I propose to complement Ainslie's idea of “bargaining with your future selves” with that of “shaping your past selves.” The result of such a complementation is that an action can work in two ways: (1) as a predecent for future behavior and (2) as a shaper of past behavior. I argue that this diminishes the unwanted effects of hyperbolic discounting even further.

Ainslie's Breakdown of Will contains important insights into real world self-control problems, but it loses testability to the extent that it internalizes concepts whose meaning lies in overt behavior and its consequences.

There is little to refute in Collerton et al.'s argument that recurrent complex visual hallucinations involve multiple physiological mechanisms, and the target article's proposed PAD model implicitly incorporates this concept, advancing the field. The novel concept in this model is the intrusion of hallucinatory proto-objects into relatively preserved scenes. The weakness of the model is the lack of physiological detail for this mechanism.

Support for a neurobiological distinction between affiliation (Attachment) and agency (Achievement) was achieved by comparing responses to a dopaminergic (DA) and a serotonergic (5-HT) challenge test. DA responses were similar, but a 5-HT modulation of DA emerged for Achievement and not for Attachment. Molecular genetics performed on Panksepp’s dimension “Care” revealed an association with a polymorphism of the DA catabolizing enzyme COMT that was not associated with separation distress.

primate research suggests that affiliation is a highly complex construct. studies of primate affiliation demonstrate the need to distinguish between various affiliative behaviors, consider relationships as emergent properties of these behaviors, define affiliation in the context of general environmental responsiveness, and address developmental changes in affiliation across the lifespan.

This commentary focuses on the importance of auditory object processing for producing and comprehending human language, the relative lack of development of this capability in nonhuman primates, and the consequent need for hominid neurobiological evolution to enhance this capability in making the transition from protosign to protospeech to language.

steels & belpaeme's (s&b) procedure does not model much of the important variation that occurs across human color categorizers. human perceptual variation and its corollary consequences impact real-world color categorization. because of this, investigators with the primary aim of understanding color categorization and naming across cultures should exercise some caution extending these findings to explain how different human societies lexicalize color appearance space.

In arguing for a rules-similarity continuum, Pothos should demonstrate that a single process or mechanism (a neural network model, for example) can handle the entire continuum. Pothos deliberately avoids this exercise as beyond the scope of the current research. In this context, I will present simulation, neuropsychological, neurophysiological, and experimental psychological results, arguing against the continuity hypothesis.

Focusing on the mirror system and imitation, I examine the role of metaphor and projection in evolutionary neurolinguistics. I suggest that the key to language evolution in hominid might be an ability to project one's thoughts and feelings onto another agent or object, to see and feel things from another perspective, and to be able to empathize with another agent.

Collerton et al. postulate that in a variety of different clinical conditions, hallucinations are derived from object schema lodged in long-term memory. I review two new experiments in which memory images can be easily triggered in neurologically intact subjects. These examples of making visible items in memory may provide experimental models for genesis of hallucinations.

Rules and similarity are two sides of the same phenomenon, but the number of features has nothing to do with transition from similarity to rules; threshold logic helps to understand why.

Supporters of Ainslie's model face questions about its integration with neuroscience. Although processes of value estimation may well turn out to be locally implemented, methodological reasons suggest this is less likely in the case of subpersonal “interests.”

The debate of nativisim versus empiricism is over the relative importance of evolutionary versus ontogenetic mechanisms. This is mostly seen today as a false dichotomy. The synthesis of these positions provides a modern viewpoint of grounded category formation. This combined view places equal importance on feedback between these levels in guiding development, and is more appropriately compared to culturalist positions.

Ainslie advances Freud's and Skinner's theories of homunculi by basing their emergent complexity on the interaction of simple algorithms. The rules of competition and cooperation of these interests are underspecified, but they provide a new way of thinking about the basic elements of conditioning, particularly conditioned stimuli (CSs).

The role of brain monoamines may be important for the neurobiology of the alterations of visual alertness in recurrent complex visual hallucinations (RCVH). This is evidenced by sleep research, neurophysiologic, and clinical data. Hence, the mechanisms of RCVH may not be simply explained by acetylcholine underactivity only.

Difficulty of distinguishing rules and similarity in categorization comes from reliance on relatively simple manipulation-response designs and a style of modeling with abstract parameters, rather than assessment of intervening and controlling mental states. This commentary proposes a strategy in which rules and similarity would be distinguished by their different roles in a theory interrelating reportable conscious contents in deliberative categorization.

We believe that an account of the role of mirror neurons in language evolution should involve a greater emphasis on the auditory properties of these neurons. Mirror neurons in premotor cortex which respond to the visual and auditory consequences of actions allow for a modality-independent and agent-independent coding of actions, which may have been important for the emergence of language.

Research on the neurobiology and psychosocial features of Major Depressive Disorder has the ability to extend our understanding of affiliative behavior. In depression, decreased hedonic capacity and hypoactivity in dopaminergic and prefrontal circuitries may decrease the ability to experience affiliative relationships as rewarding. We suggest that neurobiological research on depression can provide a test case for theoretical models of affiliation.

Although Ainslie rejects cognitivism as providing an explanation of willpower, a type of nonhomuncular cognitivism is hiding in his own proposal. The key mental mechanism of aggregating individual decisions (bundled reframings) involves representation and decoupling operations encompassed within the analytic system of dual-process mental architectures.

The model presented in the target article is biased towards a cognitive-symbolic understanding of language, thus ignoring its other important aspects. Possible relationships of this cognitive-symbolic subsystem to pragmatics and prosody of language are discussed in the first part of the commentary. In the second part, the issue of a purely social versus biological mechanisms for transition from protolanguage to properly language is considered.