Gopnik's argument that instead of having privileged access we must develop a theory about our minds is criticized. First, the theory metaphor is too vague, and scientific concepts of what a theory is are left unexploited. Second, the studies Gopnik interprets as showing that children must develop a theory about their mental states are also compatible with the view that children have to develop these states.

We applaud Bullot & Reber's (B&R's) attempt to encompass the function of artworks within their psycho-historical model of art appreciation. However, we suggest that in order to fully realize this aim, they require a clearer distinction between an artist's intentions toward an artwork and its proper functions. We also show how such a distinction improves the internal coherence of their model.

A narrow focus on the jaw (or on motor generators) does not account for individual and language-specific differences in babbling and early speech. Furthermore, data from Yoshinaga-Itano's laboratory support earlier findings that show glottal rather than oral stops in deaf infants' babbling: audition is crucial for developing normal syllables.

This commentary argues that Evans & Levinson (E&L) should expand their two-track model to a three-track model in which biological and cultural evolution interact with the evolution of an individual's language repertories in ontogeny. It also comments on the relevance of the argument from the poverty of the stimulus and offers a caveat, based on analogous issues in biology, on the metaphor of language as a container, whether of meanings or of other content.

An active role for conscious processes in the production of behaviour is proposed, involving top level controls in a hierarchy of behavioural control. It is suggested that by inhibiting or sensitizing lower levels in the hierarchy conscious processes can play a role in the organization of ongoing behaviour. Conscious control can be more or less evident, according to prevailing circumstances.

The insight that, in terms of behaviour control, the mesodiencephalic system is superordinate to the cortex should have profound implications for behavioural sciences. Nevertheless, the thalamocortical system could still be deemed an “organ of consciousness” if we came to accept that consciousness is not central to purposeful behaviour, in accordance with instinct theory. Philosophically, Merker's concepts of basic consciousness and ego-centre warrant critical discussion.

In her target article, Sue Llewellyn concludes that an unconstrained form of consciousness is necessary for the elaboration of meaningful associations. Unlike the author's view that dedifferentiation of memory encoding processes across wakefulness and sleep determines schizophrenia, our proposal suggests this mechanism could reflect a common neurobiological substrate for psychosis across several different diagnostic domains.

Why is social bias and its depressing effects on low-status or low-performing groups exaggerated? We show that the higher intelligence of academics has at best a very weak effect on reducing their bias, facilitates superficially justifying their biases, and may make them better at understanding the benefits of social conformity in general and competitive altruism specifically. We foresee a surge in research examining these mechanisms and recommend, meanwhile, reviving and better observing scientific ideals.

Although the working memory capacity involved in syntactic processing may be separate from the capacity involved in word list recall, other aspects of initial sentence interpretation appear to depend on some of the same capacities tapped by span tasks. Specifically, there appears to a capacity for lexical–semantic retention involved in both sentence comprehension and span measures.

Willpower (as suppression, resolve, and habit) has ramifications for autonomy and mental time-travel. Autonomy presupposes mature powers of volition and the capacity to anticipate future events and consequences of one's actions. Ainslie's study is useful to clarify basic autonomy in addiction and dementia. Furthermore, we show how our study on coping with stress can be applied to suppression and resolve.

Normative theories like probability logic provide roadmaps for psychological investigations. They make theorizing precise. Therefore, normative considerations should not be subtracted from psychological research. I explain why conditional elimination inferences involve at least two norm paradigms; why reporting agreement with rationality norms is informative; why alleged asymmetric relations between formal and psychological theories are symmetric; and I discuss the arbitration problem.

ACT is compared with a particular type of connectionist model that cannot handle symbols and use nonbiological operations which do not learn in real time. This focus continues an unfortunate trend of straw man debates in cognitive science. Adaptive Resonance Theory, or ART-neural models of cognition can handle both symbols and subsymbolic representations, and meet the Newell criteria at least as well as connectionist models.

Defining culture as social learning means that culture is present in many birds and mammals, suggesting that cetacean culture is not so special and does not require special explanation. Contrary to their own claims, Rendell and Whitehead present culture as having variant forms in different species, and these forms seem inconsistently applied and compared across species.