Toward An Ecological Approach to the Modularity of Mind (original) (raw)

Modularity of Mind: Is It Time to Abandon This Ship

This article evaluates the idea of the modularity of mind and domain specificity. This concept has penetrated the behavioral disciplines, and in the case of some of these—for example, the cognitive study of religion— has even formed their foundation. Although the theoretical debate relating to the idea of modularity is ongoing, this debate has not been reflected in the use of modularity in behavioral research. The idea of domain specificity or modularity of mind is not without its controversies, and there is no consensus regarding its acceptance. Many neuroscientists, as well as several evolutionary psychologists and philosophers, have raised a number of objections that cannot remain overlooked. I will show the areas in which the idea is problematic, what attempts have been made to preserve it, and how social scientific research can move beyond post-Fodorian modularity without losing any valuable insights.

1 The Contribution of Domain Specificity in the Highly Modular Mind

2014

Abstract: Is there a notion of domain specificity which affords genuine insight in the context of the highly modular mind, i.e. a mind which has not only input modules, but also central 'conceptual' modules? Our answer to this question is no. The main argument is simple enough: we lay out some constraints that a theoretically useful notion of domain specificity, in the context of the highly modular mind, would need to meet. We then survey a host of accounts of what domain specificity is, based on the intuitive idea that a domain specific mechanism is restricted in the kind of information that it processes, and show that each fails at least one of those constraints. *Manuscript

Modularity, Development and 'Theory of Mind

Mind and Language, 1999

Abstract: Psychologists and philosophers have recently been exploring whether the mechanisms which underlie the acquisition of 'theory of mind' (ToM) are best charac- terized as cognitive modules or as developing theories. In this paper, we attempt to clarify what a modular account of ...

A new place for modality in a modular mind

1994

The tension between modality-specific sensory processes and abstract concepts is an old one. The notion that one stratum of the mind has a modular organisation is rather recent. Not much attention has been paid so far to the way sensorial modality and mental modularity might combine. For example, Massaro (1987) argued that facts which transcend modality-specificity of speech present arguments against the modularity of mind. We have disagreed with this in the past (de Gelder and Vroomen, 1989), and in the present comment we pursue our analysis of the modality versus modularity debate, maintaining that both are orthogonal issues while there is, at the same time, room for modality-specificity within the realm of modular processes. The occasion for these remarks is the paper by Radeau (this volume). Materially, the paper is drawn from a series of studies over more than twenty years with Paul Bertelson, presenting beautiful experiments on audio-visual spatial interaction. Radeau tries to build a bridge between that research on sensory integration processes and the more recent notion of mental modules. The central claim of our comments is that issues of modality must be distinguished from issues of modularity. The reasons for keeping to this distinction are the same as the reasons for not assimilating the research on spatial integration with the research on the multimodality of speech input. It follows that data from studies on audio-visual speech do

The Contribution of Domain Specificity in the Highly Modular Mind

Is there a notion of domain specificity which affords genuine insight in the context of the highly modular mind, i.e. a mind which has not only input modules, but also central ‘conceptual’ modules? Our answer to this question is no. The main argument is simple enough: we lay out some constraints that a theoretically useful notion of domain specificity, in the context of the highly modular mind, would need to meet. We then survey a host of accounts of what domain specificity is, based on the intuitive idea that a domain specific mechanism is restricted in the kind of information that it processes, and show that each fails at least one of those constraints.

Massively Modular Minds: Evolutionary Psychology and Cognitive Architecture

P. Carruthers (ed.) Evolution and the Human Mind. Cambridge University Press., 2000

In recent years evolutionary psychologists have defended a massively modular conception of cognitive architecture which views the mind as composed largely (or perhaps even entirely) of innate, special-purpose computational mechanisms or 'modules'. This chapter has a pair of aims. First, I aim to dispel much of the confusion that surrounds discussions of evolutionary psychology by clarifying the massive modularity hypothesis (MMH) and contrasting it with other accounts of our cognitive architecture. Second, I aim to evaluate the plausibility of the MMH in light of the currently available arguments and evidence. Though the case in support of massive modularity fails to discriminate between MMH and other related accounts of cognition, I argue that it constitutes a plausible hypothesis that deserves to be taken very seriously. Moreover, I argue that the case against massive modularity is weak.

Concepts and the Modularity of Thought

Having concepts is a distinctive sort of cognitive capacity. One thing that conceptual thought requires is obeying the Generality Constraint: concepts ought to be freely recombinable with other concepts to form novel thoughts, independent of what they are concepts of. Having concepts, then, constrains cognitive architecture in interesting ways. In recent years, spurred on by the rise of evolutionary psychology, massively modular models of the mind have gained prominence. I argue that these architectures are incapable of satisfying the Generality Constraint, and hence incapable of underpinning conceptual thought. I develop this argument with respect to two well-articulated proposals, due to Dan Sperber and Peter Carruthers. Neither proposal gives us a satisfactory explanation of Generality within the confines of a genuinely modular architecture. Massively modular minds may display considerable behavioral and cognitive flexibility, but not humanlike conceptualized thought.