Purpose
The past two decades have seen an increasing interest in the topic of joint attention, the cognitive capacity of two or more subjects (human or nonhuman primates) to focus on the same object while being mutually aware of sharing this focus. The investigation of this capacity is of interest for philosophers of mind, developmental and comparative psychologists, and social neuroscientists. Questions that arise in the context of the study of joint attention include:
- What is the role of feelings and emotions in the acquisition of a joint perspective?
- What is the relation between episodes of mutual attention and the capacity to jointly attend to objects?
- What can we learn about joint attention from persons with autism?
- What relevance does the capacity to jointly attend to objects with others have for a subject’s referential and communicative capacities?
- Is joint attention an acquired skill?
- What is the role of pointing in concept acquisition?
- What is the function of visuomotor representations in joint attention?
- What role do mirroring systems play in joint attention?
- Ought we to conceive of joint attention in the triadic terms of a representationalist account of perception?
- Do episodes of joint attention require the deployment of a theory of mind?
- Is self- and other-awareness a precondition of the capacity for joint attention?
- What can joint attention research tell us about collective action?
- Can we understand acts of pointing in terms of the construction of narrative?
The conference aims at discussing these and related questions in an interdisciplinary setting.
