[Heartlogic-dev] human cognition (was Re: 3 ratings at a time)

[Joshua N Pritikin]

On Wed, 2005-05-25 at 00:36 -0500, William L. Jarrold wrote:
> > Correct.  That's how my research is related to human (vs primate)
> > emotion.  Primates cannot conceive of other agents as having goals.
> > Hence, a goal pair is the simplest truly human way of conceiving of
> > goals in a situation.
> 
> Well, I think there are studies of primates conceiving of other agents
> having goals.  (I am willing to bet money on the truth of the previous
> sentence) If not, there soon will be.  Thanks to Decartes, we are
> still under the belief that animals are stupider than they really are.

Perhaps the studies are relatively recent.  I invite you to read "The
Cultureal Origins of Human Cognition" by Michael Tomasello.  Tomasello
has also written a book titled "Primate Cognition" (which I haven't
read) so it seems likely that he knows what he's talking about.

Since Tomasello identifies "shared attention" as the key human trait, I
expect that his research would be of interest to anybody interested in
autism.

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