural epistemology on whether humans possess a knowledge concept as part of a universal “folk epistemology.” The work from armchair epistemology fails because it mischaracterizes ordinary knowledge judgments. The work from cross-cultural epistemology provides some defeasible evidence for a universal folk epistemology. He argues that recent findings from comparative psychology establish that humans possess a species-typical knowledge concept. More specifically, recent work shows that knowledge attributions are a central part of primate social cognition, used to predict others’ behavior and guide decision-making. The core primate knowledge concept is that of truth detection (across different sensory modalities) and retention (through memory), and may also include rudimentary forms of indirect truth discovery through inference. In virtue of their evolutionary heritage, humans inherited the primate social-cognitive system and thus share this core knowledge concept.

Do “knowledge attributions” involve metarepresentation just like belief attributions do?

2021 ◽  
Vol 44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Dudley ◽  
Ágnes Melinda Kovács
Keyword(s):  
Mental State ◽  
Knowledge Attributions ◽  
Mental State Attribution ◽  
Underlying Representation ◽  
Belief Attributions

Abstract The authors distinguish knowledge and belief attributions, emphasizing the role of the former in mental-state attribution. This does not, however, warrant diminishing interest in the latter. Knowledge attributions may not entail mental-state attributions or metarepresentations. Even if they do, the proposed features are insufficient to distinguish them from belief attributions, demanding that we first understand each underlying representation.

scholarly journals Preserved metacognition despite impaired perception of intentionality cues in schizophrenia

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Muthesius ◽  
Farina Grothey ◽  
Carter Cunningham ◽  
Susanne Hoelzer ◽  
Kai Vogeley ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Signal Detection ◽  
Bayesian Statistics ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Dyadic Interaction ◽  
Cognitive Capacity ◽  
Cognitive Domains ◽  
Insight Into

Social cognition and metacognition are frequently impaired in schizophrenia, and these impairments complicate recovery. Recent work suggests that different aspects of metacognition may not be impaired to the same degree. Furthermore, metacognition and the cognitive capacity being monitored need not be similarly impaired. Here, we assessed performance in detecting cues of intentional behaviour as well as metacognition about detecting those cues in schizophrenia. Thirty patients and controls categorized animations of moving dots into those displaying a dyadic interaction demonstrating a chase or no chase and indicated their confidence in these judgments. Perception and metacognition were assessed using signal detection theoretic measures, which were analysed using frequentist and Bayesian statistics. Patients showed a deficit compared to controls in detecting intentionality cues, but showed preserved metacognitive performance into this task. Our study reveals a selective deficit in the perception of intentionality cues, but preserved metacognitive insight into the validity of this perception. It thus appears that impairment of metacognition in schizophrenia varies across cognitive domains - metacognition should not be considered a monolithic stone that is either impaired or unimpaired.

scholarly journals A motion aftereffect from viewing other people’s gaze

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Randall ◽  
Arvid Guterstam
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Motion Aftereffect ◽  
Object Motion ◽  
Decision Threshold ◽  
Motion Adaptation ◽  
Directional Motion ◽  
Static Images ◽  
Subsequent Motion ◽  
Motion Aftereffects

SummaryRecent work suggests that our brains may generate subtle, false motion signals streaming from other people to the objects of their attention, aiding social cognition. For instance, brief exposure to static images depicting other people gazing at objects made subjects slower at detecting subsequent motion in the direction of gaze, suggesting that looking at someone else’s gaze caused a directional motion adaptation. Here we confirm, using a more stringent method, that viewing static images of another person gazing in a particular direction, at an object, produced motion aftereffects in the opposite direction. The aftereffect was manifested as a change in perceptual decision threshold for detecting left versus right motion. The effect disappeared when the person was looking away from the object. These findings suggest that the attentive gaze of others is encoded as an implied agent-to-object motion that is sufficiently robust to cause genuine motion aftereffects, though subtle enough to remain subthreshold.

What sentimentalists should say about emotion

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlie Kurth
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Moral Cognition ◽  
Multilevel Structure

Abstract Recent work by emotion researchers indicates that emotions have a multilevel structure. Sophisticated sentimentalists should take note of this work – for it better enables them to defend a substantive role for emotion in moral cognition. Contra May's rationalist criticisms, emotions are not only able to carry morally relevant information, but can also substantially influence moral judgment and reasoning.

Refining our understanding of the “elephant in the room”

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Whiten
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Critical Factors ◽  
Technological Culture

Abstract The authors do the field of cultural evolution a service by exploring the role of non-social cognition in human cumulative technological culture, truly neglected in comparison with socio-cognitive abilities frequently assumed to be the primary drivers. Some specifics of their delineation of the critical factors are problematic, however. I highlight recent chimpanzee–human comparative findings that should help refine such analyses.

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