Expression and Social Cognition

September 8, 2014
University of Manchester

Manchester
United Kingdom

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Date: 8th September 2014
Location: The University of Manchester

This event is funded by the AHRC. Admission is free.

Speakers
Anil Gomes
Organisation: Philosophy, Oxford
http://www.anilgomes.com/

Knowing Others' Minds
Discussions of self-knowledge and discussions of others’ minds often begin with a familiar contrast: knowledge of others’ minds is based on what people say and do whereas self-knowledge is not known on that basis. How should we understand this contrast? Many seem to assume that our knowledge of others mind is either based on evidence or is based on perception. This will look plausible only if perception and evidence exhaust the options for explaining our knowledge of others’ minds. This raises two questions. First, is there any reason to think that there can be knowledge which is neither based on evidence nor based on perception? Second, are there any reasons for thinking that our knowledge of others’ minds is knowledge of this sort? I’ll consider both of these questions as a way of
exploring a non-reductionist account of our knowledge of others’ minds: one which takes us to have a basic, non-perceptual and non-evidential way of knowing what other people think and feel.

Antonia Hamilton
Organisation: Psychology, UCL
http://www.antoniahamilton.com/

Neurocognitive basis of social interaction
Social interactions surround and define us, but understanding the cognitive systems underlying interaction is complex.  Here I focus on imitation, because this is an important social behaviour, which is also amenable to study in the lab.  I will present a series of studies from the last few years examining two aspects of imitation:  first, copying of irrational actions (overimitation) and second, unconscious copying of actions (mimicry).  Current data suggests overlap in the way these behaviours are influenced by social cues, the brain systems supporting them, and the way they are impacted in autism.  I bring these data together in a neurocognitive model called STORM (social top-down response modulation), which describes how prefrontal cortex is critical in the control of imitative
social responding.

Suilin Lavelle
Organisation: Philosophy, Edinburgh
http://www.suilinlavelle.co.uk/

A minimal theory of emotions
There is a current movement in cognitive science questioning the assumption that the
PSYCHOLOGICAL STATE concepts used by our sub-personal cognitive systems resemble our common-sense PSYCHOLOGICAL STATE concepts.  This talk applies these ideas to the domain of the emotions, with the aim of sketching a framework to develop our  understanding of the emotion concepts used by our sub-personal cognitive systems.  I will argue that, just as Stephen Butterfill and Ian Apperly have maintained that our common-sense BELIEF and DESIRE concepts bear little resemblance to the analogue of those concepts used by our cognitive systems, similar concerns hold in the case of
emotion.  A better understanding of the differences between our common-sense emotion concepts and those used by our sub-personal cognitive systems will affect our insights into differences in emotion cognition, both across culture and individuals. It will also impact our understanding of how young children learn the common-sense emotion concepts of their culture.

Paul Noordhof
Organisation: Philosophy, York
http://www.paulnoordhof.com/

Explaining the Presence of Expressive Content
The perception of expressive properties and, indeed, of any mental states behind them is a particular case of attribution of rich (or liberal) perceptual content. Part of the defence of such attributions depend upon undermining the case put forward by austere (or conservative) theorists who, often, appeal to claims about our powers of sensory discrimination to secure their position. One part of my paper focuses on this. However, the more important part concerns the need to accommodate certain facts about the nature of the presence of such properties in our perceptual experience. They don’t show up in the way that properties like colour and shape do and they are, to an extent, subject to our
will. I argue that this favours a particular way of understanding the nature of our perception of expressive properties, relate this to the perception of other people’s mental states, compare such an approach with others offered recently and consider the epistemological implications and implications for the simulation/theory-theory approach to the understanding of others.

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