IngentaConnect 7. High-Level Simulational Mindreading

Author: Goldman, Alvin I.

Source: Simulating Minds, August 2006 , pp. 147-192(46)

Publisher: Oxford Scholarship Online Monographs

Abstract:

Simulation is first examined in the domains of visual and motor imagery, where brain imaging confirms that many of the same regions are activated in both visual imagery and vision, and in motor imagery and motor execution. An analogous use of simulation characteristically occurs in high-level mindreading. Since an important stage of simulation for mindreading requires reflection on one’s own current states, it is confirming evidence that neuroimaging studies find loci of activation in mindreading tasks that are also found in self-reflective thought. A distinctive feature of simulation is that it invites the risk that one’s own genuine states will contaminate the process; so it is further confirming evidence that mindreading studies consistently find pronounced egocentric errors. High-level mindreading involves assignment of contentful states, and content assignment follows the procedure predicted by simulation theory, viz., default use of one’s own concepts and combinatorial operations in assigning contents to others.

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