Modularity and Mental Architecture
WIREs Cognitive Science 4 (6):641-648 (2013)
Abstract
Debates about the modularity of cognitive architecture have been ongoing for at least the past three decades, since the publication of Fodor’s landmark book The Modularity of Mind (1983). According to Fodor, modularity is essentially tied to informational encapsulation, and as such is only found in the relatively low-level cognitive systems responsible for perception and language. According to Fodor’s critics in the evolutionary psychology camp, modularity simply reflects the fine-grained functional specialization dictated by natural selection, and it characterizes virtually all aspects of cognitive architecture, including high-level systems for judgment, decision making, and reasoning. Though both of these perspectives on modularity have garnered support, the current state of evidence and argument suggests that a broader skepticism about modularity may be warranted.Author's Profile
My notes
Similar books and articles
Modular architectures and informational encapsulation: A dilemma.Dustin Stokes & Vincent Bergeron - 2015 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 5 (3):315-38.
Structural flaws: Massive modularity and the argument from design.Armin Schulz - 2008 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 59 (4):733-743.
The Leabra architecture: Specialization without modularity.Alexander A. Petrov, David J. Jilk, Randall C. O'Reilly & Michael L. Anderson - 2010 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 33 (4):286.
Against modularity.William Marslen-Wilson & Lorraine Komisarjevsky Tyler - 1987 - In Modularity In Knowledge Representation And Natural- Language Understanding. Cambridge: MIT Press.
The architecture of the mind: modularity and modularization.Robyn Carston - forthcoming - Cognitive Science: An Introduction.
The Drink You Have When You’re Not Having a Drink.Robert A. Wilson - 2008 - Mind and Language 23 (3):273–283.
Why Neuroscience Matters to Cognitive Neuropsychology.Victoria McGeer - 2007 - Synthese 159 (3):347 - 371.
Context-sensitive inference, modularity, and the assumption of formal processing.Mitch Parsell - 2005 - Philosophical Psychology 18 (1):45-58.
Mindreading: Mental state ascription and cognitive architecture.Joseph L. H. Cruz - 1998 - Mind and Language 13 (3):323-340.
Analytics
Added to PP
2014-01-15
Downloads
1 (#1,499,153)
6 months
1 (#448,551)
2014-01-15
Downloads
1 (#1,499,153)
6 months
1 (#448,551)
Historical graph of downloads
Sorry, there are not enough data points to plot this chart.
Author's Profile
Citations of this work
Modular architectures and informational encapsulation: A dilemma.Dustin Stokes & Vincent Bergeron - 2015 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 5 (3):315-38.
Perception and Its Modalities.Dustin Stokes, Mohan Matthen & Stephen Biggs (eds.) - 2014 - New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Massive modularity : an ontological hypothesis or an adaptationist discovery heuristic?Joseph David de Jesús Villena Saldaña - 2021 - Dissertation, Lingnan University