To predict and explain the behavior of others, one must understand that their actions are
determined not by reality but by their beliefs about reality. Classically, children come to …

Abstract Theory of mind (ToM; aka, mind‐reading, mentalizing, mental‐state attribution, and
perspective‐taking) is the ability to ascribe mental states, such as desires and beliefs, to …

Humans can attribute beliefs to others. However, it is unknown to what extent this ability
results from an innate biological endowment or from experience accrued through child …

Winner of the Eleanor Maccoby Book Award in Developmental Psychology, American
Psychological Association Winner of a PROSE Award, Association of American Publishers …

Tool-making or culture, language or religious belief: ever since Darwin, thinkers have
struggled to identify what fundamentally differentiates human beings from other animals …

Ockham's razor, the principle of parsimony, states that simpler theories are better than
theories that are more complex. It has a history dating back to Aristotle and it plays an …

Language is an essential part of what makes us human. Where did it come from? How did it
develop into the complex system we know today? And what can an evolutionary perspective …

Everyone agrees that joint attention is a key feature of human social cognition. Yet, despite
over 40 years of work and hundreds of publications on this topic, there is still surprisingly …

A classic work that situates linguistic theory in the broader cognitive sciences, formulating
and develo** the minimalist program. In his foundational book, The Minimalist Program …

We argue that an understanding of the faculty of language requires substantial
interdisciplinary cooperation. We suggest how current developments in linguistics can be …