Inside loops: developmental premises of self-ascriptions

Abstract

Self-ascriptions of thoughts and attitudes depend on a sense of the intentionality of one's own mental states, which develops later than, and independently of, the sense of the intentionality of the thoughts and attitudes of others. This sense of the self-intentionality of one's own mental states grows initially out of executive developments that enable one to simulate one's own actions and perceptions, as genuine off-line thoughts, and to regulate such simulations.