ABSTRACT
What was the last thing you said? The last thing you heard? The last thing you read? And the last thing you wrote? How did your brain do these things?
Think of the steps involved in communicating with other people. We must have the necessary biological hardware: We need an articulatory apparatus that enables us to make the right sort of sounds, and of course we also need a brain to decide what to say, how to say it, and to make the components of the articulatory apparatus move at just the right time. We also need a language complex enough to convey any possible message. We need to know the words and how to put the words in the right order. Young children somehow acquire this language. Finally, we have to be aware of the social setting in which we produce and understand these messages: We need to be aware of the knowledge and beliefs of other people, and have some idea of how they will interpret our utterances. The subject matter of this book is the psychological processing involved in this sort of behavior.
