Evolutionary origins of modeling minds

Members: Danielle Perszyk, Eamon Duede, Bleu Knight

Description: Human cognition is built upon a range of capacities shared with our evolutionary cousins, including our systems for communication and representation. Unlike for other species, however, humans' systems for communication and representation are inextricably linked (George Miller, 1990). Moreover, humans' models of the world represent an accumulation of knowledge across generations, enabling us to build increasingly complex and accurate models that go far beyond those of our evolutionary inheritance. Essentially, humans can model our own models (David Krakauer, DISI talk). How did we achieve this "psychological escape velocity"? What are the evolutionary and developmental origins of our ability to "meta model?" This project integrates evidence from developmental psychology, comparative psychology, and neuroscience to propose a theoretical framework for our motivation to model other minds, shedding light on the nature of human knowledge. This framework has implications for the evolutionary origins of language and art, social epistemology, and AI.

Suggested readings:

1. Mindreading in conversation

2. Linking language and cognition in infancy

3. Thinking through other minds

4. Becoming human

5. The repurposed social brain

6. The Place of Language in a Scientific Psychology