In the second section of Chapter 1, Bauer addresses the claim that it's important to give people a tiny bit of knowledge about science. His position is that it is very dangerous to only teach a bit because people will think they know what they are talking about when they hear about science. Not only... Continue Reading →
I was on to Something in my Last Post
Chapter 2 is entitled "Analogy in Science." It looks like Gross doesn't actually think that analogy doesn't belong in science, he was simply stating what many scientists believe. As I started reading, I realized that I have encountered a lot of analogies in my research. The one that sticks out to me most clearly is... Continue Reading →
Double, Double, Toil and Trouble – Double Standards between Autistics and Neurotypicals
In 2001, Simon Baron-Cohen and a bunch of other people developed a test called "reading the mind in the eyes." The test showed a picture of the upper part of a person's face (just their eyes) and the participant is supposed to choose one of four different possible emotions the eyes are telling them. If... Continue Reading →
Evolution of the False-Belief Test: Where it all began
Why are false belief tests used as the only theory of mind tests? Because of an article written in 1978 in response to Premack and Woodruff's ariticle "Does the Chimpanzee have a 'Theory of mind'" called "Beliefs about Beliefs" written by Daniel Dennett. It was published in a section called: "Commentary/Cognition and consciousness in nonhuman... Continue Reading →
Anglo-Saxon Philosophy: A precursor to Theory of Mind?
Anglo-Saxon philosophers have a centrifugal approach, i.e. they start from the important Lockean assumption that in the first instance it is the individual that achieves full knowledge, understanding and definition of himself. Once epistemologically constituted, the said individual proceeds to examine the variety of entities that surround him: trees, stones, horses and inter alia others which look... Continue Reading →
Leslie – Gah!
Suppose we start with a representation of the current perceptual situation, for example, this is a banana. This is decoupled to "this is a banana." Because its normal semantics has been suspended, the expression can be manipulated freely without fear of abusing the normal representational system existing out- side this context. So, for example, it... Continue Reading →
Cowell et al. – Is lack of theory of mind a bad thing?
In their article entitled, "The Curious Relation between Theory of Mind and Sharing in Preschool Age Children," the authors share an experiment they did where they compared preschool children's success rate with a false belief test (a way of measuring Theory of Mind) with the amount of sharing. The researchers put a child (I will... Continue Reading →
Miller – Mental Verbs
I think I may have sounded as if I don't think that mental verbs matter in a previous post. I want to clarify that because that may have been what I thought at the time, but after thinking about it a bit, I would like to change my opinion on it. One of the comorbidities... Continue Reading →
Miller – Does it?
Lack of vocabulary to talk about mental states may limit children's theory of mind development and communication. (Miller 149) Is this statement true? How is it that a child who lacks OUR vocabulary is limited that child's theory of mind? Let me put it another way that is not a question. Theory of Mind (ToM)... Continue Reading →