Journal
BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES
Volume 31, Issue 2, Pages 109-+Publisher
CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X08003543
Keywords
analogy; animal cognition; causal learning; connectionism; Darwin; discontinuity; evolution; human mind; language; language of thought; physical symbol system; reasoning; same-different; theory of mind
Funding
- NIMH NIH HHS [MH072613] Funding Source: Medline
- NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF MENTAL HEALTH [R03MH072613] Funding Source: NIH RePORTER
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Over the last quarter century, the dominant tendency in comparative cognitive psychology has been to emphasize the similarities between human and nonhuman minds and to downplay the differences as one of degree and not of kind (Darwin 1871). In the present target article, we argue that Darwin was mistaken: the profound biological continuity between human and nonhuman animals masks an equally profound discontinuity between human and nonhuman minds. To wit, there is a significant discontinuity in the degree to which human and nonhuman animals are able to approximate the higher-order, systematic, relational capabilities of a physical symbol system (PSS) (Newell 1980). We show that this symbolic-relational discontinuity pervades nearly every domain of cognition and runs much deeper than even the spectacular scaffolding provided by language or culture alone can explain. We propose a representational-level specification as to where human and nonhuman animals' abilities to approximate a PSS are similar and where they differ. We conclude by suggesting that recent symbolic-connectionist models of cognition shed new light on the mechanisms that underlie the gap between human and nonhuman minds.
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