Social cognition and pretend play in autism

The literature surrounding the autistic child's social impairment is reviewed. It is proposed that an impairment in some aspect of autistic children's social cognition could account for many of the observed abnormalities in their social behaviour. First, two "lower-level" aspects of social cognition are considered. These are mirror self-recognition and perceptual role-taking. The present sample of autistic children did not differ from MA control groups in either of these respects, confirming results from other studies. A "higher-level" aspect of self-other differentiation is conceptual role-taking. This ability is also called a "theory of mind". This literature is reviewed and a hypothesis is proposed which suggests that autistic children have an impairment in their "second-order" representational capacity which has been argued to underlie a theory of mind. This hypothesis is explored by means of 4 experiments. These showed that autistic children's "first-order" representational capacity, as manifested in their understanding of physical causality, is intact whilst their second-order representational capacity, as manifested in their ability to attribute mental states to others, is impaired. This deficit was not found in controls. Furthermore, those few autistic children who passed a test of attribution of belief at the ii year old level, failed at the ("third-order") 7 year old level, despite adequate MA. Pretend play can be related to conceptual role-taking, since both may require a second-order representational capacity. The literature surrounding the autistic child's impairment in pretend play is reviewed and the final experiment confirms and extends previous results in this domain. It is concluded that particular aspects of the social impairment and the impairment in pretend play can be seen as the result of a deficit in one cognitive mechanism. This deficit is discussed in terms of what has loosely been called an "impaired symbolic capacity"

"Antic Dispositions?": The Representation of Madness in Modern British Theatre

This thesis examines how mental illness has been represented in British theatre from c. 1960 to the present day. It is particularly concerned with the roles played by space and embodiment in these representations, and what emerges as bodies interact in space. It adopts a mixed methodology, drawing on theoretical models from both continental philosophy and contemporary cognitive and neuroscientific research, in order to address these questions from the broadest possible range of perspectives. The first part of the thesis draws on the work of Michel Foucault and Henri Lefebvre to explore the role of institutional space, and in particular its gendered implications, in staging madness. The second part introduces approaches to the body drawn from the cognitive turn in theatre and performance studies. These are connected to the approaches of the first section through phenomenology’s concern with lived experience. Dan Zahavi and Shaun Gallagher’s work on ‘the phenomenological mind’ provides important context here. In addition, Emmanuel Levinas’s critique of ontology offers a solid basis from which to think about how to act ethically as both a producer of, and an audience member for, representations of mental illness. Through these explorations, this thesis suggests a model of madness, not as something to be bracketed as ‘other’ and belonging to a deviant individual, but as emerging between bodies in space – there is no madness outside of social, spatial and embodied contexts. This in turn suggests a new approach to understanding the role theatre can play in addressing the lived experience of mental illness. While many productions currently attempt, unilaterally, to reduce the ‘stigma’ of mental illness, this thesis suggests that that, in fact, discrimination against people experiencing mental illness is more likely to be reduced through the interaction between an ethically minded production and an ethical spectator. Such a model does not claim to be able to reduce the experience of madness to a totalising concept which can be communicated through theatre, but rather insists that it is only through an embodied, empathic interaction that a true concern for the (‘mad’ or ‘sane’) Other can emerge

Box of delights, bridge of feathers: children's drama on Telefis Eireann/RTE 1962-1987

This thesis describes the general character of the children's television drama transmitted on Telefis Eireann/RTE from 1962 to 1987, reviews the programming context of the provision, and evaluates the drama transmitted to dramatic, developmental and cultural criteria. The thesis identifies and analyses a representative selection of the home-originated and imported children’s television drama in the schedules over the period under review. Details of the identified drama transmissions are provided in the Appendices. The Appendices also Include details of home produced children's programmes and of relevant home-originated adult drama. Chapter One outlines some dramatic criteria for classification and evaluation of the schedule content, constructs a developmental perspective of children as users of television drama, and examines the cultural contexts of Irish children as viewers. The selected schedule provision, relevant formative factors, and the programming environment are examined in general terms in Chapter Two. The selected provision is analysed in generic and thematic categories in Chapters Three, Four and Five. Chapter Three examines drama in the fantasy paradigm, which is predominantly animation drama; Chapter Four analyses the live action provision, discussing films originally made for cinema, drama particularly relevant to the actuality of children's lives, adventure drama, situation comedy and family-centred drama, and drama featuring animals. Chapter Five examines two categories characterised by heavy value-loading— drama based on literature and drama based on history; this chapter also discusses sources for research on thesis topics and gives a brief summary of developments in home produced television drama for children from 1987 to date. Chapter Six sets out the conclusions and areas of further enquiry indicated by the study of the provision and the analysis

Moving Ourselves, Moving Others

The close relationship between motion (bodily movement) and emotion (feelings) is not an etymological coincidence. While moving ourselves, we move others; in observing others move – we are moved ourselves. The fundamentally interpersonal nature of mind and language has recently received due attention, but the key role of (e)motion in this context has remained something of a blind spot. The present book rectifies this gap by gathering contributions from leading philosophers, psychologists and linguists working in the area. Framed by an introducing prologue and a summarizing epilogue the volume elaborates a dynamical, active view of emotion, along with an affect-laden view of motion – and explores their significance for consciousness, intersubjectivity, and language. As such, it contributes to the emerging interdisciplinary field of mind science, transcending hitherto dominant computationalist and cognitivist approaches

What is folk psychology and who cares?

Die Dissertation präsentiert und diskutiert die Debatte zwischen zwei Theorien der Alltagspsychologie – Theorie-theorie (TT) und Simulationstheorie (ST). Nach einer historischen Kontextualiserung der beiden Theorien, werden die wichtigsten Versionen der zwei Theorien vorgestellt und kritisiert. Meine Schlussfolgerung ist, dass keine einheitliche Unterscheidung zwischen den zwei Theorien vorgenommen werden kann. Sie stellen vielmehr ein breites Spektrum an theoretischen Optionen dar, die bei der weiteren Entwicklung einer Theorie über die Alltagspsychologie berücksichtigt werden sollten. In der zweiten Hälfte der Dissertation diskutiere ich neuere Arbeiten in den Neurowissenschaften, die für diese Thematik relevant sind. Ein längeres Kapitel ist den sogenannten Spiegelneuronen gewidmet, weil diese Forschungsrichtung einen wichtigen Beleg für die ST darstellt, insofern als die ST vorhersagen würde, dass Ressourcen, die für die eigenen Handlungen gebraucht werden, auch für die Deutung der Handlungen anderer Menschen benutzt werden. Das Verstehen von Handlungen verlangt aber eine abstraktere Repräsentation als die Spiegelneuronen leisten könnten, da Handlungen durch motorische Bewegungen unterbestimmt sind (da eine Handlung mit verschiedenen Bewegungen ausgeführt werden könnte und verschiede Handlungen mit ein und derselben Bewegung ausgeführt werden können). Daher ist der Beitrag der Spiegeleuronen zum Verstehen von Handlungen wohl im Zusammenhang mit anderen Bereichen (z.B. STS, SMC) zu vermuten. Ich diskutiere auch Begriffstheorien, die es ermöglichen, solche Elemente innerhalb eines simulationstheoretischen Rahmens zu integrieren.The dissertation presents and critically discusses the debate between two rival theories of folk psychology – theory theory (TT) and simulation theory (ST). After a contextualization of the folk psychology discussion within the history of philosophy, I analyze the leading versions of both theories. My conclusion is that there is no uniform distinction to be made between the two competing theories; rather, the various versions represent a broad range of ideas, many of which may prove useful in ongoing empirical research. In the second half of the dissertation, I discuss recent work on social cognition in neuroscience that should taken into consideration in further developing a theory of folk psychology. A long chapter is devoted to interpretations of mirror neuron (MN), since this work constitutes support for ST, insofar as ST would predict that resources for action (e.g. the motor system) would be used in action understanding. But since action understanding appears to require a more abstract kind of representation than motor representation (since one action can be carried out with different movements and different actions can be carried out with one and the same movement in different contexts) and to incorporate contextual information, the role of mirror neurons is likely to be contingent upon their integration with other areas (e.g. STS, SMC) I also discuss theories of concepts that make it possible to integrate such elements within a simulatinist framework

151st Municipal government report fiscal year July 1, 2003 - June 30, 2004.

This is an annual report containing vital statistics for a town/city in the state of New Hampshire