Onishi & Baillargeon

able to uncover by removing verbal components of the task

joint attention? Why were they wearing a visor?

Piaget's work on stages. I have always wondered when children begin to learn how to lie. really young infants stare longer when objects don’t add up and basic mathematical computations.

huge umbrella for all of these things that are supposed to emerge within the year-long window between ages 3 and 4

potential alternative explanations for why infants looked longer?

the sample pretty small? excluding those 14 infants?

testing and assessment should follow these researchers lead and work towards making assessment methods less language and culturally laden.

awesome!

if similar methods could be used in animal studies? would it be useful to look at their facial expressions to see if they display any element of surprise or confusion.

physiological measurements could be used?

when do they figure out how to lie?

I wonder if it's really a practical diagnostic tool. I would imagine that there might be false positive diagnoses. Currently, there are other reliable tools to diagnosis autism in infants (e.g. the ADOS).

how much language is tied up with what we call "conscious knowledge."

Preston & DeWaal

they “will act to terminate [other’s] distress, even incurring risk to themselves” made me think of the Milgram studies.

Why do some children develop empathy disorder (other than genetically caused disorders such as Autism)? It may be that in some contexts, being less empathetic is optimal for your survival, whereas in others, it enhances your fitness.

mirror neuron and psychopathy?

how perceived similarity predicts greater prosocial behavior. Made me think of social psych in-group, out-group stuff

I wonder if empathetic responses (e.g. physiologically, behaviorally, emotionally) would become stronger or weaker over time.

both ultimate and proximate causes of empathy - I was bothered by how the biologist we were reading so strongly argued that altruism was due to kin selection or reciprocity.

compare young children who cosleep and young children who sleep in their own bed to assess for the hormonal changes

investigating these mechanisms from a cross-species perspective adds a layer of complexity to that debate

We might consider unintended (i.e., not mediated by deliberate choice) responses as "helping behavior" but not necessarily "empathetic" per se.

Gates Foundation, how empathy can be helpful in facilitating relationships on a small scale, but could limit us a larger, less personal level.

Sociopaths

how hard it is to do something really good for someone and never tell anyone about it

Lieberman

skeptical, though very interested, in the studies the author cites about African-American's having implicit negative associated with other African-Americans, while holding explicit positive associations.

mechanisms by which affect labeling reduces negative emotional responses.

how self-regulation processes translate to therapy and neurological changes. How mindfulness and self-regulation are involved

neuroeconomics

impressed by their findings on placebo effects

how malleable are the systems involved in "theory of mind"? Has anyone done any pre-post imaging studies following social skill training

brain regions involved in certain aspects of theory of mind?

self control acts like a muscle

whether there's a shift when a process becomes "non-conscious," whether such a shift would be gradual

care more about what other people think than anything else

amygdala was activated when African American faces were presented subliminally - link between unconscious racism and fear