生命性感知和拟人化:通达他心的两种可能前体

Animacy Perception and Anthropomorphism:Two Possible Precursors to Access Other Minds

对读心能力从何而来的追问,势必导向一种对人类早期个体发生学形态(婴儿甚至新生儿)心智化能力的系统探索。在这方面,过去三十年最大的发现是心智化存在着多种前体。我们如何能将周遭世界中那些互动对象视作为“人”?通达他心必然发生在读(人)心“之前”和“之下”,我们必须敏感于“人”——而不是“物”——所具有的特异性,才能有“人”的心智可读。通达他心存在两种可能前体:生命性感知和拟人化。生命性感知涉及一般地区分生命与非生命或者自主体与非自主体(即,区分“物”与“人”),拟人化涉及将非生命视为生命或者将非自主体视为自主体(即,将“物”拟为“人”)。尝试从概念、意义以及脑机制出发,探讨上述两种通达他心的可能前体及其与社会认知之间的密切联系,并对该领域的未来发展做出展望。

The question as to where the ability to read minds comes from inevitably leads to a systematic exploration of the ability to intellectualize early human ontogenetic forms(infants and even newborns).In this regard,the greatest discovery of the past three decades is that mentalizing has multiple precursors.How can we view those interacting objects in the world around us as“people”?Access to other minds necessarily occurs“before”and“below”the reading mind,and we must be sensitive to the specificity of“people”instead of“things”in order to have the“human”mind to read.There are two possible precursors for accessing other minds:animacy perception and anthropomorphism.In this definition,the perception of life involves a general distinction between life and non-life or agent and non-agent(i.e.distinguishing between“things”and“people”),and anthropomorphism involves treating non-life as life or non-agents as agents(i.e.proposing“things”as“people”).The present paper preliminarily examines the above two possible precursors for reaching others’minds,attempts to reveal its connection with social cognition,discusses its concept,meaning and brain mechanism,and finally looks forward to the future development of this field.