From Joint Action to Communication

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Grasping and orienting are object-directed actions. Now referring is not an action in this sense. But it might be that infants understand if it were an action.

grasping / orienting vs pointing

Consider grasping as our model. You can grasp an object with your hand, mouth or foot. You can use a precision grip or a power grip or grip it in many other ways. In each case you are grasping the object.

Note that grasping is basic in the sense that the ability to produce or recognise grasping is (arguably) not a matter of being able to produce or recognise more basic actions.

individual vs joint

These things can also be joint actions --- we can collectively orient to, and grasp an object (at least we can if it’s large enough).

(Here I mean joint action in a minimal sense: our actions have the collective goal that we grasp, or orient to, the object. And we each expect this collective goal to occur as a common effect of our actions, yours and mine.)

Why not think of pointing as an action too?

You might object that pointing is an action with a communicative goal, and so needs to be understood in terms of communicative intention. After all, What extra-communicative goal might all pointing actions have?

The answer is so obvious that it is easy to miss. One extra-communicative goal of all pointing actions is to point. For comparison, consider a grasping action. To grasp something is not merely a matter of it becoming somehow secured in your fingers, hands, toes, elbows, knees or mouth: it is to perform an action directed to the goal of grasping that thing. The same applies to kicking, reaching, throwing and other actions. What distinguishes grasping a ball from it merely ending up secured in your fingers (say) is that to grasp it is to perform an action directed to the goal of grasping that ball. Similarly, to point at something is to perform an action directed to the goal of pointing to that object.

We might suppose that infants similarly think of pointing and verbally labelling objects as related much as different ways of grasping.

So their early understanding of communication with language and of non-linguistic referential communication is a matter of how they categorise actions.

*todo: Contrast both the pure use (block-slab) view, the Gricean view advocated by Tomasello et al view (they have to understand an intention that the action be interpreted in a certain way).

production : pointing is done to initiate joint action

Do something, however futile.

objection : infants point when there is no possibility of joint action

reply: from the infant point of view, this is a joint action

(mis)comprehension : in pointing, others engage in joint action with me

\begin{enumerate} \label{your_goal_is_my_goal} \item You are about to attempt to engage in some joint action\footnote{ We leave open the issue of how joint action is to be characterised subject only to the requirement that all joint actions must involve collective goals. Attempts to characterise joint action in ways relevant to explaining development include \citet{Tollefsen:2005vh}, \citet{Carpenter:2009wq}, \citet{pacherie_framing_2011} and \citet{Butterfill:2011fk}. } or other with me. %(for example, because you have made eye contact with me while I was in the middle of attempting to do something). \item I am not about to change the single goal to which my actions will be directed. \end{enumerate} % Therefore: % \begin{enumerate}[resume] % \item A goal of your actions will be my goal, the goal I now envisage that my actions will be directed to. \end{enumerate}

Your-goal-is-my-goal

1. You are about to attempt to engage in some joint action or other with me.

For example, because you have made eye contact with me while I was in the middle of attempting to do something)

2. I am not about to change the single goal to which my actions will be directed.

Therefore:

3. A goal of your actions will be my goal, the goal I now envisage that my actions will be directed to.

I claim (i) you could know the premises without already knowing the conclusion, and (ii) knowing the premises could put you in a position to know the conclusion. So the inference is a route to knowledge.

It describes how interacting interpreters might come to know facts about the goals of others’ actions.

The teleological stance is one route to knowlegde of other’s goals, and this is another.

(mis)comprehension : in pointing, others engage in joint action with me

comprehension : in pointing, others engage in joint action with me

Inconsistent tetrad

1. 11- or 12-month-old infants produce and understand declarative pointing gestures.

This is what we have evidence for

2. Producing or understanding pointing gestures involves understanding communicative actions.

This is the rejection of the ‘block-slab’ model of communication

3. A communicative action is an action done with an intention to provide someone with evidence of an intention with the further intention of thereby fulfilling that intention.

This is the theory I take Tomasello & Moll to endorse (although they are not very explicit about it, it’s based on their use of the term ‘shared intentionality’).

4. Pointing facilitates the developmental emergence of sophisticated cognitive abilities including mindreading.

I’ve just argued that we can reject (3). I’ve supplied an alternative account of what a communicative action is, one that doesn’t involve appeal to intention.

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