Deep social mind is a concept in

evolutionary psychology Evolutionary psychology is a theoretical approach in psychology that examines cognition and behavior from a modern evolutionary perspective. It seeks to identify human psychological adaptations with regards to the ancestral problems they evol ...

; it refers to the distinctively human capacity to 'read' (that is, to infer) the

mental state A mental state, or a mental property, is a state of mind of a person. Mental states comprise a diverse class, including perception, pain experience, belief, desire, intention, emotion, and memory. There is controversy concerning the exact definiti ...

s of others while reciprocally enabling those others to read one's own mental states at the same time. The term 'deep social mind' was first coined in 1999 by Andrew Whiten, professor of Evolutionary and Developmental Psychology at

St. Andrews University (Aien aristeuein) , motto_lang = grc , mottoeng = Ever to ExcelorEver to be the Best , established = , type = Public research university Ancient university , endowment ...

, Scotland. Together with closely related terms such as ' reflexivity' and '

intersubjectivity In philosophy, psychology, sociology, and anthropology, intersubjectivity is the relation or intersection between people's cognitive perspectives. Definition is a term coined by social scientists to refer to a variety of types of human inter ...

', it is now well-established among scholars investigating the evolutionary emergence of human sociality, cognition and communication.

Mind-reading in apes and humans

It is widely agreed that the brain is social in both human and nonhuman primates. But, according to Andrew Whiten, human sociality goes much further than

ape sociality Emotion is defined as any mental experience with high intensity and high hedonic content. The existence and nature of emotions in non-human animals are believed to be correlated with those of humans and to have evolved from the same mechanisms. ...

. Ape

social intelligence Social intelligence is the capacity to know oneself and to know others. Social intelligence is learned and develops from experience with people and learning from success and failures in social settings. Social intelligence is the ability to underst ...

is overwhelmingly ' Machiavellian' in the sense of manipulating others in social settings. One consequence is that while an ape may be motivated to 'read' (that is, to infer) the mental states of others around it, it has little motive to reciprocate. Instead of making its own mental states transparent to potential rivals, it seeks to block others from 'reading' its own mind. For example, one way to infer what another primate might be thinking is to detect which way its head is pointed, so as to reconstruct what it might be looking at. In the case of

gorilla Gorillas are herbivorous, predominantly ground-dwelling great apes that inhabit the tropical forests of equatorial Africa. The genus ''Gorilla'' is divided into two species: the eastern gorilla and the western gorilla, and either four ...

s and chimpanzees, adult apes have evolved eyes which give away very little information concerning direction of gaze. Their

eye Eyes are organs of the visual system. They provide living organisms with vision, the ability to receive and process visual detail, as well as enabling several photo response functions that are independent of vision. Eyes detect light and conv ...

s are dark-on-dark: the iris is dark brown or even black and the same applies to the

sclera The sclera, also known as the white of the eye or, in older literature, as the tunica albuginea oculi, is the opaque, fibrous, protective, outer layer of the human eye containing mainly collagen and some crucial elastic fiber. In humans, and s ...

and surrounding skin. Looking at the eyes, therefore, it is not easy to detect direction of

gaze In critical theory, sociology, and psychoanalysis, the gaze (French ''le regard''), in the philosophical and figurative sense, is an individual's (or a group's) awareness and perception of other individuals, other groups, or oneself. The concept ...

. In the human case, the eyes are very different, the dark iris standing out against a white surrounding sclera. This feature, combined with the relatively large size of the human eye and its horizontally elongated shape, assists neighbouring

conspecific Biological specificity is the tendency of a characteristic such as a behavior or a biochemical variation to occur in a particular species. Biochemist Linus Pauling stated that "Biological specificity is the set of characteristics of living organ ...

s to detect direction of gaze and, on that basis, engage in mind-reading. According to the 'deep social mind' theory, this means that humans have become cognitively adapted to reflexivity and

: as a species, we are well-adapted to read the minds of trusted others while at the same time assisting those others in reading our own minds. One consequence of this is

self-awareness In philosophy of self, self-awareness is the experience of one's own personality or individuality. It is not to be confused with consciousness in the sense of qualia. While consciousness is being aware of one's environment and body and life ...

or 'egocentric perspective reversal': I read your mind as you are reading mine. Therefore, between us, we can gain an awareness of our own minds as if from the outside: my mental states as these are reflected in yours and yours as they are reflected in mine. In that sense, if this argument is accepted, our minds mutually interpenetrate. 'Mind' in the human sense is not locked inside this or that skull but instead is relational, stretching between us. According to evolutionary psychologist Michael Tomasello, a human child normally achieves egocentric perspective reversal—viewing its own mental states as if from the standpoint of others—at around one year of age.M. Tomasello (2000)
Culture and Cognitive Development.
'' Current Directions in Psychological Science'', 9: 2, pp. 37-40.

References

{{reflist Anthropology Biological anthropology Paleoanthropology Evolutionary psychology Cognitive neuroscience Philosophy of mind

Mind-reading in apes and humans

See also

References