Joint Attention: Communication and Other Minds Issues in Philosophy and Psychology

by Eilan, Naomi; Hoerl, Christoph; McCormack, Teresa; Roessler, Johannes

• ISBN13: 9780199245635
• ISBN10: 0199245630
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-05-05
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

An international team of psychologists and philosophers present the latest research into the fascinating cognitive phenomenon of 'joint attention'. Some time around their first birthday most infants begin to engage in a behaviour that is designed to bring it about - say, by means of pointingor gaze-following - that their own and another person's attention are focused on the same object. Described as manifestations of an emerging capacity for joint attention, such triangulations between infant, adult and the world are often treated as a developmental landmark and have become the subjectof intensive research among developmentalists and primatologists over the past decade. More recently, work on joint attention has also begun to attract the attention of philosophers. Fuelling researchers' interest in all these disciplines is the intuition that joint attention plays a foundationalrole in the emergence of communicative abilities, in children's developing understanding of the mind and, possibly, in the very capacity for objective thought.This book brings together, for the first time, philosophical and psychological perspectives on the nature and significance of the phenomenon, addressing issues such as: How should we explain the kind of mutual openness that joint attention seems to involve, i.e. the sense in which both child andadult are aware that they are attending to the same thing? What sort of grip on one's own and other people's mental states does such awareness involve, and how does it relate to later-emerging 'theory of mind' abilities? In what sense, if any, is the capacity to engage in joint attention with othersunique to humans? How should we explain autistic children's seeming incapacity to engage in joint attention? What role, if any, does affect play in the achievement of joint attention? And what, if any, is the connection between participation in joint attention and grasp of the idea of an objectiveworld? The book also contains an introductory chapter aimed at providing a framework for integrating different philosophical and psychological approaches to these questions.

Table of Contents

Notes on Contributors	ix
Joint Attention, Communication, and Mind	1	(33)
Naomi Eilan
Joint Attention and Understanding the Mind	34	(11)
Jane Heal
What Chimpanzees Know about Seeing, Revisited: An Explanation of the Third Kind	45	(20)
Josep Call
Michael Tomasello
Joint Attention and the Notion of Subject: Insights from Apes, Normal Children, and Children with Autism	65	(20)
Juan-Carlos Gomez
Before the ``Third Element'': Understanding Attention to Self	85	(25)
Vasudevi Reddy
Infants' Understanding of the Actions Involved in Joint Attention	110	(19)
Amanda L. Woodward
Infant Pointing: Harlequin, Servant of Two Masters	129	(36)
Fabia Franco
Understanding the Role of Communicative Intentions in Word Learning	165	(20)
Mark A. Sabbagh
Dare Baldwin
What Puts the Jointness into Joint Attention?	185	(20)
R. Peter Hobson
Why do Children with Autism have a Joint Attention Impairment?	205	(25)
Sue Leekam
Joint Attention and the Problem of Other Minds	230	(30)
Johannes Roessler
Joint Reminiscing as Joint Attention to the Past	260	(27)
Christoph Hoerl
Teresa McCormack
Joint Attention and Common Knowledge	287	(11)
John Campbell
Joint Attention: Its Nature, Reflexivity, and Relation to Common Knowledge	298	(27)
Christopher Peacocke
Author Index	325	(6)
Subject Index	331