Dynamic empathy: A new formulation for the simulation theory of mind reading

2008 ◽  
Vol 9 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 52-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teed Rockwell
Reading Minds ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 98-112
Author(s):  
Henry M. Wellman

This chapter addresses how animal studies are a crucial way to discover what makes people, and our theories of mind, uniquely human. Chimpanzee social understanding falls far short of human children’s. Nevertheless, people’s human theory of mind reflects beginnings owed to nonhuman ancestors. At the same time, human theory of mind is distinctive. It is broad, impacting almost all of human cognition and social interaction. It is fundamentally developmental, requiring more and more advanced mind-reading insights over an entire human life. It is also helpful and communicative. Even infants deploy their social–cognitive insights to help, communicate with, and learn about others. As such, while people sprang from animal ancestors, it is their advanced, rapidly developing social understanding that makes them uniquely human.


Author(s):  
Shaun Gallagher

This chapter provides a review of theory of mind (ToM) approaches to explaining certain dysfunctions of intersubjectivity in pathologies such as autism and schizophrenia. ToM approaches such as theory theory and simulation theory focus on mindreading but fail to explain important aspects of online intersubjective interaction. A phenomenological approach (interaction theory), focusing on embodied interaction, offers an alternative account of intersubjective processes and specific dysfunctions in pathology. Further research is needed on second-person, online interaction to develop this approach as a viable explanation of intersubjective problems in psychopathology.


1997 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 525-527
Author(s):  
Joseph L. Hernandez Cruz

Mealey's (1995a) psychological explanation of the sociopath's antisocial activity appeals to an incomplete or nonstandard theory of mind. This is not the only possible mechanism of mental state attribution. The simulation theory of mental state ascription offers a better hope of explaining the diverse elements of sociopathy reported by Mealey.


Reading Minds ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 10-22
Author(s):  
Henry M. Wellman

This chapter discusses mind reading and theory of mind in adults, preparatory to looking at children in many further chapters. It starts by looking at adult gossip. Gossip appeals to people because it gives them a massive arena for learning about the inner workings of far more people than they could ever know individually. Through gossip, one learns about people’s intentions, quirks, likes, beliefs, deeds, and misdeeds. Then the chapter outlines in more detail just what theory of mind is, its components, and its structures. It is an everyday (not a scientific) theory used to understand ourselves and others; ordinary and commonsensical, it is also called commonsense psychology. Despite all its usefulness, people’s theories of mind can fail them. An everyday example is people’s sense of if and when someone is lying. Despite years of being concerned about lying, most adults’ theories about lying are wrong.


2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 617-636
Author(s):  
Vadim Kulikov

AbstractAn online game of chess against a human opponent appears to be indistinguishable from a game against a machine: both happen on the screen. Yet, people prefer to play chess against other people despite the fact that machines surpass people in skill. When the philosophers of 1970’s and 1980’s argued that computers will never surpass us in chess, perhaps their intuitions were rather saying “Computers will never be favored as opponents”? In this paper we analyse through the introduced concepts of psychological affordances and psychological interplay, what are the mechanisms that make a human-human (HH) interaction more meaningful than a human-computer (HC) interaction. We claim that an HH chess game consists of two intertwined, but independent simultaneous games—only one of which is retained in the HC game. To help with the analysis we introduce the thought experiment of a Preferential Engagement Test (PET) which is inspired by, but non-equivalent to, the Standard Turing Test. We also explore how the PET can illuminate, and be illuminated by, various philosophies of mind reading: Theory Theory, Simulation Theory and Mind Minding. We propose that our analysis along with the concept of PET could illuminate in a new way the conditions and challenges a machine (or its designers) must face before it can replace humans in a given occupation.


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