The unique linguistic experience of bilingualism purportedly produces cognitive control advantages. Although there is a significant body of evidence supporting this view, there are also several recently published research studies that failed to replicate bilingual advantages. Furthermore, there is some evidence of a publication bias that favors findings supporting a bilingual advantage. The purpose of this study was to address this discrepancy in the literature by examining performance of bilinguals and monolinguals on a variety of cognitive control tasks. A second purpose was to determine how bilinguals are able to achieve better performance if they do indeed have an advantage. Specifically, we were interested in whether there were differences in the tendency for bilinguals and monolinguals to mind wander, a phenomenon associated with poorer cognitive control performance. We hypothesized that bilinguals would demonstrate better performance than monolinguals on Operation Span, Numerical Stroop, SART, Color- Shape, and Letter Memory tasks, which are measures of working memory, proactive inhibition, reactive inhibition, shifting, and updating, respectively. We further hypothesized that if bilinguals outperformed monolinguals on these tasks, this would be associated with less mind wandering for bilinguals. Participants completed all measures of cognitive control and were probed periodically throughout the tasks for mind wandering. Accuracy and reaction times where appropriate were recorded for each task, and data from 52 monolinguals and 52 bilinguals were analyzed. The results did not reveal any bilingual advantages. For all tasks, performance of the two groups was equivalent with the exception that monolinguals had faster reaction times for Numerical Stroop, SART, and Color-Shape tasks. There were also no differences between language groups in mind wandering tendencies. Secondary analyses examining age of acquisition (i.e., early versus late) and similarity of languages (i.e., same-script versus differentscript) did not change the overall pattern of no bilingual advantages. The lack of a bilingual advantage supports recent calls to temper bilingual advantage claims and shows a need for future research to address which underlying factors of bilingualism may or may not have an effect on cognitive control.

Background: Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a chronic, degenerative, neurological condition affecting approximately 85,000 people in the UK. The impact of MS on physical abilities is well‐known and there is increasing recognition of the impact of MS on mood and cognitive function. Recently MS has been linked to impaired emotion recognition and impaired Theory of Mind (ToM –the ability to attribute mental states, e.g. beliefs to oneself and others). Methods: This study measured executive function, ToM, empathy and quality of life in an MS sample (n=42). A correlational analysis was then conducted to determine whether executive function was associated with the other variables. Results: Two executive function measures (Mental Flexibility and Response to Feedback) were significantly associated with two ToM tasks (Revised Eyes and Stories). Mental Flexibility and the Revised Eyes ToM task were significantly associated with measures of empathy, but this effect was not present in the other executive function or ToM tasks. Neither executive functioning nor ToM measures were significantly associated with reported quality of life. Conclusion: Overall, the MS sample demonstrated specific ToM impairment, no significant empathy impairment and widespread executive impairment relative to normative data. Low rates of depression (10%) and higher levels of anxiety (29%) were found. MS participants rated the psychological impact of MS as equivalent to the physical impact, highlighting the importance of addressing psychological aspects of MS.

Theory of mind, the ability to attribute mental states to oneself and others, has traditionally been investigated in humans and nonhuman primates. However, non-primate species, such as domestic dogs, may also be potential candidates for such a faculty. Domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) evolved from a social-living, wolf-like ancestor, and were the first species to be domesticated, with likely selection for sensitivity to human cues and human-like cognitive abilities. Dogs typically spend their lives in the rich social environment of human families, and thus dogs are naturally enculturated. The combination of these factors make dogs an excellent candidate for having a functional theory of mind. Yet perhaps surprisingly, prior research on theory of mind in dogs is limited, with inconclusive and contradictory results. The research described in this thesis is a systematic investigation of dogs' potential to demonstrate a functional theory of mind in their interactions with humans. Four experiments are presented, based on the Knower-Guesser paradigm (Povinelli et al., 1990), in which a knowledgeable and an ignorant human informant indicated the location of hidden food to the dog. In Experiment 1, one informant was absent (Guesser) and one present (Knower) during the food-hiding, and the dogs chose the Knower. However, when both informants were present, the dogs chose the informant that did the baiting, but this preference was less than when the Guesser was absent. In Experiments 2 and 3, a third experimenter hid the food while the informants covered their cheeks (Knower) or eyes (Guesser) with their hands, or were attentive (Knower) or inattentive (Guesser) to the food-hiding. In both cases, the dogs showed a significant preference for the Knower. In Experiment 4, the dogs showed no preference between the informants when they had equal perceptual access to the baiting, and were unsuccessful at selecting any container when the informants did not provide communicative cues. Overall, the present research provides the most definitive evidence yet that domestic dogs may be able to attribute differential states of knowledge to human observers, and thus may possess a functional theory of mind.

Recent functional neuroimaging evidence suggests that recalling autobiographical memories, imagining fictitious autobiographical episodes, and taking the perspective of another person activate a similar network of brain regions. Results from the two studies presented here provide further evidence of this common neural network. Previous evidence also suggests that recalling autobiographical memories from a first person or from a third person perspective can influence the way in which those memories are experienced as well as the brain regions that are engaged; however, the effect of perspective on imagining autobiographical events remains unclear. Results from Study 1 indicated that brain regions implicated in both remembering and imagining were differentially engaged during these tasks depending on whether a first person or a third person perspective was taken. In addition, while recalling autobiographical memories from a third person perspective can result in the feeling that a past self is more like another person, imagining oneself in the position of another person can result in the feeling that that person is more similar to oneself; this suggests a possible link between perspective in memory and social perspective taking. In Study 2, we identified several brain regions exhibiting a pattern of increasing or decreasing activation as a function of whether socially interactive events were recalled from a first person perspective, by imagining oneself as one's partner, or from a third person perspective (i.e., as a function of distance from one's own perspective). Together, our findings suggest that perspective plays an important role in the way in which brain regions that are part of this common neural network are engaged during memory, imagination, and socially interactive tasks.

When evaluating a situation that results in harm, it is critical to consider how a person’s prior intention may have been causally responsible for the action that resulted in the harmful outcome. This thesis examined children’s developing understanding of intentional causation in reasoning about harmful outcomes, and the relation between this understanding and mental-state reasoning. Four-, 6-, and 8-year-old children, and adults, were told eight stories in which characters’ actions resulted in harmful outcomes. Story types differed in how the actions that resulted in harm were causally linked to their prior intentions such that: (1) characters wanted to, intended to, and did perform a harmful act; (2) they wanted and intended to perform a harmful act, but instead, accidentally brought about the harmful outcome; (3) they wanted and intended to perform a harmful act, then changed their mind, but accidentally brought about the harmful outcome; (4) they did not want or intend to harm, but accidentally brought about a harmful outcome. Participants were asked to judge the characters’ intentions, make punishment judgments, and justify their responses. Additionally, children were given first- and second-order false-belief tasks, commonly used to assess mental-state reasoning. The results indicated that intention judgment accuracy improved with age. However, all age groups had difficulty evaluating the intention in the deviant causal chain scenario (Searle, 1983), in which the causal link between intention and action was broken but a harmful intention was maintained. Further, the results showed a developmental pattern in children’s punishment judgments based on their understanding of intentional causation, although the adults’ performance did not follow the same pattern. Also, younger children referred to the characters’ intentions less frequently in their justifications of their punishment judgments. The results also revealed a relation between belief-state reasoning and intentional-causation reasoning in scenarios that did not involve, or no longer involved, an intention to harm. Further, reasoning about intentional causation was related to higher-level understanding of mental states. The implications of these findings in clarifying and adding to previous research on the development of understanding of intentional causation and intentions in moral reasoning are discussed.

To date, there is compelling evidence to show that theory-of-mind development is influenced by different environmental and cognitive factors. However, despite our understanding of the different individual processes that facilitate theory-of-mind acquisition, what remains relatively unclear is how these processes operate together during development. The goal of the present dissertation is to examine mediation (examines the relationship between two different factors and address the question of “why” or “how” one variable predicts or causes an outcome variable) and moderation (examines “when” or “for whom” a variable most strongly predicts or causes an outcome variable) processes that can help explain why and under what conditions environmental and cognitive factors are important for theory-of-mind development. The investigation began by examining the influence of environmental factors on theory-of-mind development. Mediation analyses were used to examine “why” environmental factors such as family (i.e., family risk) and socio-linguistic factors (i.e., parental cognitive talk), may be important for theory-of-mind development. Preliminary results demonstrated possible mediated effects of both family risk and parental cognitive talk on theory of mind. That is, family risk may delay children’s theory-of-mind development by impeding the rate of language acquisition, whereas parental cognitive talk may facilitate more advanced theory-of-mind understanding by encouraging more parent-child reciprocity during conversations. Next, the effects of cognitive factors on theory-of-mind development were explored. Moderation analysis was used to examine under what conditions children’s language abilities and conflict inhibition skills (children’s ability to inhibit a prepotent response while responding with a less salient response) are important for theory-of-mind acquisition. Although there may be limited effects of child language and conflict inhibition on early theory of mind, advanced theory-of-mind understanding such as false belief requires both. However, optimal effects of child language on false-belief understanding occurred when children also had high levels of conflict inhibition ability. These findings suggest that effects of child language on false belief are contingent on children’s conflict inhibition skills. Finally, to investigate how environmental and cognitive factors operate together during theory-of-mind development, moderation analysis was conducted to examine whether delays in language and/or conflict inhibition can be compensated for by more exposure to parental cognitive talk (and vice versa) during theory-of-mind acquisition. Although there was no evidence to suggest compensatory effects, results demonstrated that child language and parental cognitive talk both independently contributed to theory of mind. These findings suggest that environmental (e.g., parental cognitive talk) and cognitive factors (e.g., child language) play distinct roles during theory-of-mind development. Overall, these results demonstrate the value of understanding theory-of-mind development from a bioecological perspective where children are both directly and indirectly influenced by multiple mechanisms during theory-of-mind development.

The ability to represent the mental states of others (i.e., Theory of Mind, ToM) is vital for social interaction. There is limited information on ToM knowledge in children with specific language impairment (SLI). These children have deficient language abilities that cannot be explained by hearing, cognitive, or neurological problems. Furthermore, children with SLI experience difficulty in initiating and maintaining social pretend play. Language, pretend play, and ToM typically develop in concert, which may indicate that they share an underlying capacity for representation. Given that language is deficient in children with SLI, these children may have problems with ToM, which might be related to their social behaviors during pretend play. This study was the first to investigate the association between ToM and pretend play in children with and without SLI. Twenty-two children with SLI and 22 with typical development (TD), between 48-71 months of age, participated in this study. Children engaged in a variety of ToM tasks and participated in two pretend play assessments: a standardized pretend play assessment and a role play activity. Children with SLI scored significantly lower on ToM tasks and engaged less often in some sophisticated forms of pretend play than their age-matched peers with TD. After controlling for language and SES, there were no significant associations between ToM and pretend play in children with and without SLI. When language groups were analyzed individually, different patterns of associations emerged for children with and without SLI. ToM was positively associated with pretend play in children with TD but negatively associated in children with SLI. Moreover, inconsistent patterns of associations were observed for some children with SLI (i.e., poor ToM understanding but sophisticated pretend play or vice versa). This study demonstrated that children with SLI may also have concomitant problems in ToM and pretend play, which may have implications for clinical assessment and intervention. The study contributes to the literature by investigating the link between ToM and different forms of sophisticated pretend play in children with and without SLI. Given the different patterns of partial correlations, future investigation of the relationship between ToM and pretend play relationship is warranted.

The important implications of the attachment relationship have led researchers to consider what the precursors to a secure attachment relationship are. Ainsworth, Bell, and Stayton (1971) proposed that maternal sensitivity was the fundamental trait in developing a secure attachment relationship. However, recent research has identified that mind-mindedness; the tendency of a parent to treat their infant as an individual with a mind (Meins, Fernyhough, Fradley & Tuckey, 2001), is a better predictor of parent infant attachment than maternal sensitivity. This study explored the impact of a new antenatal intervention called Baby World on the subsequent mind-mindedness of participants as well as its impact on the parent infant relationship. Participants who had attended the Baby World class and standard NHS antenatal classes (intervention group, N=21) were compared to those who had only attended standard NHS antenatal classes (control group, N=19). The study also explored whether planned pregnancies led to more mind-mindedness than unplanned pregnancies; whether emotional and physical wellbeing in pregnancy predicted mindmindedness and if there was any concordance between couples mind-mindedness. Results showed that participants in the intervention group used significantly more appropriate mind-minded comments than those in the control group. The intervention group also scored significantly higher than the control group on the Absence of Hostility subscale of the Maternal Postnatal Attachment Scale (MPAS, Condon & Corkindale, 1998). There was a non-significant trend of the intervention group scoring higher than the control group on the overall MPAS score as well as the Pleasure in Interaction subscale of the MPAS. The results also illustrated that emotional and physical wellbeing in pregnancy did not predict mind-mindedness and no concordance between couples mind-mindedness was found. Theoretical explanations of these findings are presented and the clinical implications and future research are discussed.

Mind and World is written in a Wittgensteinian spirit. It is a work whose aim is to address a specific philosophical discomfort. John McDowell diagnoses a tension between the urge for what he describes as 'minimal empiricism' and its apparent impossibility. Minimal empiricism is defined as the idea that constraint is exercised on our thought by the world through experience. In his view, minimal empiricism stands in tension with the fact that conceptually unstructured impressions can have no rational bearing on our beliefs and judgements. This tension forces an oscillation between two equally unattractive positions: the Myth of the Given and coherentism. McDowell's aim is to dissolve this apparent tension which he sees as resting on the more basic assumption of a dualism between reason and nature. Through his invocation of 'second nature' he aims to present a naturalised Platonism in which man's occupation of the space of reasons can be seen as an aspect of his animal nature, not as something essentially alien to us. The thesis starts by outlining McDowell's attempt to escape the oscillation he detects between the Myth of the Given and coherentism. In Chapter One, the content of Mind and World is briefly laid out. The underlying dualism of reason and nature on which the oscillation is said to rest is considered and the resources he employs in his attempt to escape it discussed. These resources include his metaphysical rejection of sideways-on accounts of understanding. The second chapter reinforces the first by isolating and defining a number of key concepts in McDowell's picture. The material discussed here is largely drawn from works other than Mind and World. Three key assumptions are isolated: the rejection of sideways-on accounts of understanding, the de re nature of singular thought and the fully conceptual nature of experience. These assumptions are shown to play a pivotal role in his philosophy by considering his work on Aristotle and Descartes. McDowell aims to provide a 'therapeutic dissolution' of the oscillation between the Myth of the Given and coherentism. In order to be successful it must meet (at least) three criteria which emerge from his writings. These criteria are discussed alongside attempts by other philosophers to escape the oscillation that McDowell detects. The third chapter develops, in broad outline, the argument of the thesis. Two lines of thought are traced from the three central elements of McDowell's view identified in the second chapter. The first stems from his rejection of sideways-on accounts of understanding, whilst the second arises from the object-dependence of singular thought. The picture in Mind and World incorporates what Julian Dodd has termed a 'modest identity theory of truth'. Put simply, an identity theory states that facts are true propositions, and the theory is modest if facts are taken to be composed of senses. McDowell himself explicitly accepts that his picture is committed to a modest identity theory, though its exact nature is unclear from his writings. McDowell's semantic externalism appears to provide an account in which singular senses are object-dependent. Thoughts are composed of these senses, and so are dependent on objects in the world for their content. One would expect that facts too (which are true possible thoughts) would be object-dependent. After all they are composed of object-dependent entities, namely senses. Such a position encourages the idea that objects are explanatorily independent of facts. In Kit Fine's terminology, propositions about objects 'ground' propositions about senses. However, this idea stands in tension with McDowell's rejection of sideways-on accounts of understanding. He claims that the world is composed of facts and that reality does not exist beyond the conceptual realm. Such a position suggests that objects exist only derivatively from their role in facts: "objects figure in the world by figuring in facts, which are true thinkables" [McDowell (1999a) p94. My italics]. In other words, that propositions about facts 'ground' propositions about objects. Since 'grounding' is an asymmetric notion, there is a tension in McDowell's picture which needs to be resolved. Chapter Four examines McDowell's Kantian account of objects. Objects are derived from facts. McDowell is not committed to a substantial semantic externalism in which, when we investigate whether our terms have a reference, we look at the world to see whether there is an object corresponding to our sense of the term. Instead, McDowell's semantic externalism is truistic: once a sense appears in a fact, no further questions can be asked about the reference of the term. The sense's figuring in a true possible thought ensures that there is a reference. There can be no sense without reference because objects are derived from facts (which are true possible thoughts). The conception of objects that McDowell offers, however, fails to sustain important common-sense realist intuitions. Looked at as an account of empirical objects (rather than formal objects, such as mathematical ones), there are deficiencies which can be brought out. His account can be challenged on the grounds that it is unable to allow that sapient and sentient environments have a common ontology. The discussion is framed as a dialogue between a common-sense realist and a McDowellian thinker. This provides for responses to the reasoning to be considered at every appropriate point. These responses are, in the end, not sufficient to allow his account to meet the realist intuitions. He has therefore failed to provide an account based on mere reminders of common-sense truisms. His account of objects is revisionary and must be either replaced or defended by positive arguments. The quietist's claim that only negative arguments are needed to defend his position is undermined once the position abandons common-sense realism. In Chapter Five the focus shifts back to the overall argument laid out in Chapter Three. It might be thought that McDowelPs particular conception of objects is a peripheral error. If this were the case, since his basic account has not been shown to abandon common-sense realism, his revisionary conception of objects could simply be dropped. This line of thought is countered. I present the arguments of two commentators to show the strength of my objection. Mark Sainsbury argues that McDowell should not maintain a substantial form of semantic externalism if he stands firm to his rejection of sideways-on accounts of understanding. Ruth Millikan argues that McDowelPs commitment to a substantial form of semantic externalism stands in tension with his account of sense, which is a central element in his rejection of sideways-on accounts of understanding. The tension which concerns these commentators needs to be addressed. The conception of objects considered in Chapter Four is required. It provides McDowell's explanation of how his rejection of sideways-on accounts of understanding is consistent with his semantic externalism. The final chapter concludes the argument of the thesis. It is shown that McDowell's theory (as it stands) fails to meet his therapeutic aspirations. In particular he has failed to meet two of the three therapeutic requirements attributed to him in Chapter Two. His conception of objects is revisionary and his picture does not avoid the appearance of an insurmountable problem in world-directed thoughts. Its failure to provide for common-sense realism means that he can no longer avail himself of the quietist strategy which disavows the need to provide positive arguments for its conclusions. Therapeutic dissatisfaction with his picture is the result. The argument of this thesis is then located within a broader philosophical landscape.

The aim of this thesis is to build a paradigm to unravel the human mind’s fundamental kinship with the cosmos and its role as the vehicle of the universe’s unfolded meaning. The concept of ‘boundary’ is presented as a primary ontological force that drives, provokes and defines our thinking, consciously and subconsciously, in our attempt to achieve an understanding of self within the cosmos. It provides the hidden thread, the ‘limited concept’ that acts as a guide towards the building of this paradigm. Challenging its primarily physical interpretation, this thesis examines the concept of boundary from its genesis, imbedded in the primary moment of the birth of human consciousness within the universe, following it along its progressive complexity. Merging a primarily phenomenological with an epistemological approach by building on a number of essential evolutionary phases in our existence, through a synthesis of induction and deduction, we are confronted by how they are driven by boundary. Myth, religion, language, culture, philosophy, science, and even architecture are manifestations of humanity’s gradual attempt to understand, adapt to and transform our world and ourselves within it and in reference to it, displaying an inherent dynamic between our mind and our world. Bound in this dialectical creative opposition, our conceptualisations of the world are seen both as insights of our mind in its attempt to unravel the meaning of the cosmos, as well as the cosmos’s attempt to gradually reveal its nature within us, thus revealing their radical kinship. Ultimately, the aim is to reveal architecture and its embodied nature as a fundamental manifestation of our existence within the cosmos and to distil its message and purpose, its timeless task. Architecture is exposed as an existential medium, engaging the boundary between man and the cosmos, inviting us to read a model of the world while at the same time endowing us with our own sense of self and finally enabling us to coexist with our world in an interactive evolving equilibrium.