In this response to multidisciplinary commentaries on the target article, “Words in the brain's language,” additional features of the cell-assembly model are reviewed, as demanded by some of the commentators. Subsequently, methodological considerations on how to perform additional tests of neurobiological language models as well as a discussion of recent data from neuroimaging, neuropsychological, and other behavioral studies in speakers of spoken and sign languages follow. Special emphasis is put on the explanatory power of the cell-assembly model regarding neuropsychological double dissociations. Future perspectives on neural network simulations, neuronal mechanisms of syntax and semantics, and the interaction of attention mechanisms and cell assemblies are pointed out in the final paragraphs.

Data support the claim from the target article that women, both cross-culturally and historically, have employed a variety of mating strategies, marrying but also engaging in short-term unions. But those strategies appear to be practiced simultaneously and not conditionally as Gangestad & Simpson propose, a finding consistent with assumed constraints on the potential reproductive success of females.

This commentary situates the second person account within a broader framework of ecological validity for experimental paradigms in social cognitive neuroscience. It then considers how individual differences at psychological and genetic levels can be integrated within the proposed framework.

Rather than dealing with the important issues in the interpretation of behavioural data, Heyes seems only to reiterate lessons well-learned before she first reviewed the topic of primate deception. She also appears to misrepresent a series of published analyses. Despite her emphatic denials, the commonsense view is the best: informed observations and experiments can both provide evidence of theory of mind.

Based on mirror neurons' properties, viewers are emotionally engaged when observing others – even when not actively interacting; therefore, characterizing non-participatory action-viewing as isolated may be misleading. Instead, we propose a continuum of socio-emotional engagement. We also highlight recent developmental work that uses a second-person perspective, investigating behavioral, physiological, and neural activity during caregiver–infant interactions.

The perception/planning–control conception has a direct predecessor in a cognitive/sensorimotor scheme, where the cognitive branch includes Glover's perception and planning functions. The sensorimotor branch corresponds to Glover's control function. The cognitive/sensorimotor scheme, like the perception/planning–control scheme, differentiates between motor planning and direct motor control, which is inaccessible to awareness or to long-term memory.

Transcending reviewed proximate theories, Van Lange et al.'s CLASH model attempts to ultimately explain the poleward declension of aggression and violence. Seasonal cold is causal, but, we contend, principally as an ecologically relevant evolutionary pressure. We further argue that futurity and restraint are life history variables, and that Life History Theory evolutionarily explains the biogeography of aggression and violence as strategic adaptation.

Developmental research characterizes even the youngest learners as critical and selective, capable of preserving or culling cultural information on the bases of informant accuracy, reasoning, or coherence. We suggest that Richerson et al. adjust their account of social learning in cultural group selection (CGS) by taking into consideration the role of the selective learner in the cultural inheritance system.

Like number representation, basic arithmetic seems to be a natural candidate for abstract instantiation in the brain. To investigate this, researchers have examined effects of numeral format on elementary arithmetic (e.g., 4+5 vs. four+five). Different numeral formats often recruit distinct processes for arithmetic, reinforcing the conclusion that number processing is not necessarily abstracted away from numeral format.

The subtraction and covariance paradigms are two analytic techniques used with functional neuroimaging data. The first assumes that a brain region participating in a task should show altered neural activity (relative to a control task). The second assumes that tasks are mediated by networks of interacting regions.Images of mind attempts to link results from the subtraction paradigm with a network interpretation that could have been more explicitly done using the covariance paradigm.

Values will be central to developing a more balanced social psychology. A nonconformist account of Asch's (1956) experiments is used to illustrate the role of multiple values and to support and extend Krueger & Funder's (K&F's) claims. A balance of values, one that goes beyond accuracy and truth, and that avoids absolutism and relativism, is needed.

Robin Dunbar's hypothesis that language capacity in response to the demands of maintaining large groups suggests a more specific hypothesis that language arose from a cognitive calculus by which animals could predict their status in complex dominance situations.