The infant's theory of self-propelled objects

@article{citeulike:805550, 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.}, author = {Premack, David }, citeulike-article-id = {805550}, doi = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0010-0277(90)90051-K}, journal = {Cognition}, keywords = {philosophy, psychology}, month = {July}, number = {1}, pages = {1--16}, posted-at = {2008-06-07 14:55:59}, priority = {2}, title = {The infant's theory of self-propelled objects}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0010-0277(90)90051-K}, volume = {36}, year = {1990} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:805550 L3 - citeulike-article-id:805550 TI - The infant's theory of self-propelled objects JF - Cognition VL - 36 IS - 1 SP - 1 EP - 16 N2 - “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. KW - philosophy KW - psychology AU - Premack, David PY - 1990/07// UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0010-0277(90)90051-K ER -