The rarity of altruistic punishment in small-scale societies should not be interpreted as evidence that altruistic punishment is not an important determinant of cooperation in general. While it is essential to collect field data on altruistic punishment, this kind of data has limitations. Laboratory experiments can help shed light on the role of altruistic punishment “in the wild.”

Gangestad & Simpson's theory accounts for the existence of male strategic variation admirably well, although it does not specify the precise nature of the adaptation linking male developmental stability to strategic pluralism. In contrast, female strategic variation remains elusive. Empirical data suggest that genetic variation partly underlies such variation, but the causes of female strategic differences largely remain unexplained.

We argue that the meaning of smiles is interpreted from physical/contextual cues, and simulation may simply reinforce the information derived from these cues. We suggest that, contrary to the claim of the SIMS model, positive and negative smiles may invoke similar simulation processes. Finally, we provide alternative explanations for the role of eye contact in the processing of smiles.

The capacity of visual attention/STM can be determined by change-detection experiments. Detecting the presence of change leads to an estimate of 4 items, while detecting the absence of change leads to an estimate of 1 item. Thus, there are two magical numbers in vision: 4 and 1. The underlying limits, however, are not necessarily those of central STM.

We discuss whether low-dimensional chaos and even nonlinear processes can be traced in the electrical activity of the brain. Experimental data show that the dimensional complexity of the EEG decreases during event-related potentials associated with cognitive effort. This probably represents increased nonlinear cooperation between different neural systems during sensory information processing.

Whether in sign or speech, language is more integrative than the target article suggests. A more integrative view embraces not only sign/speech and co-sign/speech gesture, but also indicative gestures irrespective of modality, and locations along with movements in the signed modality, as suggested by both linguistic acquisition and pathologies. An extended integrative view also proves advantageous in terms of conceptual coherence.

Koriat & Goldsmith provide an excellent analysis of the flexibility of retrieval processes and how they are situationally dependent. I agree with their emphasis on functional considerations and argue that the traditional laboratory experiment motivates the subject to be accurate. However, I disagree with their strong claim that the quantity–accuracy distinction implies an essential discontinuity between traditional and naturalistic approaches to the study of memory.

Some dichotomies related to modeling electrocortical activities are analyzed. Attractor neural networks versus biologically motivated models, near-equilibrium versus nonequilibrium processes, linear and nonlinear dynamics, stochastic and chaotic patterns, local and global scale simulation of cortical activities are discussed.

Drawing on an example from artificial grammar learning, I present the case that similarity processes can be computationally identical to rules processes, but that participants in an artificial grammar learning experiment may use different processing modes to classify stimuli. The number of properties and other representational differences between rule and similarity processes are an accidental consequence of strategies used.