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Figure 1.
Foto of lemur catta. http://www.scz.org/animals/l/rtlemur2.html.
living as a dolphin, and adapted to the structure of the dolphin's mind, and it
mightturnoutnottobecompatibletothehumanmind.Thewayhumanstell
stories might only be one instantiation in a huge space of possible story-telling
minds, natural and artificial.
Stories, social understanding, and autobiographic agents
Previously we suggested that two mechanisms are important to human social
understanding: 1) empathic resonance, the ability to 'open' oneself towards an-
other self, and to re-experience part of the other person's experiences, and 2)
biographical reconstruction, the interpretation of another person's behavior
and appearance based on the situatedness of another's mind in time and space
(Dautenhahn 1997). The behavior and appearance of any biological agent can
only be understood with reference to its history, considering its context, past,
present and future situations. This is particularly important for life-long learn-
ing human agents who are continuously learning about themselves and their
environment and are able to modify their goals and motivations. Autobio-
graphical memory develops during the lifetime of a human being, and the ca-
pacity to fully develop an autobiography is not innate. In Nelson's discussion
of the social origins of autobiographical memory in children she supports the
social interaction hypothesis
, namely that children gradually learn the forms of
