On biological and verbal camouflage

the strategic use of models in non-scientific thinking

pp. 13-37

in: Tommaso Bertolotti, Patterns of rationality, Berlin, Springer, 2015

Abstract

The chapter approaches the topic of models as mental models by a survey of animal cognition studies linked to camouflage, to sustain the claim that biological camouflage can be seen as the operationalization—also in extremely rudimentary cognitive systems—of mental models representing the other's cognitive system. In this same chapter, by analyzing the inferential operations (supported by the aforementioned modeling activity) underpinning camouflage-breaking strategies, I will try to explain how the same tacit use of models representing the other's cognitive abilities is at play in human communication, when enacting and uncovering linguistic deception.