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Abstract: It is widely believed that what distinguishes the social cognition of humans from that of other animals is the belief-desire psychology of four-year-old children and adults (so-called theory of mind). We argue here that this is actually the second ontogenetic step in uniquely human social cognition. The first step is one year old children’s understanding of persons as intentional agents, which enables skills of cultural learning and shared intentionality. This initial step is ‘the real thing ’ in the sense that it enables young children to participate in cultural activities using shared, perspectival symbols with a conventional/normative/reflective dimension—for example, linguistic communication and pretend play—thus inaugurating children’s understanding of things mental. Understanding beliefs and participating in collective intentionality at four years of age—enabling the comprehension of such things as money and marriage—results from several years of engagement with other persons in perspective-shifting and reflective discourse containing propositional attitude constructions. By all appearances, the cognitive skills of human beings are very different from those of other animal species, including our nearest primate relatives. Human

The concept of `social situatedness', i.e. the idea that the development of individual intelligence requires a social (and cultural) embedding, has recently received much attention in cognitive science and artificial intelligence research. The work of Lev Vygotsky who put forward this view already in the 1920s has influenced the discussion to some degree, but still remains far from well known. This paper therefore aims to give an overview of his cognitive development theory and discuss its relation to more recent work in primatology and socially situated artificial intelligence, in particular humanoid robotics.

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C. Lloyd Morgan is widely credited as the “father of comparative psychology ” due to his contribution of guidelines for the psychological interpretation of animal behavior. Many modern comparative psychologists believe that constraints encouraged by Morgan are now obsolete and some assert that adherence to the canon restricts further progress in the field. Nonetheless, Morgan’s guidance continues to be important in comparative psychology. A review of Morgan’s canon, its historical misuse, and consideration of popular alternatives reinforce Morgan’s role in comparative psychology. A recent model of cognitive evolution highlights the importance of Morgan’s guidelines and an illustration of the continued usefulness of the canon is given in the context of investigations of theory of mind in chimpanzees. eScholarship provides open access, scholarly publishing services to the University of California and delivers a dynamic