One of the great challenges of social cognitive science is to understand how we can enter, or ""read,"" the minds of others--that is, infer complex mental states such as beliefs, desires, intentions, and emotions. This book brings together leading scholars from psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy to present cutting-edge theories and empirical findings on this essential topic. Written in an engaging, accessible style, the volume examines the cognitive processes underlying mindreading; how interpersonal understanding and empathy develop across the lifespan; connections to language, communication, and relationships; and what happens when mindreading fails, in both normal and clinical populations.
I. Questions about the Phenomenon 1. Executive Functioning and Children's Theories of Mind, Louis J. Moses 2. Three Puzzles of Mindreading, Bertram F. Malle 3. A ""Constituent"" Approach to the Study of Perspective Taking: What Are Its Fundamental Elements?, Mark H. Davis 4. Starting without Theory: Confronting the Paradox of Conceptual Development, Daniel D. Hutto II. Reading Behavior, Reading Minds 5. Is There a ""Social Brain""?: Lessons from Eye-Gaze Following, Joint Attention, and Autism, Diego Fernandez-Duque and Jodie A. Baird 6. Visual Cues as Evidence of Others' Minds in Collaborative Physical Tasks, Susan R. Fussell, Robert E. Kraut, Darren Gergle, and Leslie D. Setlock 7. Attributing Motives to Other People, Glenn D. Reeder and David Trafimow 8. Explanatory Coherence and Goal-Based Knowledge Structures in Making Dispositional Inferences, Stephen J. Read and Lynn C. Miller III. Reading One's Own Mind, Reading Other Minds 9. Perspective Taking as the Royal Avenue to Empathy, Jean Decety 10. Everyday Solutions to the Problem of Other Minds: Which Tools Are Used When?, Daniel R. Ames 11. Mental Simulation: Royal Road to Other Minds?, Josef Perner and Anton Kuhberger 12. Why Self-Ascriptions Are Difficult and Develop Late, Radu J. Bogdan IV. Language and Other Minds 13. Language as the Route into Other Minds, Janet Wilde Astington and Eva Filippova 14. Representation of the Interlocutor's Mind during Conversation, Marjorie Barker and T. Givon 15. Conceptual Alignment in Conversation, Michael F. Schober 16. On the Inherent Ambiguity of Traits and Other Mental Concepts, James S. Uleman V. Limits of Mindreading 17. Mindreading in an Exotic Case: The Normal Adult Human, Dale J. Barr and Boaz Keysar 18. Empathy Gaps in Emotional Perspective Taking, Leaf Van Boven and George Loewenstein 19. Is How Much You Understand Me in Your Head or Mine?, Sara D. Hodges 20. Empathic Accuracy and Inaccuracy in Close Relationships, William Ickes, Jeffry A. Simpson, and Minda Orina 21. Theory of Mind in Schizophrenia, Robyn Langdon
