The ontogeny and phylogeny of cultural cognition

1. The ontogeny and phylogeny of cultural cognition

2. Some uniquely human abilities • language • artifacts and technology • social practices and institutions

3. playing hide-and-seek attending a summer school showing your vacation photos Some uniquely human abilities holding open a door for someone playing a duet • language • artifacts and technology • social practices and institutions helping your kid with homework driving in traffic taking a walk together pointing out interesting sights for others co-authoring a paper ‘playing house’ with your kid cooking dinner together planning a party playing cards holding a ladder steady for someone going on a date meeting for lunch

4. All involve sharing and collaboration. Tomasello, Carpenter, Call, Behne, & Moll (2005)

5. All involve sharing and collaboration. We propose that the crucial difference between human cognition and that of other species is the ability to participate with others in collaborative activities with shared goals and intentions: shared intentionality. Tomasello, Carpenter, Call, Behne, & Moll (2005)

6. All involve sharing and collaboration. We propose that the crucial difference between human cognition and that of other species is the ability to participate with others in collaborative activities with shared goals and intentions: shared intentionality. Two components: • understanding of others’ goals and intentions Tomasello, Carpenter, Call, Behne, & Moll (2005)

7. All involve sharing and collaboration. We propose that the crucial difference between human cognition and that of other species is the ability to participate with others in collaborative activities with shared goals and intentions: shared intentionality. Two components: • understanding of others’ goals and intentions • motivation to share psychological states with others Tomasello, Carpenter, Call, Behne, & Moll (2005)

8. By 9-12 months, infants understand something about others’ goals and intentions. • Young children with autism and chimpanzees may have (at least) some understanding of others’ goals. • An understanding of others’ goals and intentions gives individuals a tremendous social advantage in terms of being able to explain and predict others’ behavior. • But neither is enough to explain some interesting aspects of human cognition. • In addition…

9. Sharing intentions

10. GOAL Decision-making relevant skills, knowledge relevant reality INTENTION state of world failure success accident + constraints Action Reality Result Understanding of others’ goals and intentions Attention Tomasello, Carpenter, Call, Behne, & Moll (2005)

11. Sharing intentions SHARED GOAL SHARED GOAL Joint Attention Decision-Making Decision-Making relevant reality relevant skills, knowledge relevant reality relevant skills, knowledge JOINT INTENTION JOINT INTENTION Tomasello, Carpenter, Call, Behne, & Moll (2005)

12. Sharing and coordinating psychological states • Motivation to share (joint emotions, attention, interest) • ‘primary intersubjectivity’ • joint attention • declarative pointing • Collaboration (joint goals, intentions) • role reversal • helping • cooperation and collaborative activities

13. Sharing and coordinating psychological states • Motivation to share (joint emotions, attention, interest) • ‘primary intersubjectivity’ • joint attention • declarative pointing • Collaboration (joint goals, intentions) • role reversal • helping • cooperation and collaborative activities

14. Motivation to share in infants • Early proto-conversations (early infancy; sharing emotions) (e.g., work by Rochat & Striano, Stern, Trevarthen)

15. Motivation to share in infants • Early proto-conversations (early infancy) (e.g., work by Rochat & Striano, Stern, Trevarthen) • Joint attention (by 9 months; sharing attention & interest; triadic) (e.g., work by Bakeman & Adamson, Tomasello, Trevarthen)

16. 13-month-old infant in joint attentional engagement

17. Motivation to share in infants • Early proto-conversations (early infancy) (e.g., work by Rochat & Striano, Stern, Trevarthen) • Joint attention (by 9 months) (e.g., work by Bakeman & Adamson, Tomasello, Trevarthen) • Declarative gestures (e.g., work by Bates, Bruner, Camaioni, Lempers, Tomasello) • shows (around 10 months) • points (around 12 months)

18. 3-year-old child pointing declaratively

19. Motivation to share in infants • Early proto-conversations (early infancy) (e.g., work by Rochat & Striano, Stern, Trevarthen) • Joint attention (by 9 months) (e.g., work by Bakeman & Adamson, Tomasello, Trevarthen) • Declarative gestures (e.g., work by Bates, Bruner, Camaioni, Lempers, Tomasello) • shows (around 10 months) • points (around 12 months) • Moore: not sharing, just attention to self

20. Liszkowski, Carpenter, Henning, Striano, & Tomasello (2004) • 12-month-olds • Toys were activated to elicit pointing. E reacted to infants’ points in one of four different ways: • Ignore • Look only to Event • Look only to Face • Joint Attention

21. Infants were most satisfied in the Joint Attention condition: • in Joint Attention, they pointed more across trials • in the other conditions, within trials, they repeated points more often. • 12-month-olds point to share attention and interest.

22. Liszkowski, Carpenter, & Tomasello (in press) • When E misunderstands the infant’s referent, even if E reacts with excitement, 12-month-old infants repeat their pointing. Infants’ pointing is thus about specific objects or events, not just to obtain an adult reaction. (also evidence of collaborative communication: message repair)

23. Motivation to share in chimpanzees and children with autism • Early proto-conversations: no (?) (autism: e.g., work by Hobson) (chimpanzees: Tomonaga et al.) • Joint attention: no (autism: e.g., work by Carpenter, Charman, Dawson, Mundy, Wetherby) (chimpanzees: e.g., Bard & Vauclair, Tomasello & Carpenter) • Declarative gestures: no (autism: e.g., work by Baron-Cohen, Carpenter, Loveland, Mundy, Sigman) (chimpanzees: e.g., Gomez, Tomasello & Carpenter)

24. Sharing and coordinating intentions • Motivation to share • ‘primary intersubjectivity’ • joint attention • declarative pointing • Collaboration

25. Collaboration Bratman (1992): • shared goal: each participant has the goal that we (in mutual knowledge) do X together • coordination of plans/intentions. This requires that: • each participant understands both roles of the interaction (so can reverse roles if needed) and • each can help the other with his role if needed.

26. Sharing and coordinating intentions • Motivation to share • ‘primary intersubjectivity’ • joint attention • declarative pointing • Collaboration • role reversal • helping • cooperation and collaborative activities

27. Carpenter, Tomasello, & Striano (2005); Tomasello & Carpenter (2005) • 12- and 18-month-olds, children with autism, chimpanzees • E performed one role of an action and had S perform the other, e.g.,: • E hid a toy for S to find, or • E held out a plate for S to place a toy on it. • Test:E gave the object(s) for the other role to S and waited. • Does S perform E’s previous role (hiding or offering) toward E (while looking at her)?

28. Hiding Task * p=.053 • Infants sometimes reversed roles (hid the toy for E or held out the plate for her) and looked to E. • Children with autism and chimpanzees sometimes performed these actions but did so without looks to E. • They may have been reversing at an action, rather than a psychological level. (see also work by Hobson) Offering Task

29. Sharing and coordinating intentions • Motivation to share • ‘primary intersubjectivity’ • joint attention • declarative pointing • Collaboration • role reversal • helping (see also Kuhlmeier, Wynn, & Bloom, 2003) • cooperation and collaborative activities

30. Liszkowski, Carpenter, Striano, & Tomasello (2006) • 12- and 18-month-olds • Infants watched E repeat an action (e.g., punching holes) with a target object. • The target and a distractor object were displaced. • E began looking around.

31. Infants pointed to help the adult by informing her about the location of the object she was looking for.

32. Warneken & Tomasello (2006): 18-month-old infant

33. Warneken & Tomasello (2006): nursery-reared chimpanzee

34. Warneken & Tomasello (2006) • 18-month-olds help instrumentally, in many different situations • chimpanzees: only when E reached • but other positive results for chimpanzees too • helping doesn’t necessarily involve a shared goal: understanding other’s individual goal is sufficient

35. Sharing and coordinating intentions • Motivation to share • ‘primary intersubjectivity’ • joint attention • declarative pointing • Collaboration • role reversal • helping • cooperation and collaborative activities

36. Sharing and coordinating intentions • Motivation to share • ‘primary intersubjectivity’ • joint attention • declarative pointing • Collaboration • role reversal • helping • cooperation and collaborative activities • communication (Clark, 1997; Golinkoff, 1993; Sperber & Wilson, 1986; Tomasello et al., 2005, submitted)

37. Behne, Carpenter, & Tomasello (2005); Hare & Tomasello (2004) • 14- to 24-month-olds, chimpanzees • E hid a toy/food in one of two opaque containers. • E indicated the toy’s location by pointing or gazing ostensively at the correct container.

38. Infants Chimpanzees • Infants pass this test. • Chimpanzees do not use cooperative/communicative (pointing) cues but do use competitive (reaching) ones.

39. Sharing and coordinating intentions • Motivation to share • ‘primary intersubjectivity’ • joint attention • declarative pointing • Collaboration • role reversal • helping • cooperation and collaborative activities • communication • instrumental

40. Warneken, Chen, & Tomasello (2006); Liebal et al. (in prep.) tube with handles trampoline elevator double tube • 18- and 24-month-olds, chimpanzees (and children with autism) • Social and instrumental games • E1 & E2 demonstrate how to operate the apparatus. • E1 cooperates with the child to perform the joint activity. • E1 refrains from the activity for 15 seconds.

41. Warneken, Chen, & Tomasello (2006)

42. Warneken, Chen, & Tomasello (2006)

43. By 18 months, infantsare able to cooperate with an adult to achieve a joint goal. • When the adult stopped playing his role, children communicatively requested his continued participation. • New results: at least by 2 years, children do this even in tasks in which they could achieve the goal individually (Gräfenhein, Behne, Carpenter, & Tomasello, in prep.) • Chimpanzees (and children with autism) showed far less coordination of roles and no communicative requests for their partner’s continued participation. • Chimpanzees showed no interest in the social games.

44. Sharing and coordinating intentions • Motivation to share • ‘primary intersubjectivity’ • joint attention • declarative pointing • Collaboration • role reversal • helping • cooperation and collaborative activities • communication • instrumental • pretense

45. Pretense • Pretend play is (probably) uniquely human. • It is often collaborative (shared goal, roles, etc.). • Some consider it to be the earliest form of true collective intentionality in infancy (Rakoczy, 2006). • It sets the stage for later collective beliefs (money, marriage, government…).

46. Summary • In addition to their understanding of others’ goals and intentions, infants demonstrate: • the motivation to share psychological states with others and • ability to cooperate and coordinate intentions with others. • Chimpanzees and children with autism do not show evidence of either of these additional motivations or abilities.

47. Where does it come from?

48. (a sketchy)Phylogenetic hypothesis • Primates are competitive. Humans in addition are cooperative – they evolved skills and motivations for collaborating. Tomasello, Carpenter, Call, Behne, & Moll (2005)

49. (a sketchy)Phylogenetic hypothesis • Primates are competitive. Humans in addition are cooperative – they evolved skills and motivations for collaborating. • How? • Individuals or groups who could collaborate more effectively had a selective advantage (more food, better shelter & protection, etc.). Tomasello, Carpenter, Call, Behne, & Moll (2005)

50. (a sketchy)Phylogenetic hypothesis • Primates are competitive. Humans in addition are cooperative – they evolved skills and motivations for collaborating. • How? • Individuals or groups who could collaborate more effectively had a selective advantage (more food, better shelter & protection, etc.). • The abilities to share and collaborate made language and other cultural learning and creation possible. Tomasello, Carpenter, Call, Behne, & Moll (2005)