Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-45l2p Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-28T11:43:31.868Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Philosopher's disease and its antidote: Perspectives from prenatal behavior and contagious yawning and laughing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2017

Robert R. Provine
Robert R. Provine*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD 21250. provine@umbc.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Accounts of behavior, including imitation, often suffer from philosopher's disease: the unnecessary, inappropriate, theoretically driven explanation of behavior in terms of cognition, rationality, and consciousness. Embryos are perversely unphilosophical and unpsychological, starting to move before they receive sensory input. Postnatal contagious yawning and laughing indicate that pseudo-imitative behavior can occur without conscious intent or other higher-order cognitive process.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 40 , 2017 , e399
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Meltzoff, A. N. & Moore, M. K. (1977) Imitation of facial and manual gestures by human neonates. Science 198(4312):75–78. Available at: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/198/4312/75.Google Scholar
Provine, R. R. (1972) Ontogeny of bioelectric activity in the spinal cord of the chick embryo. Brain Research 41:365–78.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Provine, R. R. (1986) Yawning as a stereotyped action pattern and releasing stimulus. Ethology 72:109–22.Google Scholar
Provine, R. R. (1989a) Contagious yawning and infant imitation. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society 27:125–26.Google Scholar
Provine, R. R. (1989b) Faces as releasers of contagious yawning: An approach to face detection using normal human subjects. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society 27:211–14.Google Scholar
Provine, R. R. (1992) Contagious laughter: Laughter is a sufficient stimulus for laughs and smiles. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society 30:1–4.Google Scholar
Provine, R. R. (2000) Laughter: A scientific investigation. Viking.Google Scholar
Provine, R. R. (2005) Yawning. American Scientist 93:532–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Provine, R. R. (2012) Curious behavior: Yawning, laughing, hiccupping, and beyond. Belknap Press.Google Scholar
Provine, R. R. (2016) Laughter as a scientific problem: An adventure in sidewalk neuroscience. Journal of Comparative Neurology 524:1532–39.Google Scholar
Provine, R. R. (2017) Laughter as an approach to vocal evolution: The bipedal theory. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review 24(1): 238–44. Available at: https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-016-1089-3.Google Scholar
Provine, R. R. & Rogers, L. (1977) Development of spinal cord bioelectric activity in spinal chick embryos and its behavioral implications. Journal of Neurobiology 8:217–28.Google Scholar