The current state of the world requires changing cognition on several counts, and this necessarily involves efficient intercultural communication. It has often been thought that intercultural communication is problematical in itself due to linguistic and cultural diversity. The present article aims to show that this is not the case, but that what makes intercultural communication difficult are the universal rather than culture-specific features of humans, e.g. time preference (i.e. short-sighted decision-making) and group preference (a tendency to favor one’s own group over others).
BerlyneN (1972) Confabulation. The British Journal of Psychiatry120: 31–39.
2.
CallJ (2004) Inferences about the location of food in the great apes (Pan paniscus, Pan troglodytes, Gorilla gorilla and Pongo pygmaeus). Journal of Comparative Psychology118(2): 232–241.
3.
CheneyDLSeyfarthRM (2007) Baboon Metaphysics: The Evolution of Social Mind. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
4.
ChomskyN (1965) Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
5.
CorballisPM (2003) Visuospatial processing and the right hemisphere interpreter. Brain and Cognition53: 171–176.
6.
De LiberaA (1996) La Querelle des Universaux de Platon à la fin du moyen-âge. Paris: Le Seuil.
7.
DiamondJ (2005) Collapse. New York: Penguin Books.
8.
DiesselHHetterleK (forthcoming) Causal clauses: A cross-linguistic investigation of their structure, meaning and use. In: SiemundP (ed.) Linguistic Universals and Language Variations. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
9.
FagotJDeruelleC (1997) Processing of global and local visual information and hemispheric specialization in humans (Homo sapiens) and baboons (Papio papio). Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance23: 429–442.
10.
FagotJTomonagaM (1999) Comparative assessment of global–local processing in humans (Homo sapiens) and chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes): Use of a visual search task with compound stimuli. Journal of Comparative Psychology113: 3–12.
11.
FagotJTomonagaMDeruelleC (2001) Processing of the global and local dimensions of visual hierarchical stimuli by humans (Homo sapiens), chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), and baboons (Papio papio). In: MatsuzawaT (ed.) Primate Origins of Human Cognition and Behavior. Berlin: Springer, 87–103.
12.
FarahMJ (2004) Visual Agnosia. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. (2nd edn)
13.
FodorJA (1998) Concepts: Where Cognitive Science Went Wrong. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press.
14.
GopnikA (2001) Theories, language, and culture: Whorf without wincing. In: BowermanMLevinsonSC (eds) Language Acquisition and Conceptual Development. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 45–69.
15.
GordonRG (2005) Ethnologue: Languages of the World. Dallas, TX: SIL Publications.
16.
GriceHP (1989) Studies in the Way of Words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
17.
HarnadS (1990) The symbol grounding problem. PhysicaD 42: 335–346.
MandlerJM (2004) The Foundations of Mind: Origins of Conceptual Thought. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
20.
MarconiDD (1997) Lexical Competence. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
21.
McCarthyRAWarringtonEK (1988) Evidence for modality-specific meaning systems in the brain. Nature334: 428–430.
22.
MercierHSperberD (forthcoming) Why do humans reason? Arguments for an argumentative theory. Behavioral and Brain Sciences.
23.
MetcalfeJShimamuraAP (1996) Metacognition: Knowing about Knowing. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
24.
MillikanR (2000) On Clear and Confused Ideas: An Essay about Substance Concepts. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press.
25.
NavonD (1977) Forest before trees: The precedence of global features in visual perception. Cognitive Psychology9: 353–83.
26.
NozickR (1993) The Nature of Rationality. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
27.
PanaccioC (1999) Semantics and mental language. In: SpadePV (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Ockham. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 53–75.
28.
PennDPovinelliDJ (2007) Causal cognition in human and nonhuman animals: A comparative, critical review. Annual Review of Psychology58: 97–118.
29.
PylyshynZW (2003) Seeing and Visualizing: It’s not What You Think. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
30.
QuineWVO (1960) Word and Object. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
