Lindquist et al.'s meta-analysis focuses on adult humans; the authors' emotion model might be strengthened by considering research on infants and animals, highlighting the importance of the limbic system. Reliance on the James–Lange theory is questionable; emotions typically occur instantaneously, with dubious dependence on bodily feedback for affect. Stronger evidence for localization might be obtained using more precise emotion terms and alterative localization methods.

Neither the storehouse nor the correspondence metaphor is an appropriate conceptual framework for memory research. Instead a meaning-based account of human memory is required. The correspondence metaphor is an advance over previous suggestions but entails an oversimple view of “accuracy.” Freud's account of memory may provide a more fruitful approach to memory and meaning.

We propose that the missing link from nonhuman to human cognition lies with our ability to form, modify, and re-form dynamic bindings between internal representations of world-states. This capacity goes beyond dynamic feature binding in perception and involves a new conception of working memory. We propose two tests for structured knowledge that might alleviate the impasse in empirical research in nonhuman animal cognition.

McKay & Dennett (M&D) identify positive illusions as fulfilling the criteria for an adaptive misbelief, but could there be other types of beliefs that may qualify as adaptive misbeliefs? My commentary addresses this and other questions through identifying belief in free will as a potential candidate as an adaptive misbelief.

Self-deception may be the result of social manipulation and conflict management of social in-groups. Although self-deception certainly has offensive and defensive aspects, a full evolutionary understanding of this phenomenon is not possible until strategies of other parties are included into a model of self-perception and self-representation.

Deciding where to look is a very complicated process, but deciding when to look is probably much simpler. Once the brain is certain of where it wants to look, the saccade-generating pathway may simply start autonomously. Higher cognitive areas of the brain can only override this automatic start by preventing all saccades. Hence, the brain has no ability to say when to go; it can only say “go there” or “stay here.”

This commentary discusses the dynamic systems (DS) approach to communication over an information-processing (IP) model. The commenters suggest that the authors of the target article, in their treatment of the issue, do not identify the central failing of the IP model. Further, it is suggested that the DS approach should include examination of mechanisms in the emergence of symbolic communication.

Borsboom and colleagues argue that reductionism in psychopathology research has not provided the expected insights. Instead, they suggest a systems approach of interacting syndromes, which, however, falls short of a perspective for empirical testing. Here, a combination of both approaches is suggested: a reductionistic empirical approach allowing testability, synergistic with a constructivistic systems appraisal of syndrome networks – a constructive reductionism.

Unless restricted to explicitly held, sharable beliefs that control and justify a person's behavior, the notion of a rule has little value as an explanatory concept. Similarity-based processing is a general characteristic of the mind-world interface where internal processes (including explicitly represented rules) act on the external world. The distinction between rules and similarity is therefore misconceived.

The authors of Images of the Mind have made a significant contribution to our understanding of the brain through imaging technology. The book is well written, timely, beautifully illustrated and conveys a sense of history. It will appeal to alay audience as well as a professional audience.

This commentary attempts to reconcile the predictions of Aggleton & Brown's theoretical framework with previous findings obtained from experimental tests of laboratory animals with selective hippocampal lesions. Adopting a convergent operations approach, the predictions of the model are also related to human neuroimaging data and to other complementary research perspectives (cognitive, computational, psychopharmacological).

Campbell's target article is a stimulating attempt to extend our understanding of sex differences in risk-taking behaviors. However, Campbell does not succeed in demonstrating that her account adds explanatory power to those (e.g., Daly & Wilson 1994) previously proposed. In particular, little effort was made to explore the causal links between survival (staying alive) and reproduction.

Bering's findings about the mental representation of dead agents are important, although his opposition between “endemic” and “cultural” concepts is misleading. Endemic and cultural are overlapping, not exclusive categories. It is also diffcult to see why reasoning about the dead would require a specific cognitive mechanism. Bering presents no clear evidence for the claim that the postulated mechanism is an adaptation.

This commentary compares the P-FIT model with psychometric and developmental models of intelligence and shows that there are isomorphisms and divergences between them. All three models involve some common dimensions, but the P-FIT model lacks many of the dimensions of the other models. Then we point to research that can lead to the integration of brain models with cognitive-developmental models.