Spontaneous mindreading

a problem for the two-systems account

Evan Westra

pp. 4559-4581

in: Cameron Buckner, Ellen Fridland (eds), Cognition, Synthese 194 (11), 2017.

Abstract

Critics of the mindreading paradigm have argued that genuine mental-state attribution must be slow and cognitively effortful, and thus could not play a significant role in everyday social cognition. Motivated by this challenge, the two-systems account suggests that we really possess two systems for theory-of-mind: a fast but inflexible “implicit” system that operates in an automatic fashion, and a flexible but slow “explicit” system that involves the effortful use of working memory. In this paper, I will use the case of mature perspective-taking to argue that the two-systems framework is inaccurate. Emerging from this critique is a conception of fast, flexible mindreading that can provide a bulwark against skepticism about the role of mindreading in everyday social cognition.