Understanding Other Minds Perspectives from developmental social neuroscience

Over its previous two editions, Understanding Other Minds has established itself as a classic text on autism and theory of mind.

In the 15 years since the last edition was prepared, the neuroimaging literature on 'theory of mind' has expanded significantly, revealing new brain regions and their role in regard to 'theory of mind'. Other major changes include developments in the study of infants and in the fields of hormones and genetics. Such studies have revealed evidence of both heritability (from twin studies), some molecular genetic associations, and a specific role for both sex steroid hormones(such as foetal testosterone) and neuropeptide hormones, such as oxytocin.

The new edition brings together an international team of leading writers and researchers from psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience, and philosophy to present a state-of-the-art review of scientific research in this important field - one that will be essential for all those involved in the fields of developmental psychology and neuroscience, as well as psychiatrists and philosophers.

Simon Baron-Cohen, Professor of Developmental Psychopathology, Director, Autism Research Centre, Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, UK,Michael Lombardo, Research Associate, Autism Research Centre, Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, UK,Helen Tager-Flusberg, Department of Psychology, Boston University, USA

Simon Baron-Cohen is Professor Developmental Psychopathology at the University of Cambridge and Fellow at Trinty College, Cambridge. He is Director of the Autism Research Centre (ARC) in Cambridge. He holds degrees in Human Sciences from New College, Oxford, a PhD in Psychology from UCL, and an M.Phil in Clinical Psychology at the Institute of Psychiatry in London. He held lectureships in both of these departments before moving to Cambridge in 1994. He is author of Mindblindness (1995), The Essential Difference (2003), Prenatal Testosterone in Mind (2005), and Zero Degrees of Empathy (2011). He has edited a number of scholarly anthologies including Understanding Ohter Minds (1993, 2000, and 2013), Synaesthesia (1997), and The Maladapted Mind (1997). He has also written books for parents and teachers including Autism and Asperger Syndrome: The Facts (2008), and Teaching Children with Autism to Mindread (1999). He has celebrated art in autism in An Exact Mind (2004).

Michael V. Lombardo received a BA from the University of California, Davis and PhD from the University of Cambridge. Soon after his PhD he took up a research fellowship from Jesus College, Cambridge and a postdoctoral research fellowship from the British Academy. Dr. Lombardo is currently a research associate and Director of MRI at the Autism Research Centre at the University of Cambridge. His interdisciplinary work focuses on understanding autism, self-referential and social cognition, human brain development, and the early effects that hormones have for programming later development.

Helen Tager-Flusberg received her Bachelors in Science in Psychology from University College London, and her doctorate from Harvard University. From 1978 through 2001 she was a Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts -Boston. From 1996 - 2001 she also held the position of Senior Scientist at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center/UMass Medical Center. Since 2001 Dr. Tager-Flusberg has been at Boston University in the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology and Pediatrics at the School of Medicine and now as Professor of Psychology at Boston University, where she is the Director of the Autism Center of Excellence. Dr. Tager-Flusberg has conducted research on autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders investigating developmental changes in language and social cognition using behavioral and brain imaging methodologies.

Section 1: Theory of Mind: Development/Cognitive
1. Early manifestations of mind reading, Victoria Southgate
2. Learning about the Mind from Evidence: Children's development of intuitive theories of perception and personality, Andrew N. Meltzoff and Alison Gopnik
3. Theory of Mind, Development, and Deafness, Henry M. Wellman and Candida C. Peterson
4. Teleology: Belief as perspective, Josef Perner and Johannes Roessler
5. Can Theory of Mind Grow Up?: Mindreading in adults, and its implications for the development and neuroscience of mindreading, Ian Apperly
7. Autism: Self and others, Peter Hobson and Jessica Hobson
8. Mind attribution is for morality, Liane Young and Adam Waytz
9. Issues in the Measurement of Judgmental Accuracy, David A. Kenny
Section 2: Theory of Mind: Neuroscience
10. EEG/ERP Studies of Theory of Mind, Mark A. Sabbagh
11. Functional Neuroimaging of Theory of Mind, Jorie Koster-Hale and Rebecca Saxe
12. Theory of Mind: Insights from patients with acquired brain damage, Dana Samson and Caroline Michel
13. Understanding Emotional and Cognitive Empathy: A neuropsychological perspective, Anat Perry and Simone Shamay-Tsoory
14. Neural Sources of Empathy: An evolving story, Jamil Zaki and Kevin Ochsner
Section 3: Theory of Mind: Neural Mechanisms
15. Mirror Neuron System and Social Cognition, Christian Keysers, Marc Thioux, and Valeria Gazzola
16. The Mirror Mechanism: Understanding others from the inside, Giacomo Rizzolatti and Maddalena Fabbir-Destro
17. Social Neuropeptides in the Human Brain: Oxytocin and social behaviour, Markus Heinrichs, Frances S. Chen, and Gregor Domes
18. Prenatal and Postnatal Testosterone Effects on Human Social and Emotional Behavior, Bonnie Auyeung and Simon Baron-Cohen
19. Understanding the Genetics of Empathy and the Autistic Spectrum, Bhismadev Chakrabarti and Simon Baron-Cohen
Section 4: Theory of Mind: Autism/Psychopathology/Neurological Disorders
20. Theory of Mind in Deaf Children: Illuminating the relative roles of language and executive functioning in the development of social cognition, Jennie Pyers and Peter A. de Villiers
21. Social Cognition in Individuals with Psychopathic Tendencies, James Blair and Stuart White
22. Two Systems for Action Comprehension in Autism: Mirroring and mentalising, Antonia Hamilton and Lauren Marsh
23. Autism: Self and others, Peter Hobson and Jessica A. Hobson
24. A review of theory of Mind Interventions for children and adolescents with Autism Spectrum Conditions, Julie Hadwin and Hanna Kovshoff
Section 5: Theory of Mind: Comparative
25. Culture and the Evolution of Interconnected Minds, Andrew Whiten
26. Mindreading by Simulation: The roles of imagination and mirroring, Alvin Goldman and Lucy Jordan
27. Mindreading the Self, Peter Carruthers