We delineate a developmental model of number representations. Notably, developmental dyscalculia (DD) is rarely associated with an all-or-none deficit in numerosity processing as would be expected if assuming abstract number representations. Finally, we suggest that the “generalist genes” view might be a plausible – though thus far speculative – explanatory framework for our model of how number representations develop.

We argue that the lack of large cross-cultural differences in many games with student subjects from developed countries may be due to the nature of the games studied. These games tap primarily basic psychological reactions, like fairness and reciprocity. Once we look at norm-enforcement, in particular punishment, we find large differences even among culturally rather homogeneous student groups from developed countries.

Imaginary worlds are extremely successful. The most popular fictions produced in the last few decades contain such a fictional world. They can be found in all fictional media, from novels (e.g., Lord of The Rings and Harry Potter) to films (e.g., Star Wars and Avatar), video games (e.g., The Legend of Zelda and Final Fantasy), graphic novels (e.g., One Piece and Naruto), and TV series (e.g., Star Trek and Game of Thrones), and they date as far back as ancient literature (e.g., the Cyclops Islands in The Odyssey, 850 BCE). Why such a success? Why so much attention devoted to non-existent worlds? In this paper, we propose that imaginary worlds co-opt our preferences for exploration, which have evolved in humans and nonhuman animals alike, to propel individuals toward new environments and new sources of reward. Humans would find imaginary worlds very attractive for the very same reasons, and under the same circumstances, as they are lured by unfamiliar environments in real life. After reviewing research on exploratory preferences in behavioral ecology, environmental esthetics, neuroscience, and evolutionary and developmental psychology, we focus on the sources of their variability across time and space, which we argue can account for the variability of the cultural preference for imaginary worlds. This hypothesis can, therefore, explain the way imaginary worlds evolved culturally, their shape and content, their recent striking success, and their distribution across time and populations.

At odds with Hibbing et al., we argue that political ideology is best explained by at least two dimensions linked to economic and social ideology. In addition, Hibbing et al's claim that conservatism is grounded in a heightened sensitivity to negative outcomes, something closely tied to the personality trait of neuroticism, does not fit with the established personality correlates of political ideology. Conscientiousness and a lack of openness to experience are linked to conservatism but there is no established connection to neuroticism.

We propose to understand social affordances in the broader context of responsiveness to a field of relevant affordances in general. This perspective clarifies our everyday ability to unreflectively switch between social and other affordances. Moreover, based on our experience with Deep Brain Stimulation for treating obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) patients, we suggest that psychiatric disorders may affect skilled intentionality, including responsiveness to social affordances.

The additional data, perspectives, questions, and criticisms contributed by the commentaries strengthen our view that local cortical processors coordinate their activity with the context in which it occurs using contextual fields and synchronized population codes. We therefore predict that whereas the specialization of function has been the keynote of this century the coordination of function will be the keynote of the next.

A literature in which most data are outliers is flawed, and the target article sounds a timely alarm call for the behavioural sciences. It also suggests remedies. We mostly concur, except for arguing that the importance of the fact that the researchers themselves are mostly outliers has been underplayed. Improving matters requires non-Western researchers, as well as research subjects.

Human expression is open-ended, versatile, and diverse, ranging from ordinary language use to painting, from exaggerated displays of affection to micro-movements that aid coordination. Here we present and defend the claim that this expressive diversity is united by an interrelated suite of cognitive capacities, the evolved functions of which are the expression and recognition of informative intentions. We describe how evolutionary dynamics normally leash communication to narrow domains of statistical mutual benefit, and how expression is unleashed in humans. The relevant cognitive capacities are cognitive adaptations to living in a partner choice social ecology; and they are, correspondingly, part of the ordinarily developing human cognitive phenotype, emerging early and reliably in ontogeny. In other words, we identify distinctive features of our species' social ecology to explain how and why humans, and only humans, evolved the cognitive capacities that, in turn, lead to massive diversity and open-endedness in means and modes of expression. Language use is but one of these modes of expression, albeit one of manifestly high importance. We make cross-species comparisons, describe how the relevant cognitive capacities can evolve in a gradual manner, and survey how unleashed expression facilitates not only language use, but also novel behaviour in many other domains too, focusing on the examples of joint action, teaching, punishment, and art, all of which are ubiquitous in human societies but relatively rare in other species. Much of this diversity derives from graded aspects of human expression, which can be used to satisfy informative intentions in creative and new ways. We aim to help reorient cognitive pragmatics, as a phenomenon that is not a supplement to linguistic communication and on the periphery of language science, but rather the foundation of the many of the most distinctive features of human behaviour, society, and culture.

Although there is increasing agreement that the cerebellum plays an important role in motor learning, the basic substance of what constitutes motor learning has been difficult to define. Unless motor learning is somehow radically different from other forms of learning, it must involve relatively simple stimulus-stimulus and stimulus-response associations. All forms of learning, including purely sensory associations and cognitive learning as well as motor learning, effect changes in behavior. However, a singular characteristic of motor learning is that it adjusts joint and limb mechanics by altering the neural input to muscles through practice and mental rehearsal. The hypothesis proposed here is that the cerebellum plays an important role in motor learning by forming and storing associated muscle activation patterns for the time-varying control of limb mechanics. By modulating the cocontraction of agonist-antagonist muscles through adjustments in the timing and amplitude of muscle activity, the viscoelastic properties of joints can be appropriately regulated throughout Movement and adapted for transitions between postures and movements. Optimal control of joint viscoelastic properties cannot be achieved by online corrections initiated by reflex feedback because of the delays and consequent instabilities incurred. Instead, strategies for optimizing muscle activation patterns or synergies must be learned from the temporal association of proprioceptive stimuli signaling muscle lengths and forces and the rates of changes in these parameters, with reinforcement occurring when the movement achieves its objective. Such strategies would involve varying degrees of cocontraction or reciprocal inhibition of agonist-antagonist muscles that ultimately contribute to joint and limb stiffness. Evidence from neural recordings and clinical and experimental lesion studies are presented, suggesting that the cerebellum uses teleceptive and proprioceptive feedback as feedforward conditioned stimuli for specific muscle activation patterns contributing to joint stiffness (i.e., agonist-antagonist muscle synergies) for particular tasks and postures. A wide variety of observations are thought to be consistent with such a role for the cerebellum, but ultimately additional experiments could confirm or disconfirm this hypothesis.