Grice (1982) and Bar-On and Green (2010) each provide 'continuity stories' which attempt to explain how a human-like language could emerge from the primitive communication practices of non-human animals. I offer desiderata for a proper account of linguistic continuity in order to argue that these previous accounts fall short in important ways. I then introduce the recent evolutionary literature on non-cooperative communication in order to construct a continuity story which better satisfies the proposed desiderata while retaining the positive aspects of the proposals of Grice and Bar-On and Green. The outcome of this project is a more tenable and empirically investigable framework chronicling the evolution of human-like language from communicative abilities currently found in non-human animals.

Despite numerous studies of the development of theory of mind, how children express their understanding of mind in less structured, play settings has gone largely unstudied. Many developmental accounts, regardless of disagreement on other theoretical issues, agree that the child’s engagement within social contexts is crucial to the development of understanding of mind. Our goals were to collect a detailed account of how children use their understanding of mind and how mothers align their support to the child’s capabilities within social interactions. In this longitudinal study, typically developing preschoolers (N = 52) engaged in a hiding game with their mothers in a semi-structured play setting when the children were 42-, 54-, and 66-months old. Aspects of children’s understanding of mind were rated including understanding of knowledge access, deception, false belief, and emotional response to false belief, as well as, affective charge and engagement with the task. Mothers’ utterances were coded for various characteristics, particularly role and content. Children’s understanding of mind increased across visits and positively correlated with false belief task performance at the 42- and 54-month visits, rs = .35 and .39, p < .05, but not the 66-month visit, rs = –.25, p = .10. Children’s enthusiasm was positively related to their understanding of mind at the first and second visits, but not the last. Mothers tailored the content of their utterances to the child’s growing expertise, but whether mothers adjusted the role of their utterances to children’s understanding of mind remains unclear. Observing children’s playful use of their emerging understanding of mind in social interactions allowed for the capture of subtle variations in how children express and caregivers support their understanding.

Individuals with Asperger syndrome (AS), an autism spectrum disorder, are characterized by average to superior intelligence while at the same time experiencing severe and pervasive deficits in social interaction. While many individuals with AS report that they keenly desire social relationships, the combination of repeated social failures and intelligence sufficient to appreciate these difficulties increases the risk for developing depression, anxiety, and other mental health concerns (Tantam, 1998; 2000). <p>Emotional intelligence (EI) is a construct that offers potential to understand individual emotional and social characteristics. The broad purpose of the two studies in this project was to examine ability and trait approaches to EI to understand if EI offers enriched understanding of social outcomes in AS. Further, this study explored EI, executive functions (EF), and theory of mind (ToM) to understand whether EI singularly or in combination with other theoretical explanations best accounts for social outcomes in individuals with AS. <p>The participants in this study were 25 young adults (aged 16-21) diagnosed with AS in Alberta and Manitoba. In study 1, trends and differences between AS and normative groups were examined. Further, correlation and multiple regression were employed to explore relationships amongst variables. Results indicated that trait EI was impaired for individuals with AS; however ability EI was intact. Regression analyses revealed that trait and ability EI together predicted 57% the variance for self-reported interpersonal skills and 31% of the variance for parent-reported social skills. Trait EI alone predicted 19% of the variance for self-reported social stress. <p>In study 2, EI, EF, and ToM were explored as predictors of social outcomes. Low correlations between EF and outcome variables precluded further analysis with this particular set of variables. Multiple regression procedures revealed that together ToM and trait EI predicted 33 % of the variance for self-reported Social Stress. The findings suggest that including ToM and EI measures in assessment protocols for individuals with AS provides important information to inform interventions.

<p>Despite recent evidence that infants under one year of age have implicit understanding of theory of mind, three-year-old children repeatedly fail in traditional false belief tasks. A serious of 4 studies investigated two possible sources of errors. First, children's comprehension of theory of mind questions was tested in an elicited imitation task. Second, their understanding of mental events was measured using anticipatory eye movements in non-verbal tasks. Results showed that young children's performance in verbal false belief tasks is limited by their understanding of linguistic representations of beliefs and their ability to monitor mental states in real-time. This implies the limitations of young children in keeping track of complex social events in real time and in understanding language conventions in real time.</p> / Dissertation

For the first time a representative Theory of Mind (ToM) scale (Wellman &amp / Liu, 2004) has been cast into three different linguistic forms in order to show the impact of evidential markers on ToM understanding. With Turkish children, we studied (i) a control form without explicit evidential markers, as conducted by Bayramoglu &amp / Hohenberger (2007), (ii) a verbal form with &ndash / DI (marking factuality in the past ) and (iii) a verbal form with &ndash / MIS (marking hearsay in the past). To predict ToM performance of children, we also conducted a working memory task and two language tasks for complex syntax understanding. Our analysis showed that Turkish children, ranging from 4 to 7 years of age, performed significantly better with the form &ndash / DI than the control form. Also one of the language tasks which measures relative clause understanding was found to be a significant predictor of ToM performance. We conclude that evidential markers may help Turkish children in their online reasoning of ToM. We think that the relation between evidentiality and ToM may be understood clearer with cross-linguistic studies by varying the presence of evidentials and also their linguistic properties (i.e. lexical or morphological) while controlling the materials across languages. Theory of Mind (ToM), Evidentiality, ToM scale, Cognitive Development, Language.

Pleasure experienced in an unpleasant film genre, like horror, has prompted numerous discussions in film studies. Noted scholars like Carol J. Clover and Noël Carroll have rationalized spectatorial enjoyment of a genre that capitalizes on human anxieties and complicates cultural categories. Clover admits that horror initially satisfies sadistic tendencies in young male viewers but then pushes them to cross gender lines and identify with the strong female heroine who defeats the film's threat. Carroll provides a basic explanation, citing spectators' cognitive curiosity as the source of pleasure. Both scholars are right to consider emotional, psychological, and cognitive experiences felt by viewers, but the main objective of this thesis moves beyond one particular demographic and considers how spectatorial experiences can differ radically but still offer pleasure. This work involves a methodology, Theory of Mind (ToM), that addresses the basic yet complex issues that inform spectatorial interactions with the horror film. Clover, Carroll, and others agree that viewers realize violations to cultural conventions occur in horror. Therefore, these anticipations, anxieties, curiosities, and tendencies of the spectator exist before and after a film rather than taking place within the two hours of watching its narrative. ToM is a cognitive ability that allows individuals to predict and make sense of others' behavior and underlying mental states and is a hardwired faculty that undergoes constant conditioning to ensure individuals can better interact with their environments, whether real or fictional. With horror, expectations are challenged, since spectators are forced to renegotiate cultural knowledge, as horror does not adhere to convention. Horror exercises ToM intensely, but as this project proves, it is a pleasurable workout. Ridley Scott's 1979 sci-fi horror film, Alien, is this work's case study, because it falls into the horror genre and challenges a few culturally-imposed binaries that are entangled in the film, including human/android and masculine/feminine. As this thesis shows, these entanglements demonstrate how ToM is both biological/cultural and is not categorized as a programmed mechanism in humans. With these enmeshed binaries, this study argues that Alien involves posthumanism, because it rejects traditional categories of identification and information and embodies fluidity. This works for ToM, since it is an ever-developing and conditioned process of observing and anticipating behavior. ToM is also posthuman, because information does not remain stagnant but is challenged or modified constantly in pleasurable ways. By witnessing the contradictions and complications of cultural categories through Alien's characters, spectators can learn to observe the flux of identity outside the film's narrative, too. Because this learning process is in constant motion, this thesis points out how horror's stimulation and development of it are enjoyable.

We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate how the human brain processes information about social groups in three domains. Study 1: Semantic knowledge. Participants were scanned while they answered questions about their knowledge of both social categories and non-social categories like object groups and species of nonhuman animals. Brain regions previously identified in processing semantic information are more robustly engaged by nonsocial semantics than stereotypes. In contrast, stereotypes elicit greater activity in brain regions implicated in social cognition. These results suggest that stereotypes should be considered distinct from other forms of semantic knowledge. Study 2: Theory of mind. Participants were scanned while they answered questions about the mental states and physical attributes of individual people and groups. Regions previously associated with mentalizing about individuals were also robustly responsive to judgments of groups. However, multivariate searchlight analysis revealed that several of these regions showed distinct multivoxel patterns of response to groups and individual people. These findings suggest that perceivers mentalize about groups in a manner qualitatively similar to mentalizing about individual people, but that the brain nevertheless maintains important distinctions between the representations of such entities. Study 3: Social categorization. Participants were scanned while they categorized the sex and race of unfamiliar Black men, Black women, White men, and White women. Multivariate pattern analysis revealed that multivoxel patterns in FFA--but not other face-selective brain regions, other category-selective brain regions, or early visual cortex--differentiated faces by sex and race. Specifically, patterns of voxel-based responses were more similar between individuals of the same sex than between men and women, and between individuals of the same race than between Black and White individuals. These results suggest that FFA represents the sex and race of faces. Together, these three studies contribute to a growing cognitive neuroscience of social groups. / Psychology

In zwischenmenschlichen Interaktionen sind die Wahrnehmung und das Verstehen von sozialen Äußerungen, zu denen Gesichtsausdrücke, Körpersprache und Lautgebung gehören, unentbehrlich. Die Fähigkeit den mentalen Zustand anderer Personen identifizieren zu können, auch als soziale Kognition bekannt, ist notwendig um das Verhalten anderer verstehen und interpretieren zu können. Diese Identifikation des mentalen Zustandes durch die Kombination von Reizinformation und eigener Erfahrung ist als "Theory of Mind" (ToM) bekannt. ToM ist die Fähigkeit anderen Personen bestimmte mentale Zustände (Wünsche, Glauben, Absichten und Emotionen) zuzuschreiben. Emotionale Ausdrücke stellen dabei besonders wichtige Reize in sozialen Interaktionen dar, wobei sich diese Arbeit spezifisch auf vokale emotionale Ausdrücke beschränkt. Das Erkennen von Emotionen in der Stimme geschieht durch nicht-verbale Komponenten, die bei der Lautproduktion entstehen und u.a. als Intonation oder Prosodie bekannt sind. Allerdings wird die Erkennung von emotionaler Prosodie stark von anderen Faktoren beeinflusst, so wie Kontext oder Kultur des Sprechers und Zuhörers.  Um die Interaktion zwischen emotionalem Ausdruck und Kontext weiter aufzuklären, habe ich die Erkennung von Ausdrücken in der Stimme in Zusammenhang mit der Authentizität untersucht. Der Unterschied zwischen authentischen und gespielten emotionalen Ausdrücken bietet eine ideale Grundlage für die Erforschung dieser Interaktion. Beide Stimulus-Arten unterscheiden sich im Kontext der Produktion durch die unterschiedliche Intention des jeweiligen Sprechers. Die in diesem Projekt verwendeten authentischen Tonaufnahmen stammen aus Radiointerviews und waren intern initiiert, während die gespielten Tonaufnahmen von Schauspielern produziert wurden, die den Text, den Kontext der Aufnahme und die jeweilige Emotion zugewiesen bekamen, und daher extern initiiert waren. Meine Erwartung war, dass die Erkennung der Authentizität durch eine ToM Verarbeitung geschehen würde, da die unterschiedlichen Tonaufnahmen durch einen Unterschied im mentalen Zustand des Sprechers charakterisiert sind.  Ich wollte feststellen, ob die Erkennung der emotionalen Ausdrücke und die damit einhergehende Gehirnaktivierung von der Authentizität des Stimulus Materials beeinflusst werden. Experimentell sollten Individuen, die in einem Magnetresonanztomographen lagen, entweder die Authentizität oder die Emotion (Wut, Angst, Freude, Trauer) der Tonaufnahmen identifizieren. Authentizität hatte einen deutlichen Einfluss auf die Erkennung von Emotionen, wobei Wut bei gespielten Aufnahmen besser erkannt wurde, Trauer hingegen bei authentischen. Im Gehirn wurde dabei das ToM Netzwerk für die explizite Bewertung der Authentizität rekrutiert. Zusätzlich wiesen die Versuchspersonen bei authentischen Aufnahmen, anders als bei gespielten, eine erhöhte Aktivierung im medialen prefrontalen Cortex auf. Dies weist auf die Notwendigkeit von ToM bei der Erkennung von Authentizität, den gleichzeitigen Einfluss auf die Wahrnehmung von emotionalen Ausdrücken, und die erhöhte Rekrutierung kognitiver Ressourcen für authentische Ausdrücke hin. Um die Eigenschaften des Effekts von Authentizität zu verdeutlichen, habe ich diesen Befund auf universelle und kultur-spezifische Einflüsse in drei unterschiedlichen Ländern geprüft. Individuen aus Deutschland, Rumänien und Indonesien wurden in einem ähnlichen Experiment, aber nur auf Verhalten, getestet. Obwohl Teilnehmer aus den unterschiedlichen Ländern die Authentizität der Aufnahmen nur schwer erkennen konnten, war der Authentizitätseffekt auf die Emotionserkennung für alle Kulturen sehr ähnlich. Die wichtigsten Unterschiede kamen durch Neigungen für bestimmte Emotionen zustande. Die deutschen Versuchspersonen waren bei den gespielten wie auch bei den authentischen Aufnahmen eher dazu geneigt Wut zu wählen, während Versuchspersonen aus Rumänien und Indonesien sich bei den authentischen Emotionen, im Gegenteil zu den Deutschen, vermehrt für Trauer entschieden. Dies weist auf eine komplexe Interaktion universeller und kultur-spezifischer Effekte bei der Authentizitäts- und Emotionserkennung hin. Für weitere Aufklärung des Authentizitäteffektes konzentrierte ich mich schließlich auf die proximalen Ursachen des Verhaltens und der Verarbeitung im Gehirn. Zunächst habe ich untersucht, ob der Authentizitätseffekt durch vorheriges Wissen beeinflusst werden kann, indem den Teilnehmern in Zwei-Dritteln der Versuche durch Hinweisung mitgeteilt wurde, ob die vorgespielten Aufnahmen authentisch oder gespielt waren. Diese Aussage war entweder richtig (kongruent) oder falsch (nicht-kongruent). Ganz ohne Hinweise verursachten gespielte Reize eine erhöhte Aktivierung im primären auditorischen Cortex und in Arealen, die wichtig für die Verarbeitung von Prosodie sind. Der Effekt im medialen prefrontalen Cortex war hingegen nicht mehr zu erkennen. Obwohl die Erkennung der emotionalen Ausdrücke durch die gegebenen Hinweise („gespielt“ oder „echt“) nicht beeinflusst wurden, hatten die Hinweise einen klaren Einfluss auf die Gehirnaktivierung. Die allgemeine Interaktion von Hinweis und Authentizität des Reizes verursachten eine erhöhte Aktivierung im superioren temporalen Sulcus und im anterioren Cingulum. Wenn auf den Hinweis eines authentischen Ausdruckes eine gespielte Aufnahme folgte, erhöhte sich die Aktivierung im temporoparietalen Cortex, was auf eine Komponente der ToM Fähigkeit, der gesteigerten Perspektivenübernahme, hindeutet. Unklar blieb, wie Authentizität akustisch wahrgenommen wird. Die Kontur der Grundfrequenz weist  eine größere Variabilität bei gespielten als bei authentischen Aufnahmen auf. Durch eine Analyse des Effektes der Kontur-Variabilität wollte ich feststellen, ob dieser Faktor einen Einfluss auf die Erkennung der emotionalen Ausdrücke und auf die Gehirnaktivierung hat. Aufnahmen mit niedriger Kontur-Variabilität wurden bevorzugt als Trauer oder authentisch kategorisiert, während die Aktivierung im Gehirn durch eine höhere Kontur-Variabilität im primären auditorischen Cortex aufgabenunabhängig erhöht wurde. Hinzu kam, dass die Kontur und die Aufgabe der Versuchsperson (Emotionserkennung versus Authentizitätserkennung) im medialen prefrontalen Cortex interagierten. Eine erhöhte Aktivierung fand bei der Emotionserkennung statt, wenn die Kontur-Variabilität niedrig war, während bei der Authentizitätserkennung eine erhöhte Aktivierung festgestellt wurde, wenn die Variabilität der Kontur hoch war. Der Authentizitätseffekt im Verhalten und in der Gehirnaktivierung scheint also durch Kontur-Variabilität beeinflusst zu sein, ist aber stark aufgabenbedingt in Arealen, die für soziale Kognition wichtig sind. Die Verhaltens- und Aktivierungsdaten zeigen, dass Authentizität ein wichtiger Faktor bei der Emotionserkennung ist, das auch Auswirkungen auf Studien hat, die gespielte emotionale Ausdrücke benutzen. Die Effekte zur Gehirnaktivierung des ToM Netzwerkes suggerieren, dass die Erkennung von Intention einen Einfluss auf die Wertung von emotionalen Ausdrücken in der Stimme hat. Der Einfluss der Authentizität des Stimulus kann gleichzeitig aufgabenabhängig, beispielsweise in Teilen des ToM Netzwerkes, und Stimulus-angetrieben, im primären auditorischen Cortex, sein. Weiterhin können Kontextinformationen die Gehirnaktivierung, die durch Authentizität moduliert wird, zusätzlich beeinflussen. Wenn diese Ergebnisse gemeinsam mit den Unterschieden zwischen den getesteten Kulturen betrachtet werden, wird deutlich, dass der Einfluss der Intention des Sprechers auf die Erkennung von Emotionen auf einer komplexen Interaktion von universellen und kultur-spezifischen Effekten beruht.

Deception is not only part of daily life for adults, but it is also part of typical development throughout childhood. Research has shown that the ability to deceive improves with age and has been found to be related to the development of cognitive skills such as executive functioning processes, theory of mind, and intelligence. However for some children, lie-telling becomes problematic and atypical. For children with conduct problems, deception is one of the most common presenting symptoms and has been found to be pervasive across childhood and into adolescence. While most studies analyze the lying behaviours of these children based on parent and teacher reports, no studies have yet empirically evaluated the actual deceptive behaviours of children with severe conduct problems. The current study investigated the antisocial and prosocial deception rates and abilities of children with and without severe conduct problems. Additionally, cognitive measures and parental reports of lying and parenting styles were considered in order to determine how such variables may be related to deception. A total of 66 children participated in the current study with half of the sample originating from a community agency for children with behaviour problems and the other half consisting of an age- and gender-matched control sample. Results demonstrated that compared to their typically developing counterparts, children with conduct problems were more likely to behave antisocially by committing antisocial transgressions, and subsequently lying. These children were also less likely to tell prosocial lies. Consistent with previous research, many cognitive measures, such as Executive Functioning (e.g., inhibition) and Theory of Mind (1st and 2nd Order) were found to be related to deception for the typically developing sample, though fewer and different cognitive measures were found to be predictive of deception within the clinical sample. Parent ratings of lie-telling frequency were not predictive of antisocial or prosocial deception, though they were predictive of antisocial lie-telling sophistication. Parenting styles were minimally predictive of deception. Results suggest that the mechanisms used by children with conduct problems during deception differ from a typically developing sample. Limitations as well as implications are discussed.

Deception is not only part of daily life for adults, but it is also part of typical development throughout childhood. Research has shown that the ability to deceive improves with age and has been found to be related to the development of cognitive skills such as executive functioning processes, theory of mind, and intelligence. However for some children, lie-telling becomes problematic and atypical. For children with conduct problems, deception is one of the most common presenting symptoms and has been found to be pervasive across childhood and into adolescence. While most studies analyze the lying behaviours of these children based on parent and teacher reports, no studies have yet empirically evaluated the actual deceptive behaviours of children with severe conduct problems. The current study investigated the antisocial and prosocial deception rates and abilities of children with and without severe conduct problems. Additionally, cognitive measures and parental reports of lying and parenting styles were considered in order to determine how such variables may be related to deception. A total of 66 children participated in the current study with half of the sample originating from a community agency for children with behaviour problems and the other half consisting of an age- and gender-matched control sample. Results demonstrated that compared to their typically developing counterparts, children with conduct problems were more likely to behave antisocially by committing antisocial transgressions, and subsequently lying. These children were also less likely to tell prosocial lies. Consistent with previous research, many cognitive measures, such as Executive Functioning (e.g., inhibition) and Theory of Mind (1st and 2nd Order) were found to be related to deception for the typically developing sample, though fewer and different cognitive measures were found to be predictive of deception within the clinical sample. Parent ratings of lie-telling frequency were not predictive of antisocial or prosocial deception, though they were predictive of antisocial lie-telling sophistication. Parenting styles were minimally predictive of deception. Results suggest that the mechanisms used by children with conduct problems during deception differ from a typically developing sample. Limitations as well as implications are discussed.