In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

• Actor Mindreading:Cognitive Processes Underpinning Theories and Practices of European Stage Acting in the Eighteenth Century
• Dalit Milshtein and Avishai Henik (bio)

Introduction

Theatrical Practice as a Fount of Knowledge about Cognitive Processes

How—and based on which cognitive processes—do we understand others, interpret their overt intentions, attribute hidden intentions to them, and predict their future behavior with impressive success? This is the key question in a highly active research domain of modern social psychology known as mindreading.¹ Indeed, the argument that the development of social skills in a changing environment that requires flexible adaptation is the reason for human's developed brain is controversial.² But there is no doubt that social functioning is essential to the very existence of what Hannah Arendt called "the human condition."³ Humans, of course, are not the only species exhibiting complex social skills. Social animals exhibit advanced abilities of collaboration and group decision-making. Even unsociable animals show a remarkable aptitude for learning purely by observing and imitating others.⁴ Nonetheless, the ability to view one's self and the self of others as discrete mental states requires a recognition that every person has an inner world that is distinct from visible reality and shapes their actual behavior. This ability, in its distinct and elaborated form, is apparently unique to humanity. For this [End Page 175] reason, every simple social interaction almost from the moment of birth becomes a sophisticated act of creative detection, one that arouses wonder: "how is the young brain able to attend to mental states when they can be neither seen, heard nor felt?"⁵ The same questions lie at the heart of theoretical and practical discourse on theatre acting. This resemblance between psychological and theatrical discourses is almost self-evident, given that in the theatre arts the subject matter is the human being, and that theatre—as Arendt points out—"is the only art whose sole subject is man in his relationship to others."⁶

Notwithstanding the above, the ecological value of the theatre "laboratory" for psychological and cognitive study has not been recognized to the same degree as cognitive science in the theatrical discourse.⁷ But in recent years, the research potential of actors' work has begun to draw renewed interest among cognitive scientists.⁸ Early signs of this curiosity could be found already in the late nineteenth century, with Alfred Binet's pioneering study of theatre actors. Binet asked nine renowned acting practitioners of his time to introspect about their subjective experiences during rehearsals and stage performances. This knowledge, he believed, could give him a deeper understanding of internal processes relevant to the entire population. This is mainly because the actor, while "giv[ing] himself wholly up to his trouble," can be considered as an expert who "has to be observant of his playing, to regulate its effects, his gestures, and his exclamations."⁹ Over the past century, several study lines have been developed in order to examine acting and actors from various perspectives, including memory,¹⁰ empathy,¹¹ and suggestibility.¹² But, further support is still needed to confidently argue that theatre arts can indeed be used by cognitive sciences as a fount of knowledge about inner processes in general and about social behavior in particular.¹³

In this essay, we suggest reinforcing this argument from a historical perspective. Inspection of a corpus of acting theories reveals a strong link, which can be traced back to the eighteenth century, between the latter and contemporary cognitive concepts. It exists despite the differences in norms and conventions that were prevalent in a given historical, social and cultural context. A new reading of a selection of examples from the vast existing corpus of the French, British, German and Italian acting discourse points at some basic insights, which were conceptualized in [End Page 176] social cognitive discourse 300 years later. Specifically, mental integration, mental simulation, and mental manipulation, which are discussed below. In this sense, we follow Daniel Larlham who argues that a careful reading of the eighteenth-century acting corpus reveals the existence of ideas about the perception of emotions that are similar to contemporary concepts, such as kinesthetic empathy and embodied intersubjectivity.¹⁴ Yet...

中文翻译：

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演员心态：十八世纪欧洲舞台表演理论和实践的认知过程

代替摘要，这里是内容的简要摘录：

• 演员心态：十八世纪欧洲舞台表演理论和实践的认知过程
• 达利特·米尔什丁（Dalit Milshtein）和阿维斯·海尼克（Avishai Henik）（生物）

介绍

戏剧实践是认知过程知识的源泉

我们如何（并基于哪些认知过程）了解他人，解释他人的明显意图，将隐藏的意图归因于他人，并预测他们的未来行为并取得令人瞩目的成功？这是现代社会心理学研究活跃的领域中的一个关键问题，被称为“心读”。¹确实，关于在不断变化的环境中发展社交技能并需要灵活适应的说法是人类发达的大脑的原因是有争议的。²但是毫无疑问，社会功能对于汉娜·阿伦特（Hannah Arendt）所说的“人类状况”的存在至关重要。³当然，人类并不是唯一表现出复杂社交技能的物种。社交动物展现出先进的协作和团队决策能力。即使是不善交际的动物也表现出非凡的才能，纯粹是通过观察和模仿他人来学习的。⁴尽管如此，将一个人的自我和他人的自我视为离散的心理状态的能力要求认识到每个人都有一个与可见的现实截然不同并塑造其实际行为的内心世界。这种能力以其独特和详尽的形式表现出来，显然是人类所独有的。为此[End Page 175]究其原因，几乎从出生的那一刻起，每一次简单的社交互动都变成了一种复杂的创造力发现行为，这引起了人们的疑问：“年轻的大脑如何在看不见，听不到或感觉不到的时候才能进入精神状态？” ⁵相同的问题是关于戏剧表演的理论和实践论述的核心。心理和戏剧话语之间的这种相似性几乎是不言而喻的，因为在戏剧艺术中，主题是人，而正如阿伦特所指出的那样，剧院是唯一与人类关系唯一的主题是人的艺术。其他。” ⁶

尽管如此，在戏剧话语中，剧院“实验室”对于心理和认知研究的生态价值还没有得到与认知科学同等程度的认可。⁷但是，近年来，演员工作的研究潜力开始引起认知科学家的新兴趣。⁸这种好奇心的早期迹象早在19世纪末就已经发现，阿尔弗雷德·比奈特（Alfred Binet）对戏剧演员进行了开创性研究。Binet询问了九位著名演艺从业者，他对自己在排练和舞台表演中的主观经历进行了反思。他认为，这种知识可以使他对与整个人群有关的内部过程有更深入的了解。这主要是因为演员在“全力以赴，尽其所能”的同时，可以被视为专家，“必须观察自己的演奏，调节其效果，手势和感叹”。⁹在过去的一个世纪中，为了从不同角度（包括记忆，¹¹，暗示性。¹²但是，仍然需要进一步的支持来自信地争辩说，戏剧艺术确实可以被认知科学用作对一般内部过程，特别是对社会行为的知识的源泉。¹³

在本文中，我们建议从历史的角度加强这一论点。对行为理论语料库的考察揭示了可以追溯到18世纪的后现代认知概念与现代认知概念之间的紧密联系。尽管存在一定的历史，社会和文化背景下的规范和惯例存在差异，但它仍然存在。从法国，英国，德国和意大利的演说语料库中现有的庞大语料中精选出的一些例子进行了重新解读，从一些基本的见解中得到了理解，这些见解在300年后的[End Page 176]社会认知话语中得到了概念化。具体来说，是心理整合，心理模拟和心理操纵，将在下面进行讨论。从这个意义上讲，我们遵循丹尼尔·拉勒姆（Daniel Larlham）的观点，他辩称，仔细阅读18世纪的表演语料库可以发现与现代概念相似的关于情感感知的思想存在，例如动感同情和体现的主体间性。¹⁴然而...