| The economic approach to 'theory of mind'. | |
| | |
MedLine Citation:
|
PMID: 22734065 Owner: NLM Status: MEDLINE |
Abstract/OtherAbstract:
|
Theory of mind (ToM) is a great evolutionary achievement. It is a special intelligence that can assess not only one's own desires and beliefs, but also those of others. Whether it is uniquely human or not is controversial, but it is clear that humans are, at least, significantly better at ToM than any other animal. Economists and game theorists have developed sophisticated and powerful models of ToM and we provide a detailed summary of this here. This economic ToM entails a hierarchy of beliefs. I know my preferences, and I have beliefs (a probabilistic distribution) about your preferences, beliefs about your beliefs about my preferences, and so on. We then contrast this economic ToM with the theoretical approaches of neuroscience and with empirical data in general. Although this economic view provides a benchmark and makes useful suggestions about empirical tendencies, it does not always generate a close fit with the data. This provides an opportunity for a synergistic interdisciplinary production of a falsifiable theory of bounded rationality. In particular, a ToM that is founded on evolutionary biology might well be sufficiently structured to have predictive power, while remaining quite general. We sketch two papers that represent preliminary steps in this direction. |
| | |
Authors:
|
Nikolaus Robalino; Arthur Robson |
Related Documents
:
|
21637195 - Web-based inference of biological patterns, functions and pathways from metabolomic dat... 791845 - Estimation of polygenic recurrence risk for cleft lip and palate. 22509375 - Housing conditions differentially affect physiological and behavioural stress responses... 22026935 - Using multivariate adaptive regression splines to qsar studies of dihydroartemisinin de... 1790685 - Use of a personal computer for fast acquisition of cardiovascular data over an extended... 22199465 - Erratum: n-tert-butyl-2-methyl-propanamide. corrigendum. |
Publication Detail:
|
Type: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't; Review |
Journal Detail:
|
Title: Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences Volume: 367 ISSN: 1471-2970 ISO Abbreviation: Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond., B, Biol. Sci. Publication Date: 2012 Aug |
Date Detail:
|
Created Date: 2012-06-26 Completed Date: 2012-10-25 Revised Date: 2013-04-16 |
Medline Journal Info:
|
Nlm Unique ID: 7503623 Medline TA: Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci Country: England |
Other Details:
|
Languages: eng Pagination: 2224-33 Citation Subset: IM |
Affiliation:
|
Department of Economics, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. |
Export Citation:
|
APA/MLA Format Download EndNote Download BibTex |
| MeSH Terms | |
Descriptor/Qualifier:
|
Bayes Theorem Biological Evolution Cognition Decision Making / physiology* Economics Economics, Behavioral* Game Theory Humans Neurosciences Rationalization Theory of Mind* |
From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine
Previous Document: The role of metacognition in human social interactions.
Next Document: New thinking, innateness and inherited representation.