Publications by authors named "D Povinelli"

Walker and Gopnik (2017) suggest they have solved a longstanding problem in comparative and developmental psychology: How to provide an unambiguous measure of analogical reasoning in nonverbal subjects. We argue that this test, much like many others that purport to measure analogical reasoning in nonverbal subjects, does not distinguish between the two competing accounts of successful performance: the use of perceptual variance among stimuli to support higher-order concepts like "same" and "different" versus use of perceptual variance alone.

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Hoerl and McCormack demonstrate that although animals possess a sophisticated temporal updating system, there is no evidence that they also possess a temporal reasoning system. This important case study is directly related to the broader claim that although animals are manifestly capable of first-order (perceptually-based) relational reasoning, they lack the capacity for higher-order, role-based relational reasoning. We argue this distinction applies to all domains of cognition.

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The classic Aesop's fable, Crow and the Pitcher, has inspired a major line of research in comparative cognition. Over the past several years, five articles (over 32 experiments) have examined the ability of corvids (e.g.

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Joint attention (JA) is hypothesized to have a close relationship with developing theory of mind (ToM) capabilities. We tested the co-occurrence of ToM and JA in social interactions between adults with no reported history of psychiatric illness or neurodevelopmental disorders. Participants engaged in an experimental task that encouraged nonverbal communication, including JA, and also ToM activity.

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