The infant's theory of self-propelled objects

doi:10.1016/0010-0277(90)90051-K

Cognition

Volume 36, Issue 1, July 1990, Pages 1-16

https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0277(90)90051-K Get rights and content

Abstract

“Theory of mind” is treated as a modular component of human social behavior and an attempt is made to find the origins of this component in the perception of the infant. According to the theory I describe here, the infant assigns a high priority to changes in motion and divides the world into two kinds of objects on the basis of this criterion: those that are and those that are not self-propelled. How the infant perceives these two kinds of objects is described by four basic assumptions. First, when the state of motion of a nonself-propelled object is changed by another object, the infant's principal hard-wired perception is causality; when a self-propelled object changes its motion without assistance from another object the infant's principal hard-wired perception is intention. Second, if two self-propelled objects are related in a special way — a relation called the BDR sequence — the infant perceives not only intentional movement but also one object as having the goal of affecting the other object. Third, the BDR sequence has a more powerful consequence: the infant perceives that the affected object intends to reciprocate. Fourth, the infant expects that reciprocation will preserve valence (not form), where valence is formulated aither as the preservation/denial of liberty, or as an aesthetic response.

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^☆: Comments by Jonathan Bennett were extremely helpful, as were discussions with Pierre Jacob and Dan Sperber. It is a pleasure to express my indebtedness to Ann James Premack, with whom I have discussed the present ideas and many others over the course of a long period. The work was supported by a grant from the McDonnell Foundation.

^∗: My thanks also to Ecole Polytechnique, Centre de Recherche en Epistemologie Appliquée, Paris, with which I was associated during the period in which I wrote this paper.

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The infant's theory of self-propelled objects☆

Abstract

Hunting behavior of wild chimpanzees in the Tai National Park

American Journal of Physical Anthropology

Perception of intention

Science

Semantic development in infants: The concept of agent and recipient

Merrill-Palmer Quarterly

Chimpanzees of the Gombi Stream

Pretense and representation: The origins of “theory of mind”

Psychological Review

Do six-month-old infants perceive causality?

Cognition

The perception of causality

Comparison of young and older children's comprehension of out-of-order picture stories

J. Exp. Child Psychol.