Neuroecology and psychological modularity

Abstract

In a recent review, Bolhuis and Macphail challenge the thesis that specialized systems mediate the learning, encoding and retrieval of different types of information – what they call a neuroecological approach to learning and memory [1]. In particular, they challenge ‘the arbitrary assumption that different “problems” engage different memory mechanisms’ (p. 426), and the idea that this fact can be used to motivate neurobiological studies. To substantiate their claims, they appeal to data dealing with the neural substrates of song learning and food storage in birds. Recently, Hampton et al. [2] pointed out how Bolhuis and Macphail misrepresent these data and set-up a ‘straw neuroecologist’ with respect to the functionalist/adaptionist perspective. Here, we take up a different problem. Namely, we argue that neurobiological data cannot be used to bring a case against the thesis of psychological modularity, whether in the case of memory and learning, or otherwise. Data of this sort, although relevant to a discussion of the principles underlying modularity, are orthogonal to a discussion of whether or not modularity, in the psychological sense, exists in the first place.