Do You Need to Be Conscious to Learn to Be Conscious?

Abstract

Box 1. Empirical Evidence for Early Competence

Just as animals and plants are getting smarter every year (they do not, but our detection methods have become more sensitive), there is now substantial evidence that infants are capable of much more than we assumed was the case even just 10 years ago. Infants as young as 5 months old are capable of implicit theory of mind - that is, the ability to correctly predict others' actions based on their goals [6]. Thus, although explicit ToM may only develop much later, even young infants are capable of correctly inferring other people's mental states in specific contexts. Likewise, just as is the case for animals (see [7] for a recent special issue), preverbal infants as young as 12 months old are capable of limited forms of metacognition [8]. Furthermore, Kouider et al. [9] showed how neural markers associated with consciousness are already present, though in a delayed form, in infants. There is also evidence that fetuses have social interactions, as an in utero study of the movement kinematics of twins has intriguingly suggested [10]. Finally, self-awareness itself is far from a monolithic concept and likely develops gradually in different directions [11,12]. These findings all suggest that core cognitive abilities come into existence much earlier than typically assumed.