creators_name: Nichols, Shaun
creators_name: Stich, Stephen
creators_name: Leslie, Alan
creators_name: Klein, David
editors_name: Carruthers, Peter
editors_name: Smith, Peter
type: bookchapter
datestamp: 1999-01-12
lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:53:52
metadata_visibility: show
title: Varieties of Off-Line Simulation
ispublished: pub
subjects: cog-psy
subjects: dev-psy
subjects: phil-mind
full_text_status: public
keywords: Simulation Theory, Theory Theory, folk psychology, theory of mind, cognitive penetrability, role taking, empathy, counterfactual reasoning, imagery
abstract: The debate over off-line simulation has largely focussed on the capacity to predict behavior, but the basic idea of off-line simulation can be cast in a much broader framework. The central claim of the off-line account of behavior prediction is that the practical reasoning mechanism is taken off-line and used for predicting behavior. However, there's no reason to suppose that the idea of off-line simulation can't be extended to mechanisms other than the practical reasoning system. In principle, any cognitive component can be taken off-line and used to perform some other function. On this view of off-line simulation, such accounts differ radically from traditional information-based accounts of cognitive capacities. And cognitive penetrability provides a wedge for empirically determining whether a capacity requires an information-based account or an off-line simulation account. Stich and Nichols (1992) argued that the simulation theory of behavior prediction was inadequate because behavior prediction seemed to be cognitively penetrable. We present empirical evidence that supports the claim that the behavior prediction is cognitively penetrable. As a result, the simulation account of behavior prediction still seems unpromising. However, off-line simulation might provide accounts of other cognitive capacities. Indeed, off- line simulation accounts have recently been offered for a strikingly diverse set of capacities including counterfactual reasoning, empathy and mental imagery. Goldman, for instance, maintains that counterfactual reasoning and empathy clearly demand off-line simulation accounts. We argue that there are alternative information-based explanations of these phenomena. Nonetheless, the off-line accounts of these phenomena are interesting and clearly worthy of further exploration.
date: 1996
date_type: published
publication: Theories of Theories of Mind
publisher: Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK
pagerange: 39-74
refereed: FALSE
citation:   Nichols, Shaun and Stich, Stephen and Leslie, Alan and Klein, David  (1996) Varieties of Off-Line Simulation.  [Book Chapter]     
document_url: http://cogprints.org/376/1/sim3.html