Generalization of the standard behavior longitudinal genetic factor model for the analysis of interindividual phenotypic variation to a genetic state space model for the analysis of intraindividual variation enables the possibility to estimate subject-specific heritabilities.

Kurzban et al. argue that the experiences of “effort,” “boredom,” and “fatigue” are indications that the costs of a task outweigh its benefits. Reducing the costs of tasks to “opportunity costs” has the effect of rendering tasks costless and of denying that they can be inherently boring or tedious, something that “vigilance tasks” were intentionally designed to be.

Human pain experience and expression evolved to serve a range of social functions, including warning others, eliciting care, and influencing interpersonal relationships, as well as to protect from physical danger. Study of the relatively specific, involuntary, and salient facial display of pain permits examination of these roles, extending our appreciation of pain beyond the prevalent narrow focus on somatosensory mechanisms.

When it comes to behavioral change, economic design and behavioral science are complements, not substitutes. Chater & Loewenstein give examples from policy design. In this commentary, I use examples, often from my own research, to show how behavioral insights inform the design of the rules that govern market transactions.

Causal and counterfactual thoughts are bound together in Byrne's theory of human imagination. We think there are two issues in her theory that deserve clarification. First, Byrne describes which counterfactual possibilities we think of, but she leaves unexplained the mechanisms by which we generate these possibilities. Second, her exploration of “strong causes” and enablers gives two different predictions of which counterfactuals we think of in causal scenarios. On one account, we think of the counterfactuals which we have control over. On the other, which counterfactuals we think of depends on whether something is a strong cause or an enabler. Although these two accounts sometimes give the same predictions, we present cases in which they differ, and we would like to see Byrne's theory provide a way of reconciling these differences.

This commentary makes two rejoinders to O'Regan & Noë. It clarifies the status of visual representations in their account, and argues that their explanation of the (according to them, illusory) appeal of qualia is unsatisfying.

a mental heuristic is a shortcut (means) to a desired end. in the moral (as opposed to factual) realm, the means/end distinction is not self-evident: how do we decide whether a given moral intuition is a mere heuristic to achieve some freestanding moral principle, or instead a freestanding moral principle in its own right? i discuss sunstein's solution to that threshold difficulty in translating “heuristics” to the moral realm.

We dispute Carey's assumption that distinct core cognitive processes employ domain-specific input analyzers to construct proprietary representations. We give reasons to believe that conceptual systems co-opt core components for new domains. Domain boundaries, as well as boundaries between perceptual–motor and conceptual cognitive resources may be useful abstractions, but do not appear to reflect constraints respected by brains and cognitive systems.

Although the quantum probability (QP) can be useful to model the context effect, it is not relevant to the order effect, conjunction fallacy, and other related biases. Although the issue of potentiality, which is the intuition behind QP, is involved in the context effect, it is not involved in the other biases.

The target article approaches individual differences in terms of phenotypic differences developing through the interaction between a specific genetic make up and environmental variables. This interaction is proposed to be cooperative and oriented toward a progressive stabilisation of the trait. However, experimental data from animal studies indicate that environmental pressure promotes dramatic changes in phenotypic expression in mature organisms. Indeed, environmental constraint not only promotes the phenotypic expression of facilitated VTA-NAS DA transmission in genotype-resistant individuals; it also inhibits its expression in genetically prone individuals. This is in line with negative genotype-environment correlation revealed by behavior genetics.