[Xmca-l] Re: BBS Call for Commentary Proposals: Veissière et al.
Alfredo Jornet Gil
a.j.gil@ils.uio.no
Thu Jun 20 03:02:56 PDT 2019
What a great idea to share this, David!
I look through the article quickly and it does look like the authors' aims to achieve "a compromise position between 'internalise', brain-based approaches ..., which emphasise the neural machinery in individual humans' brains that is necessary to read other minds, and 'externalist' approaches (e.g., radical inactive and cultural evolutionary theory)" and to "capture the two-way traffic between the organism and the world" could be highly informed by cultural-historical theory. The paper touches on lots of literature, some of which is already (though loosely) informed by chat. Looks like a real possibility to write that commentary, but may take some time and effort judging by the wide variety of literature and arguments involved.
Alfredo
________________________________________
From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of David H Kirshner <dkirsh@lsu.edu>
Sent: 20 June 2019 11:35
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: [Xmca-l] FW: BBS Call for Commentary Proposals: Veissière et al.
I'm reading through this upcoming article in BBS which takes as its primary problem, acquisition of culture.
BBS solicits commentaries on each article, and these are reviewed and then published along with it.
As there is not a single reference to Vygotsky or cultural historical theory in the article, I thought someone on XMCA might want to submit a commentary.
David
-----Original Message-----
From: em.bbs.0.63fdcc.ab9f6a4c@editorialmanager.com <em.bbs.0.63fdcc.ab9f6a4c@editorialmanager.com> On Behalf Of Behavioral and Brain Sciences
Sent: Tuesday, June 18, 2019 1:46 AM
To: David H Kirshner <dkirsh@lsu.edu>
Subject: BBS Call for Commentary Proposals: Veissière et al.
Dear Dr. Kirshner:
We are writing you to announce that BBS has just accepted an article for open peer commentary in BBS. The article was already reviewed, and we are now accepting commentary proposals. If you are interested in writing a commentary, you are welcome to submit a short proposal (see instructions below). No action is required if you aren't interested.
Please DO NOT submit a full commentary article unless you are formally invited---AFTER you submit a commentary *proposal*. We will review all commentary proposals and issue invitations in August. Also, please be aware that we typically receive far more commentary proposals than we can accommodate with formal invitations. When choosing invitations, we balance over multiple factors, including the interest of the commentary itself, the commentator's expertise, whether the commentator's work has been discussed in the target article, and other considerations.
NOW PROCESSING COMMENTARY PROPOSALS ON:
Target Article: Thinking Through Other Minds: A Variational Approach to Cognition and Culture
Authors: Samuel P. L. Veissière, Axel Constant, Maxwell J. D. Ramstead, Karl J. Friston, and Laurence J. Kirmayer
Deadline for Commentary Proposals: Tuesday July 9, 2019
Abstract: The processes underwriting the acquisition of culture remain unclear. How are shared habits, norms, and expectations learned and maintained with precision and reliability across large-scale sociocultural ensembles? Is there a unifying account of the mechanisms involved in the acquisition of culture? Notions such as 'shared expectations', the 'selective patterning of attention and behaviour', 'cultural evolution', 'cultural inheritance', and 'implicit learning' are the main candidates to underpin a unifying account of cognition and the acquisition of culture; however, their interactions require greater specification and clarification. In this paper, we integrate these candidates using the variational (free energy) approach to human cognition and culture in theoretical neuroscience. We describe the construction by humans of social niches that afford epistemic resources called cultural affordances. We argue that human agents learn the shared habits, norms, and expectations of their culture through immersive participation in patterned cultural practices that selectively pattern attention and behaviour. We call this process "Thinking through Other Minds" (TTOM) - in effect, the process of inferring other agents' expectations about the world and how to behave in social context. We argue that for humans, information from and about other people's expectations constitutes the primary domain of statistical regularities that humans leverage to predict and organize behaviour. The integrative model we offer has implications that can advance theories of cognition, enculturation, adaptation, and psychopathology. Crucially, this formal (variational) treatment seeks to resolve key debates in current cognitive science, such as the distinction between internalist and externalist accounts of Theory of Mind abilities and the more fundamental distinction between dynamical and representational accounts of enactivism.
Keywords: Cognition and culture; Variational free energy principle; Social learning; Epistemic Affordances; Cultural affordances; Niche construction; Embodiment; Enactment
Download Target Article Preprint:
(Depending on your browser, the PDF will either load in a separate window, from which you can download the PDF, or will download directly to your computer.)
https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cambridge.org%2Fcore%2Fservices%2Faop-cambridge-core%2Fcontent%2Fview%2F9A10399BA85F428D5943DD847092C14A%2FS0140525X19001213a.pdf%2Fthinking_through_other_minds_a_variational_approach_to_cognition_and_culture.pdf&data=02%7C01%7Cdkirsh%40lsu.edu%7Ce1f5a84b1b104c1cea6708d6f3b87aa9%7C2d4dad3f50ae47d983a09ae2b1f466f8%7C0%7C1%7C636964370995231679&sdata=WSKHJ3Jeqft8ZFCCROdHFfWbjlOHw9Sb71L3KhWsdZI%3D&reserved=0
COMMENTARY PROPOSALS *MUST* INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING
1. Name of the target article for which you are submitting a commentary proposal.
2. All authors, including any possible co-authors, listed at the top of your submission document.
3. What aspect of the target article or book you would anticipate commenting on.
4. The relevant expertise you would bring to bear on the target article or book.
Please number these sections in your proposal: 1., 2., 3., 4.
EDITORS' NOTES ON WRITING YOUR PROPOSAL
In addition to the open "Call for Commentary Proposals," we invite commentators who do not submit proposals—these include reviewers of the paper, scholars whose work is discussed in the paper, and commentators suggested by the authors. (Obviously, these can be overlapping sets.) Once we subtract this set, only about 20 submitted proposals from the Call for Commentary Proposals can be invited to write a commentary.
Commentary selection is necessarily multifactorial. It must be balanced to a degree across the various fields of cognitive science, point of view of the article, and several other aspects of academic diversity. The number of proposals can vary widely, however, depending on the topic, the range is from 15 to 150! In the latter case, when we can accept only a little over 1 in 10 of the proposals, a few things will facilitate a positive reading of a proposal, and hopefully acceptance, given the constraints:
1. The proposal for the commentary should not be longer than the commentary, 1,000 words. 100-500 is optimal, and we value succinctness. On the other hand, "I intend to comment on X aspect of the target article" is not enough. Are you for it, against it, or extending it?
2. Under no circumstances should proposers simply write a commentary and submit it to us.
3. Proposers should clearly state what aspect of the target article they intend to comment on. It's quite obvious when proposers are using the commentary forum only to promote their own research and not engage with the target article. Such proposals are routinely declined.
4. Concerning "the relevant expertise you would bring to bear": While the editors have a generally good idea of who is active in the fields of the target article, we must cover a wide range and may be unaware of the people who have been most productive and influential in a given area, or the scholars who have engaged in heated debate with the authors in the past. So, the editors will be greatly helped if every proposer states their position in the field and lists between 2-10 relevant publications, again succinctly. On the other side of the spectrum, under no circumstances should an entire CV be included.
5. BUT … it's not all about articles previously published, or position in the field. It's not necessary to have published in the area, and it's not necessary to have a current academic appointment. We make efforts to include proposals coming both from established figures and total newcomers. An engaging idea elicited by the article, an illuminating application of the target article concept to an allied field, or a truly clever riposte is often all that's needed.
6. Being a co-author on multiple proposals directed to one target article will almost certainly remove one set of your co-authors or the other from contention altogether, which will put you in an unpleasant game theoretic situation with your colleagues. Do this carefully, if at all.
7. We make our choices mostly on quality and fit, but we do want to open up BBS to as many individuals as possible. If you've written one or more other commentaries recently, your odds of having another one accepted will correspondingly go down, though not to zero.
HOW TO SUBMIT A COMMENTARY PROPOSAL VIA THE ONLINE SUBMISSION SYSTEM
If you would like to nominate yourself for potential commentary invitation, you must submit a commentary proposal via our BBS Editorial Manager site:
1. Log-in to your BBS Editorial Manager account as an author:
https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.editorialmanager.com%2Fbbs&data=02%7C01%7Cdkirsh%40lsu.edu%7Ce1f5a84b1b104c1cea6708d6f3b87aa9%7C2d4dad3f50ae47d983a09ae2b1f466f8%7C0%7C1%7C636964370995241675&sdata=Me%2BTvDa2hmuk1zs6kUOoZJ97ZL4AoHx6ZfevwWTP34Q%3D&reserved=0
Username: DKirshner-489
Password: You will also need to enter your password. If you have forgotten it, you may click Send Login Details.
If you do not have an account, please visit the site and register.
2. Submit New Manuscript
Within your author main menu please select Submit New Manuscript.
3. Select Article Type
Choose the article type of your manuscript from the pull-down menu. Commentary proposal article types are temporarily created for each accepted target article or book. Only select the commentary proposal article type that you wish to submit a proposal on. For example: "Commentary Proposal (Veissière)"
4. Enter Title
Please title your proposal submission by indicating the relevant first author name of the target article or book. For example: "Commentary Proposal on Veissière"
5. Add Co-Authors
If you are proposing to write a commentary with any co-authors, the system will not allow you to enter their information here. Instead, include their names at the top of the commentary proposal document you upload. These potential co-authors need not contribute to the commentary proposal itself.
6. Attach Files
The only required submission Item is your commentary proposal in .DOC(X) or .RTF format. In the description field please add the first author name of the target article or book. For example: "Commentary Proposal on Veissière"
7. Approve Your Submission
Editorial Manager will process your commentary proposal submission and will create a PDF for your approval. On the "Submissions Waiting for Author's Approval" page, you can view your PDF, edit, approve, or remove the submission. (You might have to wait several minutes for the blue "Action" menu to appear, allowing you to approve.) Once you have Approved the Submission, the PDF will be sent to the editorial office.
**It is VERY important that you check and approve your commentary proposal manuscript as described above. Otherwise, we cannot process your submission.**
8. Editorial Office Decision
At the conclusion of the commentary proposal period, the editors will review all the submitted commentary proposals. An undetermined number of commentary proposals will be approved and those author names will be added to the final commentary invitation list. At that time you will be notified of the decision. If you are formally invited to submit a commentary, you will be asked to confirm your intention to submit by the commentary deadline.
Note: Before the commentary invitations are sent, the copy-edited and revised target article will be posted for invitees.
Please do not write a commentary unless you have received an official invitation!
BEING REMOVED FROM THE CALL EMAIL LIST
If you DO NOT wish to receive call for commentary proposals in the future, please reply to bbsjournal@cambridge.org, and type "remove" in the subject line.
SUGGESTING COMMENTATORS AND NOMINATING BBS ASSOCIATES
To suggest others as possible commentators, or to nominate others for BBS Associateship status, please email bbsjournal@cambridge.org.
Regards,
Gennifer Levey
Managing Editor, BBS
Cambridge University Press
bbsjournal@cambridge.org
https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fjournals.cambridge.org%2Fbbs&data=02%7C01%7Cdkirsh%40lsu.edu%7Ce1f5a84b1b104c1cea6708d6f3b87aa9%7C2d4dad3f50ae47d983a09ae2b1f466f8%7C0%7C1%7C636964370995241675&sdata=Kuhexo7D3NNwBEWnA6b%2Bl%2BNRak4NiNZvcJVslKbNRsQ%3D&reserved=0
https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fbbs.edmgr.com%2F&data=02%7C01%7Cdkirsh%40lsu.edu%7Ce1f5a84b1b104c1cea6708d6f3b87aa9%7C2d4dad3f50ae47d983a09ae2b1f466f8%7C0%7C1%7C636964370995241675&sdata=M7ajsvG4zNo5%2FQ%2BmTH3x6MM%2FItcA%2FQa6jYt8cfzIBlQ%3D&reserved=0
__________________________________________________
In compliance with data protection regulations, you may request that we remove your personal registration details at any time. (Use the following URL: https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.editorialmanager.com%2FBBS%2Flogin.asp%3Fa%3Dr&data=02%7C01%7Cdkirsh%40lsu.edu%7Ce1f5a84b1b104c1cea6708d6f3b87aa9%7C2d4dad3f50ae47d983a09ae2b1f466f8%7C0%7C1%7C636964370995241675&sdata=r%2Fxx85sR5XRuoNOT2Y4835WgFULamaLGc40foi86umQ%3D&reserved=0). Please contact the publication office if you have any questions.
More information about the xmca-l
mailing list