CDC Seminar: Juan-Carlos Gomez (University of St Andrews) - Evolving joint attention: reference, expression, and intentionality

Type: 
Colloquia
Audience: 
Open to the Public
Speaker: 
Juan-Caros Gomez
Room: 
Cognitive Development Center, Hattyú u. 14, 3rd floor
Wednesday, June 26, 2013 - 5:00pm
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Date: 
Wednesday, June 26, 2013 - 5:00pm to 6:30pm

 

I will present a comparative approach to understanding Joint Attention skills in evolution and development as a key turning point in the emergence of communicative and mentalising skills in evolution. I will discuss examples of pointing, gaze following, and eye contact in apes, human infants, and persons with autism. I will argue that Joint Attention behaviours instantiate a type of mentalism (or intersubjectivity) characterized by the display and coding of referential expression. Referential expression is built on the coordination of intentional relations of two types: third-order (coding relation of other agents to objects), and second-order (coding relations of other agents to oneself). I will contrast these notions with the reductionist notions of behavioural rules and behavioral abstractions.