Block argues for a method and a substantive thesis – that consciousness overflows accessibility. The method can help answer the question of what it is like to be a baby. Substantively, infant consciousness may be accessible in some ways but not others. But development itself can also add important methodological tools and substantive insights to the study of consciousness.

Almaatouq et al. propose an integrative experiment design space combined with large samples for scientific advancement. We argue recent innovative designs combining closed-loop experiment designs and Bayesian optimisation allow for integrative experiments at an individual level during a single session, circumventing the necessity for large samples. This method can be applied across disciplines, including developmental and clinical research.

Certain method of loci (MoL) prerequisites – familiar, coherently ordered locations – should appear during dreaming if the latter is, in fact, elaborative memory encoding as hypothesized by Llewellyn. A review of the literature suggests that dreamed locations are neither familiar nor coherently ordered and thus unsuitable for facilitating memory in this sense. This conclusion converges with other evidence that episodic memory is dependent upon non–rapid eye movement (NREM), rather than REM, sleep.

By structuring information in a systematic relational framework, narratives are cultural attractors that are particularly well-suited for transmission. The relational structure of narrative is partly what communicates causality, but this structure also complicates both transmission and selection on cultural elements by introducing correlations among narrative elements and between different narratives. These correlations have implications for adaptation, complexity, and robustness.

Gintis's article is an example of growing awareness by social scientists of the significance of evolutionary theory for understanding human nature. Although we share its main point of view, we comment on some disagreements related to levels of behavioral analysis, the explanation of social cooperation, and the ubiquity of inter-individual differences in human decision-making.

We argue that the phases identified in the novelty-seeking model can be clarified by considering an updated version of the optimal-level of arousal model, which incorporates the “arousal” and “mood changing” potentials of stimuli and contexts. Such a model provides valuable insights into what determines one's state of mind, inter-individual differences, and the rewarding effects of curiosity and creativity.

We examine Carruthers’ proposal that sentences in logical form serve to create flexibility within central system modularity, enabling the combination of information from different modalities. We discuss evidence from aphasia and the neurobiology of input-output systems. This work suggests that there exists considerable capacity for interdomain cognitive processing without language mediation. Other challenges for a logical form account are noted.

Evans & Levinson (E&L) argue against Universal Grammar on the basis of language diversity. A related and fundamental issue is whether the language input provides sufficient information for a child to acquire it. I briefly discuss the more integrated approaches to language acquisition which focus on the mechanisms, and research showing that input cues provide valuable information for the language learner.

We agree that conceptualisation is key in understanding the brain basis of emotion. We argue that by conflating facial emotion recognition with subjective emotion experience, Lindquist et al. understate the importance of biological predisposition in emotion. We use examples from the anxiety disorders to illustrate the distinction between these two phenomena, emphasising the importance of both emotional hardware and contextual learning.

Mahr & Csibra (M&C) claim that episodic remembering's autonoetic character serves as an indicator of epistemic authority. This proposal is difficult to reconcile with the existence of confabulation errors – where participants fabricate memories of experiences that never happened to them. Making confabulation errors damages one's epistemic authority, but these false memories have an autonoetic character.

The dance metaphor for the communication between two organisms may be an appealing image because it appears to capture the intricate synchronization of their interaction; however, it is neither parsimonious nor easily tested. Instead, a multichannel information-processing model, even one that can process only serial events, provides all of the flexibility required to account for the complex temporal coordinated action observed.

First, we clarify the central nature of our argument: our attempt isto apportion variation in brain size between developmentalconstraint, system-specific change, and “mosaic” change, underliningthe unexpectedly large role of developmental constraint, but makingno case for exclusivity. We consider the special cases of unusualhypertrophy of single structures in single species, regressivenervous systems, and the unusually variable cerebellum raised by thecommentators. We defend the description of the cortex (or anydevelopmentally-constrained structure) as a potential spandrel, andweigh the implications of the spandrel concept for the course ofhuman evolution. The empirical and statistical objections raised inthe commentary of Barton are discussed at length. Finally, wecatalogue and comment on the suggestions of new ways to study brainevolution, and new aspects of brain evolution to study.

multiple endogenous and exogenous prenatal influences interact to form a system that induces the development of individual lateralization across a range of perceptual and motor abilities in precocial birds. as these influences are nearly invariant for all species members, they produce a phylogenetic influence that creates high levels of population laterality and social cohesion in the postnatal state.

A dynamic systems (DS) approach uncovers important connections between emotion and neurophysiology. It is critical, however, to include a developmental perspective. Strides in the understanding of emotional development, as well as the present use of DS in developmental science, add significantly to the study of emotion. Examples include stranger fear during infancy, intermodal perception of emotion, and development of individual emotional systems.

Lane et al. propose an integrative model for the reconsolidation of traces in their timely and impressive article. This commentary draws attention to trade-offs between accuracy and self-narrative integrity in the model. The trade-offs concern the sense of agency in memory and its role in both implicit and explicit memory reconsolidation, rather than balances concerning degrees of emotional arousal.

Would we lie to ourselves? We don't need to. Rather than a single self equipped with a few bivariate processes, the mind is composed of a dissociated aggregation of subselves processing qualitatively different information relevant to different adaptive problems. Each subself selectively processes the information coming in to the brain as well as information previously stored in the brain.