Here are three mutually incompatible propositions: 1. To understand the intentional actions of others requires knowledge of the intentional states (i.e., beliefs and desires) which (rationally) motivated those actions. 2. Monkeys do not have knowledge of the intentional states (beliefs and desires) motivating the actions of others. 3. Monkeys understand the intentional actions of other monkeys....

We describe and report on results of employing a new method for analyzing lay conceptions of intentional and unintentional action. Instead of asking people for their conceptual intuitions with regard to construed scenarios, we asked our participants to come up with their own scenarios and to explain why these are examples of intentional or unintentional actions. By way of content analysis, we e...

It has been pointed out that gaze alternation by infants, which is a basis for social communication, is related to the process of the development of intentional agency. Intentional agency is defined as an act with a desired goal and a means. It has been pointed out that infants understand others’ intentions based on intentional agency. In our recent work, we constructed a computational model wh...