ABSTRACT
There are phenomena, call them joint actions, paradigm cases of which are held to involve two people painting a house together (Bratman 1992), lifting a heavy sofa together (Velleman 1997), preparing a hollandaise sauce together (Searle 1990), going to Chicago together (Kutz 2000), and walking together (Gilbert 1990). In developmental psychology paradigm cases of joint action include two people tidying up the toys together (Behne, Carpenter, and Tomasello 2005), cooperatively pulling handles in sequence to make a dog-puppet sing (Brownell, Ramani, and Zerwas 2006), bouncing a block on a large trampoline together (Tomasello and Carpenter 2007), and pretending to row a boat together. Other paradigm cases from research in cognitive psychology include two people lifting a two-handled basket (Knoblich and Sebanz 2008), putting a stick through a ring (Ramenzoni et al. 2011), and swinging their legs in phase (Schmidt and Richardson 2008, 284). What feature or features distinguish joint actions such as these from events involving multiple agents who are merely acting in parallel?
