Grounding principles for inferring agency: Two cultural perspectives

The present research investigates cultural variation in grounding principles for inferring agency in order to address an important theoretical debate: does cultural diversity in agency concepts reflect an animistic overextension of (universal) folkpsychology, as many have argued, or an alternative theory of folkcommunication based on relational principles? In two experiments, mind perception measures were adapted to assess beliefs concerning the agency of non-animal kinds (plants, abiotic kinds, complex artifacts) among Indigenous Ngöbe adults in Panama and US college students. Agency attributions varied systematically, with Ngöbe ascribing greater agency to non-animal natural kinds and US college participants ascribing greater agency to complex artifacts. Analysis of explanations revealed divergent interpretations of agency as a prototypically human capacity requiring consciousness (US), versus a relational capacity expressed in directed interactions (Ngöbe). Converging measures further illuminated the inferential principles underlying these agency attributions. (1) An experimental relational framing of agency probes facilitated Ngöbe but not US agency attributions. (2) Further analysis showed that three key dimensions of agency attribution (experience, cognition, animacy) are organized differently across cultures. (3) A Bayesian approach to cultural consensus modeling confirmed the presence of two distinct consensus models rather than variations on a single (universal) model. Together, these results indicate that conceptual frameworks for agency differ across US college and Ngöbe communities. We conclude that Ngöbe concepts of agency derive from a distinct theory of folkcommunication based on an ecocentric prototype rather than overextensions of an anthropocentric folkpsychology. These observations suggest that folkpsychology and mind perception represent culture specific frameworks for agency, with significant implications for domain-specificity theory and our understanding of cognitive diversity.     

“Album V”

“Album V” is an inquiry on aesthetic experience, particularly the perception of analogy in our encounter with works of art. It takes the form of a visual essay comprised of dozens of images culled from a variety of published sources, and montaged together in the form of an “image bank” or photo album. Supplementing this visual essay, “Notes on “Album V”” is a text that reflects on the questions raised by “Album V”. The text describes analogy as a play of correspondences occurring at two levels: correspondences between the sensible forms of which a given artwork is composed; and correspondences between the artwork as a whole, and the experiential forms of the embodied and situated viewer while encountering the artwork. A precondition of this play of correspondences is the “intimacy” that defines all the relationships that constitute existential being-in-the world.