TMVP · From Theory of Mind to Vicarious Perception
FP7 — People (Marie Curie Actions)
- Duration
- 2011-11-01 → 2015-10-31
- EU contribution
- €100,000
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MC-CIG
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
From Theory of Mind to Vicarious Perception
The theme of the Marie Curie Career Integration Grant is to re-frame the discussion of social cognition: the study of our engagement with other people. My aim is to argue that the emphasis on attribution of beliefs and desires to others, the co-called ‘theory of mind’, is unlikely to be the holy grail of the study of social cognition. Social cognition is not a monolithic category and ‘theory of mind’ is only one, relatively complex form of making sense of others. It does not help us if we want to understand the origins (phylogenetic or ontogenetic), and some more rudimentary forms, of social cognition. I argue that empirical findings from developmental psychology and primatology point to a possible alternative, vicarious perception, which is a simple, perceptual (or quasi-perceptual) way of keeping track of what features of the other agent’s environment are relevant to her action. I outlined a general theory of vicarious perception in my first monograph that was published in 2013 (Bence Nanay: Between Perception and Action, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). It also plays an important role in the arguments of my second monograph, which is under contract with the same publisher. I published 57 articles and book chapters and gave 56 conference talks and public lectures on themes related to the Marie Curie Career Integration Grant proposal. I also organized a number of events at the University of Antwerp where I hold this grant: a. An annual public lecture series, the Annual Marc Jeannerod Lecture Series, in memory of one of the pioneers of the study of social cognition, Marc Jeannerod, who, while a psychologist, had very strong philosophical interests. b. A bi-annual masterclass with a leading researchers in the topic of social cognition. The first event was with Micheal Bratman (Stanford University, USA). These masterclasses provide a great opportunity for young researchers (mainly on the post-doc level, but also in some cases for PhD students) to discuss the work of one of the experts in this field and also to present their own work and get feedback from this expert. These masterclasses are open to any early career researcher from Europe making it a nice example for the Marie Curie initiative... c. A number of conferences, workshops and public lectures connected to the themes of the Marie Curie Career Integration Grant, which brought altogether 137 speakers, from 23 countries and four continents to the University of Antwerp
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
We attribute mental states to others all the time: if I know that my wife wants diamonds for her birthday, or that my daughter knows how to open her bedroom door, this may influence my actions. Our the ability to attribute mental states – beliefs, desires, wishes, etc – to others, which is known as ‘theory of mind’, is taken to be the central concept in understanding how we are trying to make sense of others: how we engage cognitively with other agents.Some important questions about ‘theory of mind’ are:(i)Do non-human animals have theory of mind?(ii)How does theory of mind develop in ontogeny?(iii)What mental processes make theory of mind possible in humans?(iv)What are the neural underpinnings of theory of mind?I argue that the emphasis on theory of mind is a methodological mistake and that the empirical findings from developmental psychology and primatology point to a possible alternative, vicarious perception.We very often experience objects as affording actions to us: we experience an apple as edible or as affording eating. Importantly, sometimes, we experience objects as affording actions not for ourselves, but for someone else. Sometimes we see an apple as edible not for myself but for you. This is the phenomenon I call ‘vicarious perception’. Vicarious perception is a simpler, and more basic, way of engaging with others cognitively than theory of mind.I argue that while questions (i) – (iv) are difficult to tackle as long as they are about theory of mind, if we take them to be about vicarious perception, we get straightforward answers. More specifically, all experiments that are supposed to show that non-human primates have theory of mind in fact demonstrate that they are capable of vicarious perception. The same goes for the experiments about the theory of mind of less than 12 month old infants. If we shift the emphasis from theory of mind to vicarious perception, we can make real advances in understanding the origins of social cogni
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UNIVERSITEIT ANTWERPEN · AntwerpenCoordinatorBelgium
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union