ABSTRACT
Research on mindreading in adults occupies a rather strange position in the literature. Developmental and comparative psychologists typically ignore adults because adults ``pass'' most tests of mindreading. Researchers of human language and communication typically assume that mindreading is a problem that other researchers have already solved. And social psychologists get cross because they have been studying many forms of mindreading for decades but have often been overlooked by other psychologists and by linguists interested in mindreading. Therefore I need to start this chapter with a brief discussion of work in human communication and social psychology, partly in order to glean important lessons from these wellestablished literatures, and partly to clear some space for the studies I shall discuss in more detail. Along the way I shall point out the potential relevance of work on adults for developmental and comparative psychology, and will return to this again in chapter 7.
