Gricean communication, language development, and animal minds

Moore, Richard

doi:10.1111/phc3.12550

Cited by 36 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 61 publications

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“…This presented a number of problems for developmental accounts of human cognition. Not least, accounts of language development have often held that language acquisition requires developed ToM (see Breheny 2006;Moore 2017aMoore , 2018b. This led to what Astington (2006, p. 196) described as a "paradox at the heart" of cognitive development research: language acquisition requires a developed ToM-which is seemingly language dependent.…”

Section: Non-verbal ('Implicit') False Belief Tasksmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Before considering whether uniquely human ToM must precede language development I want to start by agreeing with the neo-Gricean view: Language development must be grounded in pragmatic interpretation-that is, in speakers who can act with and attribute communicative intentions. 8 This is for a number of reasons (Moore 2018b). First, acting with and attributing communicative intent is necessary for the invention of natural languages because pragmatic interpretation is the foundation against which the meanings of semantic and syntactic elements can be introduced and calibrated.…”

Section: Tom and Language Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The cultural evolution of mind-modelling

Moore

2020

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I argue that uniquely human forms of ‘Theory of Mind’ (or ‘ToM’) are a product of cultural evolution. Specifically, propositional attitude psychology is a linguistically constructed folk model of the human mind, invented by our ancestors for a range of tasks and refined over successive generations of users. The construction of these folk models gave humans new tools for thinking and reasoning about mental states—and so imbued us with abilities not shared by non-linguistic species. I also argue that uniquely human forms of ToM are not required for language development, such that an account of the cultural origins of ToM does not jeopardise the explanation of language development. Finally, I sketch a historical model of the cultural evolution of mental state talk.

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Section: Non-verbal ('Implicit') False Belief Tasksmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Tom and Language Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

The cultural evolution of mind-modelling

Moore

2020

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“…Ostension described in such a manner presents one way of directing and drawing in a recipient's attention. Given this rather simple, straightforward function of ostension, the traditional analysis of what cognitively is necessary and sufficient for ostension to occur appears at the very least questionable [40,41]: for a speaker to overtly communicate, 4th-order intentionality needs to be present on a representational level. The speaker wants the recipient to know that the speaker wants the recipient to know that x, whereas x is any given information to be communicated.…”

Section: Ostensive Intentional Communicationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interaction and ostension: the myth of 4th-order intentionality

Sievers

2022

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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Research in comparative cognition on allegedly uniquely human capacities considers the identification of these human capacities in other species as one of their main points of inquiry. Capacities are applied in their theoretical descriptions to promising empirical data. The conclusion then often is that even though, on a behavioural level, the human and nonhuman cases appear related, on a cognitive level there is no relation whatsoever because the underlying cognitive states diverge in quality. This result seems dissatisfying for two reasons: (1) there is ample empirical evidence that suggests the presence of the capacities in other species, and (2) the claim that the underlying states diverge often hinges on the reference to the theoretical definitions of these capacities only. This opinion piece focuses on the capacity of ostensive intentional communication to demonstrate that the original theoretical analyses often are not befitting a comparative endeavour and should therefore not be used as pivotal reference within comparative research. An outlook will be provided on more promising approaches to identifying ostensive communication, namely an interactive approach that will allow for ostension to not be perceived as a one-turn signalling behaviour, but as interactive, with the possibility of being established in a trial-and-error manner. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Revisiting the human ‘interaction engine’: comparative approaches to social action coordination’.

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“…The communicative sign function involves a second order intention that the agent intends that the addressee understand the communicative intentions (Gärdenfors, 2003, section 6.3;Bar-On, 2013;Moore, 2018). In line with this, Arbib (2012, p. 217-218) writes: "Where imitation is the generic attempt to reproduce movements performed by another, whether to master a skill or simply as part of a social interaction, pantomime is performed with the intention of getting the observer to think of a specific action or event."…”

Section: The Structure Of Pantomimementioning

confidence: 99%

Teaching as evolutionary precursor to language

Gärdenfors

2022

Front. Commun.

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The central thesis of this article is that the evolution of teaching is one of the main factors that lead to increasingly complex communicative systems in the hominin species. Following earlier analyses of the evolution of teaching, the following steps are identified: (i) evaluative feedback, (ii) drawing attention, (iii) demonstration and pantomime, (iv) communicating concepts, (v) explaining relations between concepts, and (vi) narrating. For each of these step the communicative and cognitive demands will be analyzed. The focus will be on demonstration and pantomime, since these seem to be the evolutionarily earliest unique human capacities. An important step is the transition from pantomime for teaching to pantomime for informing and how this in turn leads to communicating concepts. As regards explaining relations between concepts, the focus will be of the role of generics in teaching and communication. Analyzing these topics involves combining cognitive science with evolutionary theory, archaeology and theories of communication. Two factors are important as a background: (i) the evolution of prospective planning, that is, planning for future goals, and (ii) the evolution of a theory mind. These capacities are central in explaining how more advanced forms of teaching, communication and cooperation emerged along the hominin line.

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Gricean communication, language development, and animal minds

Cited by 36 publications

References 61 publications

The cultural evolution of mind-modelling

The cultural evolution of mind-modelling

Interaction and ostension: the myth of 4th-order intentionality

Teaching as evolutionary precursor to language

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