Work with people with Williams syndrome is reviewed relative to Atran's claim that the universality of taxonomic rank in the animal and plant domains derives from a biological construal of generic species. From this work it is argued that a biological construal of animals is not necessary for the construction of the adult taxonomy of animals and therefore that the existence of an animal (or plant) taxonomy cannot be taken as evidence of a biological domain.

Heyes's claim that the only unequivocal evidence of motor imitation comes from rats and budgerigars is contested. It is suggested that the rats' behavior can be explained by emulation and the budgerigars' by response facilitation. Behavioral matching in chimpanzees (Custance et al. 1995; Whiten et al. 1996) is reconsidered and interpreted in terms of imitation.

Innate talents supposedly limit an individual's highest attainable level of performance and the rate of skill acquisition. However, Howe et al. have not reviewed evidence that the level of expert performance has increased dramatically over the last few centuries. Those increases demonstrate that the highest levels of performance may be less constrained by innate capacities than is commonly believed.

This commentary questions the proposed resemblance between the auditory mechanisms of localization and those of the sensory registration of speech sounds. Comparative evidence, which would show that the neurophysiology of localization is adequate to the task of categorizing consonants, does not exist. In addition, Sussman et al. do not offer sensory or perceptual evidence to confirm the presence in humans of processes promoting phoneme categorization that are analogous to the neurophysiology of localization. Furthermore, the computational simulation of the linear model of second formant variation is not a plausible sensory mechanism for perceiving speech sounds.

The evidence Atran uses to support innate biological principles could just as well support learning, just as in another realm often cited as a candidate for innate knowledge, “naive psychology.”

This commentary criticizes nonverbal methods of assessing theory-of-mind on the basis of prior training of the critical response because they would encourage simple, nonmentalistic, associative solutions even in subjects with mentalistic capacities. I propose instead a new experimental paradigm based upon the use of spontaneous responses in less artificial situations. This method has already provided positive evidence of some level of ToM understanding in nonhuman primates.

Much has been learned about genetic influence on cognitive abilities that might be helpful in thinking about genetic influence on other abilities such as art and sports, which have not yet been investigated using genetic research strategies. Some new findings on cognitive abilities go beyond merely demonstrating genetic influence. Misinterpretations of the meaning of genetic influence are discussed.

We consider Sussman et al.'s suggestion that auditory biases for processing low-noise relationships among pairs of acoustic variables is a preadaptation for human speech processing. Data from other animal communication systems, especially those involving sexual selection, also suggest that neural biases in the receiver system can generate strong selection on the form of communication signals.

Pace Atran, (1) folk physics, (2) folk biology, and (3) folk psychology rest on informationally encapsulated modules that emerge before language: a gifted austic person who can see objects and animals perfectly well can nonetheless be incommunicatively mind blind.

Howe et al. have mistaken gene x environment correlations for environmental main effects. Thus, they believe that training would develop the same level of performance in anyone, when it would not. The heritability of talents indicates their dependence on variation in physiological (including neurological) capacities. Talents may be difficult to predict from early cues because tests are poorly designed, or because the skill requirements change at more advanced levels of performance. One twin study of training effects demonstrated greater heritability of physical skill after than before training. In summary, talents are real.

Two substantive comments are made. The first is methodological, and concerns Heyes's proposals for a critical test for theory of mind. The second is theoretical, and concerns the appropriateness of asking questions about theory of mind in nonhuman primates. Although Heyes warns against the apparent simplicity of the theory of mind hypothesis, she underplays the linguistic implications.

A tendency of auditory cortical neurons to respond at the beginning of major transitions in sounds rather than providing a continuously updated spectral-temporal profile may impede the generation of combination-sensitivity for certain classes of stimuli. Potential consequences of the cortical encoding of voiced stop-consonants on representational principles derived from orderly output constraints are discussed.

Reasons are given for believing that it is premature to abandon the idea that domain-general models of concept learning can explain how human beings understand the biological world. Questions are raised about whether the evidence for domain specificity is convincing, and it is suggested that two constraints on domain-general concept learning models may be sufficient to account for the available data.

Universal ranks in folk biological taxonomy probably apply to taxonomies of cultural artifacts. We cannot call folk biological cognition domain-specific and modular. Color categorization may manifest unique organization, which would result from known neurology and the nature of color as an attribute. But folk biology does not adduce equivalent evidence. A global process of increasing differentiation similarly affects folk taxonomy, color categorization, and other practices germane to Atran's anthropology of science; this is beclouded by claims of specificity and modularity.

Skills cannot be divided into the innate and the acquired. Also, genetic effects may not come into play until well after early childhood, and evocative gene-environment correlations are to be expected. Special talents are common in autism and warrant more detailed study, but whether they have the same meaning as talents in nonautistic individuals is not known.

Locus equations are supposed to capture a perceptual invariant of place of articulation in consonants. Synthetic speech data show that human classification deviates systematically from the predictions of locus equations. The few studies that have contrasted predictions from competing theories yield mixed results, indicating that no current theory adequately characterizes the perceptual mapping from sound to phonetic symbol.

Given Heyes's construal of “theory of mind,” there is still no convincing evidence of theory of mind in human primates, much less nonhuman. Rather than making unfounded assumptions about what underlies human social competence, one should ask what mechanisms other primates have and then inquire whether more sophisticated elaborations of those might not account for much of human competence.

Howe et al. proposed that the “talent account” is not suited to explain exceptional performance in specific domains. Their conclusion that early experiences and deliberate practice are highly important for high levels of skill is supported by numerous studies on the acquisition of expertise. However, the two popular views they contrast (experts are born versus experts are made) do not seem representative of current theorizing. Models that integrate the effects of basic abilities and deliberate practice are more appropriate in light of the available evidence.

The potential role of locus equations in three existing models of human classification behavior is examined. Locus equations can play a useful role in single-prototype and boundary-based models for human consonant recognition by reducing model complexity.

We suggest that anecdotes have evidentiary value in interpreting nonhuman primate behavior. We also believe that any outcome from the experiments proposed by Heyes can be interpreted as a product of previous experience with trainers or as associative learning using the experimental cues. No potential outcome is clearcut evidence for or against the theory of mind proposition.