What Were You Thinking? Mindreading Adaptions
Immortalist
evolution of ethics appears to be a product of a complex brain that
evolved for, among other things, dealing with other smart individuals
living in the same social groups. The roots of ethics seem to trace to
the evolution of empathy-the ability to imagine another's
viewpoint..."
http://www.evolutionaryethics.com/
One of the central and persistent problems human beings faced in
evolutionary history is that of cooperating with others. Evolutionary
psychology suggests this has given rise to a complex set of cognitive
adaptations, such as an intuitive understanding of social exchange
(trade, exchange of favors), emotions and emotional signaling (see
below) as well as mind-reading and empathy
http://cogweb.ucla.edu/ep/Conceptual-3.html
In "Facial expressions are contagious," Dimberg (2000) proposes human
facial expressions are generated by biologically given "facial affect
programs." He finds these programs can operate automatically by
eliciting facial muscle reactions spontaneously and independently of
any conscious process. The process does not in this case involve
emotional contagion; however, there is further literature on this
subject (pending topic of investigation).
The model resembles the ethological notion of Fixed Action Patterns.
FAPs are reliable, stereotypic responses to cues. They are universal in
a species. For an example of someone taking this tack, see Provine
(1989) on contagious yawning.
http://cogweb.ucla.edu/ep/Conceptual.html#Minds:%20folk%20psychology
What Were You Thinking?
...how does knowing something about the mind's inner workings change
the way we think about ourselves as individuals?
Paul Ekman is famous for proving the universality of the basic language
of human facial expressions. But he's also brought to light the
subtleties of our expression-reading skills, our knack for detecting
the micro-expressions that go beyond the basic palette of seven primary
emotions.
These skills are part of what
some neuroscientists refer to
as our "mindreading" system:
the part of our brain that's constantly trying to guess what other
people are thinking, using all the potential clues available to us,
many of which take the form of subtle changes in the musculature of the
face.
Mindreading is one of those topics where the "hominid" approach and the
more personal, introspective approach nicely overlap. We're all
innately talented mindreaders -- unless we're autistic, or suffer from
some other comparable disorder. We don't go to school to learn to read
facial expressions, even though they utilize an amazingly sophisticated
symbolic system. But some of us are better mindreaders than others --
we're better at reading those split-second changes in facial expression
or vocal intonation, and thus better at assessing the true meaning of
another person's inner thoughts and feelings.
http://www.corante.com/brainwaves/archives/000442.html
Empathy allows us to feel the emotions of others, to identify and
understand their feelings and motives and see things from their
perspective. How we generate empathy remains a subject of intense
debate in cognitive science.
Some scientists now believe they may have finally discovered its root.
We're all essentially mind readers, they say.
The idea has been slow to gain acceptance, but evidence is mounting.
Mirror neurons
In 1996, three neuroscientists were probing the brain of a macaque
monkey when they stumbled across a curious cluster of cells in the
premotor cortex, an area of the brain responsible for planning
movements. The cluster of cells fired not only when the monkey
performed an action, but likewise when the monkey saw the same action
performed by someone else. The cells responded the same way whether the
monkey reached out to grasp a peanut, or merely watched in envy as
another monkey or a human did.
Because the cells reflected the actions that the monkey observed in
others, the neuroscientists named them "mirror neurons."
Later experiments confirmed the existence of mirror neurons in humans
and revealed another surprise. In addition to mirroring actions, the
cells reflected sensations and emotions.
"Mirror neurons suggest that we pretend to be in another person's
mental shoes," says Marco Iacoboni, a neuroscientist at the University
of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine. "In fact, with mirror
neurons we do not have to pretend, we practically are in another
person's mind."
Since their discovery, mirror neurons have been implicated in a broad
range of phenomena, including certain mental disorders. Mirror neurons
may help cognitive scientists explain how children develop a theory of
mind (ToM), which is a child's understanding that others have minds
similar to their own. Doing so may help shed light on autism, in which
this type of understanding is often missing.
http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/050427_mind_readers.html
Throughout this century, philosophers and psychologists have tried to
explain features of our moral psychology by appealing to features of
our capacity for understanding other minds or "mindreading".
Perhaps the most widely known treatment goes back to Piaget's early
work in developmental moral psychology (Piaget 1932). Piaget and his
followers placed enormous weight on the ability for perspective taking,
of imagining oneself to have the mental states of another (e.g.,
Kohlberg 1984, Selman 1980, Damon 1977; see also Rawls 1971, chapter
8).
Over the last two decades, there has been considerable empirical and
conceptual progress in work on moral psychology and in work on
mindreading. The moral psychology tradition has looked at the nature
and development of two basic moral capacities: the capacity for
altruistic motivation (e.g. Batson 1991, Blum 1994, Eisenberg 1992,
Hoffman 1991, Sober & Wilson 1998, Zahn-Waxler & Radke-Yarrow 1982),
and the capacity for moral judgement (e.g., Blair 1995, Goldman 1993,
Nucci 1986, Smetana & Braeges 1990, Turiel et al. 1987). The
mindreading tradition has explored the capacity for attributing mental
states to others and predicting others' behavior (e.g., Baron-Cohen
et al. 1985, Bartsch & Wellman 1995, Currie & Ravenscroft forthcoming,
Goldman 1989, Gopnik & Wellman 1994, Gordon 1986, Harris 1992, Leslie
1994, Nichols & Stich forthcoming, Stich & Nichols 1992). Although each
tradition has flourished, work on moral psychology and work on
mindreading has been pursued largely independently. Advances in both
fields put us in an excellent position to begin charting the relations
between these two capacities and to develop a more detailed picture of
the core architecture of moral psychology.
http://ruccs.rutgers.edu/ArchiveFolder/Research%20Group/Publications/MCMP/MCAMP1b.htm
Sir Frederick
cataract surgery was the ability to again see peoples
faces in detail, with expressions!
I was surprised by what not seeing I had learned to accept
over several years.
Before surgery I could make out head outlines and teeth
(probably due to contrasts).
--
Best,
Frederick Martin McNeill
Poway, California, United States of America
mmcn...@fuzzysys.com
http://www.fuzzysys.com
http://members.cox.net/fmmcneill
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Phrases of the week :
"All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man."
--Henry David Thoreau
"The only way of finding the limits of the possible is going beyond them into the impossible"
--Arthur C. Clarke
"A mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions"
--Oliver Wendel lHolmes
"You laugh at me because I am different, I laugh at you because you are all the same"
--unknown
"Do not mistake activity for accomplishment"
--unknown
:-))))Snort!)
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