1. The ontogeny and phylogeny of cultural cognition

2. Some uniquely human abilities
language
artifacts and technology
social practices and institutions

3. Some uniquely human abilities
playing hide-and-seek
attending a summer school
showing your vacation photos
Some uniquely human abilities
language
artifacts and technology
social practices and institutions
holding open a door for someone
playing a duet
helping your kid with homework
driving in traffic
taking a walk together
pointing out interesting sights for others
co-authoring a paper
cooking dinner together
‘playing house’ with your kid
planning a party
playing cards
holding a ladder steady for someone
going on a date
meeting for lunch

4. All involve sharing and collaboration.
Tomasello, Carpenter, Call, Behne, & Moll (2005)

5. All involve sharing and collaboration.
We propose that the crucial difference between human cognition and that of other species is the ability to participate with others in collaborative activities with shared goals and intentions: shared intentionality.
Tomasello, Carpenter, Call, Behne, & Moll (2005)

6. All involve sharing and collaboration.
We propose that the crucial difference between human cognition and that of other species is the ability to participate with others in collaborative activities with shared goals and intentions: shared intentionality.
Two components:
understanding of others’ goals and intentions
Tomasello, Carpenter, Call, Behne, & Moll (2005)

7. All involve sharing and collaboration.
We propose that the crucial difference between human cognition and that of other species is the ability to participate with others in collaborative activities with shared goals and intentions: shared intentionality.
Two components:
understanding of others’ goals and intentions
motivation to share psychological states with others
Tomasello, Carpenter, Call, Behne, & Moll (2005)

8. By 9-12 months, infants understand something about others’ goals and intentions.
Young children with autism and chimpanzees may have (at least) some understanding of others’ goals.
An understanding of others’ goals and intentions gives individuals a tremendous social advantage in terms of being able to explain and predict others’ behavior.
But neither is enough to explain some interesting aspects of human cognition.
In addition…

9. Sharing intentions

10. Understanding of others’ goals and intentions
Result
Reality
failure
success
accident
state
of world
+ constraints
Action
GOAL
relevant skills,
knowledge
INTENTION
Decision-making
relevant
reality
Attention
Tomasello, Carpenter, Call, Behne, & Moll (2005)

11. Sharing intentions Tomasello, Carpenter, Call, Behne, & Moll (2005)
SHARED GOAL
SHARED GOAL
Joint Attention
Decision-Making
Decision-Making
relevant skills,
knowledge
relevant
reality
relevant
reality
relevant skills,
knowledge
JOINT INTENTION
JOINT INTENTION
Tomasello, Carpenter, Call, Behne, & Moll (2005)

12. Sharing and coordinating psychological states
Motivation to share (joint emotions, attention, interest)
‘primary intersubjectivity’
joint attention
declarative pointing
Collaboration (joint goals, intentions)
role reversal
helping
cooperation and collaborative activities

13. Sharing and coordinating psychological states
Motivation to share (joint emotions, attention, interest)
‘primary intersubjectivity’
joint attention
declarative pointing
Collaboration (joint goals, intentions)
role reversal
helping
cooperation and collaborative activities

14. Motivation to share in infants
Early proto-conversations (early infancy; sharing emotions) (e.g., work by Rochat & Striano, Stern, Trevarthen)

15. Motivation to share in infants
Early proto-conversations (early infancy)
(e.g., work by Rochat & Striano, Stern, Trevarthen)
Joint attention (by 9 months; sharing attention & interest; triadic) (e.g., work by Bakeman & Adamson, Tomasello, Trevarthen)

16. 13-month-old infant in joint attentional engagement

17. Motivation to share in infants
Early proto-conversations (early infancy)
(e.g., work by Rochat & Striano, Stern, Trevarthen)
Joint attention (by 9 months)
(e.g., work by Bakeman & Adamson, Tomasello, Trevarthen)
Declarative gestures
(e.g., work by Bates, Bruner, Camaioni, Lempers, Tomasello)
shows (around 10 months)
points (around 12 months)

18. 3-year-old child pointing declaratively

19. Motivation to share in infants
Early proto-conversations (early infancy)
(e.g., work by Rochat & Striano, Stern, Trevarthen)
Joint attention (by 9 months)
(e.g., work by Bakeman & Adamson, Tomasello, Trevarthen)
Declarative gestures
(e.g., work by Bates, Bruner, Camaioni, Lempers, Tomasello)
shows (around 10 months)
points (around 12 months)
Moore: not sharing, just attention to self

20. Liszkowski, Carpenter, Henning, Striano, & Tomasello (2004)
12-month-olds
Toys were activated to elicit pointing. E reacted to infants’ points in one of four different ways:
Ignore
Look only to Event
Look only to Face
Joint Attention

21. - + Infants were most satisfied in the Joint Attention condition:
# of trials with a point
Repeated pointing
Joint Attention + -
Face
Event
Ignore
Infants were most satisfied in the Joint Attention condition:
in Joint Attention, they pointed more across trials
in the other conditions, within trials, they repeated points more often.
12-month-olds point to share attention and interest.

22. Liszkowski, Carpenter, & Tomasello (in press)
When E misunderstands the infant’s referent, even if E reacts with excitement, 12-month-old infants repeat their pointing. Infants’ pointing is thus about specific objects or events, not just to obtain an adult reaction. (also evidence of collaborative communication: message repair)

23. Motivation to share in chimpanzees and children with autism
Early proto-conversations: no (?)
(autism: e.g., work by Hobson)
(chimpanzees: Tomonaga et al.)
Joint attention: no
(autism: e.g., work by Carpenter, Charman, Dawson, Mundy, Wetherby)
(chimpanzees: e.g., Bard & Vauclair, Tomasello & Carpenter)
Declarative gestures: no
(autism: e.g., work by Baron-Cohen, Carpenter, Loveland, Mundy, Sigman)
(chimpanzees: e.g., Gomez, Tomasello & Carpenter)

24. Sharing and coordinating intentions
Motivation to share
‘primary intersubjectivity’
joint attention
declarative pointing
Collaboration

25. Collaboration Bratman (1992):
shared goal: each participant has the goal that we (in mutual knowledge) do X together
coordination of plans/intentions. This requires that:
each participant understands both roles of the interaction (so can reverse roles if needed) and
each can help the other with his role if needed.

26. Sharing and coordinating intentions
Motivation to share
‘primary intersubjectivity’
joint attention
declarative pointing
Collaboration
role reversal
helping
cooperation and collaborative activities

27. Carpenter, Tomasello, & Striano (2005); Tomasello & Carpenter (2005)
12- and 18-month-olds, children with autism, chimpanzees
E performed one role of an action and had S perform the other, e.g.,:
E hid a toy for S to find, or
E held out a plate for S to place a toy on it.
Test: E gave the object(s) for the other role to S and waited.
Does S perform E’s previous role (hiding or offering) toward E (while looking at her)?

28. Hiding Task * Offering Task
p=.053
Infants sometimes reversed roles (hid the toy for E or held out the plate for her) and looked to E.
Children with autism and chimpanzees sometimes performed these actions but did so without looks to E.
They may have been reversing at an action, rather than a psychological level. (see also work by Hobson)
Offering Task

29. Sharing and coordinating intentions
Motivation to share
‘primary intersubjectivity’
joint attention
declarative pointing
Collaboration
role reversal
helping (see also Kuhlmeier, Wynn, & Bloom, 2003)
cooperation and collaborative activities

30. Liszkowski, Carpenter, Striano, & Tomasello (2006)
12- and 18-month-olds
Infants watched E repeat an action (e.g., punching holes) with a target object.
The target and a distractor object were displaced.
E began looking around.

31. Infants pointed to help the adult by informing her about the location of the object she was looking for.

32. Warneken & Tomasello (2006): 18-month-old infant

33. Warneken & Tomasello (2006): nursery-reared chimpanzee

34. Warneken & Tomasello (2006)
18-month-olds help instrumentally, in many different situations
chimpanzees: only when E reached
but other positive results for chimpanzees too
helping doesn’t necessarily involve a shared goal: understanding other’s individual goal is sufficient

35. Sharing and coordinating intentions
Motivation to share
‘primary intersubjectivity’
joint attention
declarative pointing
Collaboration
role reversal
helping
cooperation and collaborative activities

36. Sharing and coordinating intentions
Motivation to share
‘primary intersubjectivity’
joint attention
declarative pointing
Collaboration
role reversal
helping
cooperation and collaborative activities
communication (Clark, 1997; Golinkoff, 1993; Sperber & Wilson, 1986; Tomasello et al., 2005, submitted)

37. Behne, Carpenter, & Tomasello (2005); Hare & Tomasello (2004)
14- to 24-month-olds,
chimpanzees
E hid a toy/food in one of
two opaque containers.
E indicated the toy’s
location by pointing or gazing
ostensively at the correct
container.

38. Infants
Chimpanzees
Infants pass this test.
Chimpanzees do not use cooperative/communicative (pointing) cues but do use competitive (reaching) ones.

39. Sharing and coordinating intentions
Motivation to share
‘primary intersubjectivity’
joint attention
declarative pointing
Collaboration
role reversal
helping
cooperation and collaborative activities
communication
instrumental

40. Warneken, Chen, & Tomasello (2006); Liebal et al. (in prep.)
18- and 24-month-olds, chimpanzees (and children with autism)
Social and instrumental games
E1 & E2 demonstrate how to operate the apparatus.
E1 cooperates with the child to perform the joint activity.
E1 refrains from the activity for 15 seconds.
Problem-Solving
Play
Parallel
Roles
Tube with Handles
Trampoline
Complementary
Elevator
Double Tube
trampoline
double tube
elevator
tube with handles

41. Warneken, Chen, & Tomasello (2006)

42. Warneken, Chen, & Tomasello (2006)

43. By 18 months, infants are able to cooperate with an adult to achieve a joint goal.
When the adult stopped playing his role, children communicatively requested his continued participation.
New results: at least by 2 years, children do this even in tasks in which they could achieve the goal individually (Gräfenhein, Behne, Carpenter, & Tomasello, in prep.)
Chimpanzees (and children with autism) showed far less coordination of roles and no communicative requests for their partner’s continued participation.
Chimpanzees showed no interest in the social games.

44. Sharing and coordinating intentions
Motivation to share
‘primary intersubjectivity’
joint attention
declarative pointing
Collaboration
role reversal
helping
cooperation and collaborative activities
communication
instrumental
pretense

45. Pretense Pretend play is (probably) uniquely human.
It is often collaborative (shared goal, roles, etc.).
Some consider it to be the earliest form of true collective intentionality in infancy (Rakoczy, 2006).
It sets the stage for later collective beliefs (money, marriage, government…).

46. Summary
In addition to their understanding of others’ goals and intentions, infants demonstrate:
the motivation to share psychological states with others
and
ability to cooperate and coordinate intentions with others.
Chimpanzees and children with autism do not show evidence of either of these additional motivations or abilities.

47. Where does it come from?

48. (a sketchy) Phylogenetic hypothesis
Primates are competitive. Humans in addition are cooperative – they evolved skills and motivations for collaborating.
Tomasello, Carpenter, Call, Behne, & Moll (2005)

49. (a sketchy) Phylogenetic hypothesis
Primates are competitive. Humans in addition are cooperative – they evolved skills and motivations for collaborating.
How?
Individuals or groups who could collaborate more effectively had a selective advantage (more food, better shelter & protection, etc.).
Tomasello, Carpenter, Call, Behne, & Moll (2005)

50. (a sketchy) Phylogenetic hypothesis
Primates are competitive. Humans in addition are cooperative – they evolved skills and motivations for collaborating.
How?
Individuals or groups who could collaborate more effectively had a selective advantage (more food, better shelter & protection, etc.).
The abilities to share and collaborate made language and other cultural learning and creation possible.
Tomasello, Carpenter, Call, Behne, & Moll (2005)

51. (a sketchy) Phylogenetic hypothesis
Primates are competitive. Humans in addition are cooperative – they evolved skills and motivations for collaborating.
How?
Individuals or groups who could collaborate more effectively had a selective advantage (more food, better shelter & protection, etc.).
The abilities to share and collaborate made language and other cultural learning and creation possible.
Over cultural-historical time, repeated, habitual instances of sharing intentions resulted in social practices and institutions (e.g., marriage, money, government).
Tomasello, Carpenter, Call, Behne, & Moll (2005)

52. (a sketchy) Ontogenetic hypothesis
Two interweaving lines of development:
understanding of goals and intentions
motivation to share psychological states and activities
Tomasello, Carpenter, Call, Behne, & Moll (2005)

53. (a sketchy) Ontogenetic hypothesis
Two interweaving lines of development:
understanding of goals and intentions
motivation to share psychological states and activities
The motivation to share transforms the understanding intentions line, resulting in shared collaborative activities.
Tomasello, Carpenter, Call, Behne, & Moll (2005)

54. Understanding intentions line: Emotions → Goals → Intentions
Tomasello, Carpenter, Call, Behne, & Moll (2005)

55. + Understanding intentions line: Emotions → Goals → Intentions
Sharing motivation line: +
Motivation to share
Tomasello, Carpenter, Call, Behne, & Moll (2005)

56. + = Understanding intentions line: Emotions → Goals → Intentions
Sharing motivation line:
Product:
Proto-
conversations
(3 months) +
Motivation to share =
Tomasello, Carpenter, Call, Behne, & Moll (2005)

57. Understanding intentions line: Emotions → Goals → Intentions
Sharing motivation line:
Product:
Proto- →
conversations
(3 months)
Shared goals
(9 months)
Motivation to share
Tomasello, Carpenter, Call, Behne, & Moll (2005)

58. Understanding intentions line: Emotions → Goals → Intentions
Sharing motivation line:
Product:
Proto- →
conversations
(3 months)
Shared goals →
(9 months)
Collaboration
(14 months)
Motivation to share
Tomasello, Carpenter, Call, Behne, & Moll (2005)

59. Individualistic Collaborative
(chimpanzees, children with autism)
Collaborative
(1-year-old+ infants)
gaze following
joint attention
social learning
instructed learning
social manipulation
cooperative communication
group activity
collaboration
Tomasello & Carpenter (in press)

60. Take-home message
What is unique about human cultural cognition is the motivation to share and the ability to collaborate.
The interaction of:
a biological adaptation
cultural-historical processes, and
individual development
results in uniquely human abilities ranging from language to taking a walk together, all of which involve shared intentionality.