Natura non facit saltum (Nature does not make leaps) was the lovely aphorism on which Darwin based his work on evolution. It applies as much to the formation of mental representations as to the formation of species, and therein lies our major disagreement with the SOC model proposed by Perruchet & Vinter.

Northoff provides a compelling argument supporting a kind of “double dissociation” of Parkinson's disease and catatonia. We discuss a related form of akinetic mutism linked to mesodiencephalic injuries and suggest an alternative to the proposed “horizontal” versus “vertical” modulation distinction. Rather than a “directional” difference in patterned neuronal activity, we propose that both disorders reflect hypersynchrony within typically interdependent but segregated networks facilitated by a common thalamic gating mechanism.

Observations on patients who lost visual imagery after brain damage call into question the notion that the knowledge subserving visual imagery is “tacit.” Dissociations between deficient imagery and preserved recognition of objects suggest that imagery is exclusively based on explicit knowledge, whereas retrieval of “tacit” visual knowledge is bound to the presence of the object and the task of recognizing it.

We argue that natural language has the right degree of representational richness for false belief reasoning, especially the complements under verbs of communication and belief. Language may indeed be necessary synchronically for cross-modular reasoning, but certain achievements in language seem necessary at least diachronically for explicit reasoning about false beliefs.

I agree with Williams that evolutionary theory provides the best account of the pain expression. We may disagree as to whether pain has an emotional dimension or includes discrete basic emotions as integral components. I interpret basic emotion expressions that occur contemporaneously with pain expression as representing separate but highly interactive systems, each with distinct adaptive functions.

Preston & de Waal are understandably cautious in applying their model to autism. They emphasise multiple cognitive impairments in autism, including prefrontal-executive, cerebellar-attention, and amygdala-emotion recognition deficits. Further empirical examination of imitation ability in autism may reveal deficits in the neural and cognitive basis of perception-action mapping that have a specific relation to the empathic deficit.

A sequential, hierarchical stage model of empathy can account for a comprehensive range of empathic behaviors. We provide an illustrative table, “Stages of Empathy,” to demonstrate how increasingly complex empathic behaviors emerge at each stage, beginning with the infant's “automatic empathy” and ending with the advanced adult's “coconstruction of empathetic reality.”

Pylyshyn argues against representations with pictorial properties that would be superimposed on a scene. We present evidence against this view, and a new method to depict pictorial properties. We propose a continuum between the top-down generation of internal signals (imagery) and the bottom-up signals from the outside world. Along the continuum, superstitious perceptions provide a method to tackle representational issues.

Women typically report more pain than men, as well as exhibit specific sex differences in the perception and emotional expression of pain. We present evidence that sex is a significant variable in the evolution of facial expression of pain.

We outline some ways in which motor neglect (the underutilization of a limb despite adequate strength) and hysterical paralysis (failure to move a limb despite no relevant structural damage or disease) may throw light on the pathophysiology of catatonia. We also comment on the manifold inadequacies of distinguishing too firmly between symptoms of “neurologic origin” and of “psychiatric origin.”

In Carruthers’ formulation, cross-domain thinking requires translation of domain specific data into a common format, and linguistic LF thus plays the role of the common medium of exchange. Alternatively, I propose a process-oriented characterization, in which there is no common representation and cross-domain thinking is rather the process of establishing mappings across domains, as in the process of analogical reasoning.

We analyze some of the recent evidence for unconscious semantic access stemming from tasks that, although based on a priming procedure, generate semantic congruity effects because of response competition, not semantic priming effects. We argue that such effects cannot occur without at least some glimpses of awareness about the identity and the meaning of a significant proportion of the primes.

The descriptive “null” hypothesis is strengthened by the fact that during dreaming sleep stage, the primary visual cortex is deactivated as compared with other sleep stages.

Facial responses to pain might be the result of evolution but Williams' interesting “Just So” story provides no convincing evidence for her hypothesis. Contrary to her hope, casting facial action in an evolutionary perspective will probably not reduce the common practice of health care professionals blaming patients for their problems; instead, it may discourage appropriate treatment.

Carruthers’proposals would seem to implicate language in what is known as System 2 thinking (explicit) rather than System 1 thinking (implicit) in contemporary dual process theories of thinking and reasoning. We provide outline description of these theories and show that while Carruthers’characterization of non-verbal processes as domain-specific identifies one critical feature of System 1 thinking, he appears to overlook the fact that much cognition of this type results from domain-general learning processes. We also review cognitive psychological evidence that shows that language and the explicit representations it supports are heavily involved in supporting System 1 thinking, but falls short of supporting his claim that it is the medium in which domain-general thinking occurs.

I challenge here the concept of SOC in regard to the question of the consciousness or unconsciousness of logical errors. My commentary offers support for the demonstration of how neuroimaging techniques might be used in the psychology of reasoning to test hypotheses about a potential hierarchy of levels of consciousness (and thus of partial unconsciousness) implemented in different brain networks.

The intrinsic merit of Northoff's model lies primarily in the fact that it integrates data concerned with different levels of organization of the brain. This approach implicitly argues against reductionism, although, apparently, its rather simplistic assumption gives too many degrees of freedom. In considering that a symptom from two different syndromes indicates a common neural alteration, we grossly disregard neural plasticity.

Under Preston & de Waal's proposed model, empathy might be regarded as everything that determines the quality of a social relationship. Although the authors provide a useful heuristic for understanding relationships, clinical research efforts with a somewhat narrower focus have provided some additional insights into this topic, which might lead to testable hypotheses regarding the neurobiology of empathy.

To date, a wide range of interdisciplinary scholarship has done little to clarify either the why or the how of empathy. Preston & de Waal (P&deW) attempt to remedy this, although it remains unclear whether empathy consists of two discrete processes, or whether a perceptual and motor component are joined in some sort of behavioral inevitability. Although it is appealing to offer a neuroanatomy of empathy, the present level of neuropsychology may not support such reductionism.

By assuming that conscious states are the only constructs entitled to bear a cognitive status, while denying this status both to the learning processes and to their nonconscious outcomes, the SOC view leaves consciousness alone as the single tool to explain itself. This does not endow consciousness with any self-organizing properties, but rather, draws a deliberately shallow outline of cognition.