Cognitive “barriers,” synchronic development, and autism: A proposal for the integration of intelligence modules in the hominid cognitive architecture (original) (raw)

The present paper proposes that developmental reorganization enabled the synergistic integration of key cognitive processes to help transformed the nonintegrated hominid cognitive architecture proposed by Mithen (1996) into an integrated one and reexamines his analysis of behavioral signatures of cognitive integration in the archaeological record. Mithen’s cognitive architecture consisted of discrete intelligence modules with either “barriers” between them prohibiting their interaction or “lowered” barriers enabling synergistic interaction; however, he did not propose a mechanism for the integration of general, social, natural history, and technical intelligences and language that yielded the modern human mind.