Mental Module Research Articles

Brain, Mind, and Media

Brain, Mind, and Media

Experimental evolution, behavior and genetics: Associative learning as a case study

Abstract The evolutionary dynamics of behavioral traits reflect phenotypic and genetic changes. Methodological difficulties in analyzing the genetic dynamics of complex traits have left open questions on the mechanisms that have shaped complex behaviors and cognitive abilities. A strategy to investigate the change of behavior across generations is to assume that genetic constraints have a negligible role in evolution (the phenotypic gambit) and focus on the phenotype as a proxy for genetic evolution. Empirical evidence and technologic advances in genomics question the choice of neglecting the genetic underlying the dynamics of behavioral evolution. I first discuss the relevance of genetic factors – e.g. genetic variability, genetic linkage, gene interactions – in shaping evolution, showing the importance of taking genetic factors into account when dealing with evolutionary dynamics. I subsequently describe the recent advancements in genetics and genomics that make the investigation of the ongoing evolutionary process of behavioral traits finally attainable. In particular, by applying genomic resequencing to experimental evolution – a method called Evolve & Resequence – it is possible to monitor at the same time phenotypic and genomic changes in populations exposed to controlled selective pressures. Experimental evolution of associative learning, a well-known trait that promptly responds to selection, is a convenient model to illustrate this approach applied to behavior and cognition. Taking into account the recent achievements of the field, I discuss how to design and conduct an effective Evolve & Resequence study on associative learning in Drosophila. By integrating phenotypic and genomic data in the investigation of evolutionary dynamics, new insights can be gained on longstanding questions such as the modularity of mind and its evolution.

Putting the theory before the data: is "massive modularity" a necessary foundation of evolutionary psychology?

Putting the theory before the data: is "massive modularity" a necessary foundation of evolutionary psychology?

A module is a module is a module: evolution of modularity in Evolutionary Psychology

The concept of modularity has been central in behavioral and neural sciences since the publication of Fodor’s The Modularity of Mind (1983). Fodor strived to explain the functional architecture of the mind based on the distinction between modular and central systems. Modular systems were deemed to have certain architectural features, such as automaticity, encapsulation, and domain specificity. Evolutionary psychologists have adopted the concept to characterize purportedly evolved human adaptations. In an influential paper, Barrett and Kurzban (Psychol Rev 113(3):628–647, 2006) proposed a definition of modules purely in terms of functional specialization. It is here argued that such strategy marks a shift in Evolutionary Psychology’s theoretical emphasis, as it trivializes the investigation of proximate causes in evolutionary theorizing; furthermore, it leaves the door open to too much flexibility on what counts as evidence for purportedly evolved modules.

La ciencia cognitiva y el estudio de la mente

En la actualidad se observa un desarrollo vigoroso de la ciencia cognitiva, que es un campo multidisciplinario en el que confluyen varias disciplinas, como la psicología cognitiva, la inteligencia artificial, la lingüística, la filosofía, la neurociencia, la antropología cognitiva, entre otras, con la finalidad de estudiar la cognición. El estudio de la cognición y la mente se ha venido realizando desde el punto de vista de la filosofía estrictamente especulativa, desde la perspectiva de la filosofía de la mente y desde el punto de vista científico. Los aportes hipotéticos y/o teóricos de esos estudios de la mente son discutidos y, en la mayoría de los casos, sometidos a un análisis experimental para contrastar su validez científica. En ese sentido, la ciencia cognitiva ha ido estableciendo las propiedades esenciales de la mente y la cognición, tal como el carácter representacional de la mente, la relación causal entre la representación cognitiva y la conducta, el carácter simbólico de la información representada mentalmente, la mente como procesador de la información, la mente como un sistema de mecanismos, la modularidad de la mente, etc. Sin embargo, en la ciencia cognitiva actual es notoria la presencia de diferentes enfoques cognitivos que defienden el modelo simbólico clásico, por un lado, y por otro están aquellos que defienden el modelo conexionista o procesamiento distribuido en paralelo (PDP), y también aquellos que postulan modelos mentales no representacionalistas. En conclusión, se puede decir que hoy en día el estudio de la mente y la cognición es una empresa importante en el que están comprometidas varias disciplinas.

A dynamic model of dissonance reduction in a modular mind.

This article establishes an economic framework to identify the conditions under which an optimizing agent may seek (or not seek) to engage in costly dissonance reduction. We set up a dynamic model of decision-making in which the individual’s mind is composed of a coordinating principal and 2 conflicting agents. We take into account the cognitive dissonance experienced as a result of the conflict between the agents. Each agent (or self) is specialized in perceiving a particular type of signal and performing a task. Dissonance levels in our model are not constant. Instead, the individual’s splitselves are open to habituation, which can lead to a reduction in cognitive dissonance. Therefore, motivated habituation appears as a way to avoid dissonance. We prove the existence of an optimal strategy with a threshold structure. Our results show that the existence of intrapersonal conflict may be a long run phenomenon even in an optimizing mind.

The pragmatics of quotation, explicatures and modularity of mind

This paper presents a purely pragmatic account of quotation which, it is argued, will be able to accommodate all relevant linguistic phenomena. Given that it is more parsimonious to explain the data by reference to pragmatic principles only than to explain them by reference to both pragmatic and semantic principles, as is common in the literature, I conclude that the account of quotation I present is to be preferred to the more standard accounts (including the alternative theories of quotation, discussed here).

Modular minds and input in second language acquisition

The aim of this paper is twofold: i. firstly, to show why second language learners (from perhaps as early as age six, but certainly after age twelve or thereabouts) are claimed to. require instruction in addition to communicative exposure to the language; and ii. secondly, to dispel the idea that, as long as theories of how second languages are acquired keep changing, no insight into the acquisition process can be gained from them. The focus will be on theories of L2 acquisition that have a strong linguistic base to the exclusion of, for example, psychological process-based theories. By narrowing the focus of the paper, I hope to keep the main thrust of the argument clear. The choice of focus should not be taken to imply that other approaches have not provided useful perspectives on aspects of L2 acquisition.

The Signs of a Savant: Language against the Odds (review)

The Signs of a Savant: Language against the Odds, by Neil Smith, IanthiTsimpli, Gary Morgan, and Bencie Woll (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011, 219 pp., ISBN 978-0-52185-227-2)THIS BOOK PRESENTS a case study of a middle-aged man named Christopher, an autistic savant who demonstrates an incredible ability to master multiple languages despite a below-average general IQ.The crux of this new book centers on a crucial question: How will an autistic man with a gift for languages and severe apraxia perform when taught signed language? As the study unfolds, we gain valuable insight into the modularity of the mind, particularly the cognitive and linguistic structures, which are intertwined.Based on nearly twenty years of empirical observations and psychometric tests of the subject's abilities, the first chapter introduces us to Christopher, whose early diagnosis revealed developmental difficulties that would produce delays in speech fluency and motor coordination. Christopher exhibited an extremely low nonverbal performance, with artistic IQ ability in the 40-60 range. However, his linguistic IQ in English - 120 - stands in stark contrast. Moreover, his severe apraxia results in poor performance in the copying of nonrepresentational gestures. Although he was able to recognize conventional gestures (e.g., brushing teeth), he was not able to make the appropriate movements when prompted. Such severe motor limitations in the face of his savant linguistic abilities have led the authors to investigate how Christopher will perform when given an opportunity to learn British Sign Language (BSL). After laying out important theoretical assumptions based on Chomskyan linguistics, modularity, and Baddeley's memory model, the chapter ends with well-specified predictions about how Christopher will perform in BSL. The authors predicted that Christopher's limited cognitive ability to tie iconic signs to their referents would hamper his acquisition of lexical signs. He was also expected to perform better on the comprehension of lexical signs and grammatical devices than with facial expressions and sign production due to his inability to maintain eye contact with the signer, his apraxia, and his linguistic savant abilities.The second chapter provides a comprehensive overview of the linguistic structure of BSL, covering the gamut of phonological, morphosyntactic, and facial elements of signed languages, as well as giving examples of signs that might be problematic for someone who avoids social eye contact (e.g., boss and god are distinguished only by direction of eyegaze) . The chapter tackles most of the critical literature on sign modality, iconicity sign language acquisition, and sign topography. Aside from a few references to Christopher's performance in digit-span recall using signed stimuli, the entire chapter appears to stand independently of the study of Christopher's foray into signed language learning.The third chapter, the methods section, details the training and data-collection phase of Christopher's signed language learning experience. Two hours a month of sign language learning for twelve months may not be an adequate training period for most learners, but it was more than twice the amount of time Christopher needed to master his other spoken languages. His training included morphosyntactic structures of signed languages such as topic markers, aspect morphology, nonmanual markers, verb locative agreement, and narratives involving multiple characters. Then he was tested at five different intervals for his comprehension and production of lexical signs and manual grammatical devices, as well as his performance on facial markers. To compare Christopher's BSL learning to normal second language learning of BSL, forty hearing volunteers were recruited to learn BSL using the same curriculum as Christopher's, albeit in onehour sessions over a twelve-week period.Chapter 4 evaluates Christopher's lexical and syntactic development and that of the comparison group. …

A Modular Mind? A Test Using Individual Data from Seven Primate Species

It has long been debated whether the mind consists of specialized and independently evolving modules, or whether and to what extent a general factor accounts for the variance in performance across different cognitive domains. In this study, we used a hierarchical Bayesian model to re-analyse individual level data collected on seven primate species (chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans, gorillas, spider monkeys, brown capuchin monkeys and long-tailed macaques) across 17 tasks within four domains (inhibition, memory, transposition and support). Our modelling approach evidenced the existence of both a domain-specific factor and a species factor, each accounting for the same amount (17%) of the observed variance. In contrast, inter-individual differences played a minimal role. These results support the hypothesis that the mind of primates is (at least partially) modular, with domain-specific cognitive skills undergoing different evolutionary pressures in different species in response to specific ecological and social demands.

Hypocrisy revealed (and thoughts on the role of modularity in evolutionary psychology).

Make no mistake: Robert Kurzban is one of the most important scholars in modern evolutionary psychology (EP) circles. His work on social cognition and moral decision-making (e.g., Kurzban, DeScioli, & O’Brien, 2007) is as well-thought-out and implemented as any modern research in the social sciences. Further, he is an extremely eloquent scholar with an engaging presentational style. For these reasons, his first book has been met with great excitement and interest by folks in our field. And I’d have to say that while I don’t agree with all of his points, I think the overall product of Why Everyone (Else) is a Hypocrite: Evolution and the Modular Mind is really outstanding. Written in a highly engaging style, this book does an exceptional job of summarizing work on the psychology of morality and, to some extent, it serves as an interesting introduction to the field of EP. To my mind, this book has two primary goals – and these goals are encapsulated in the title and subtitle of the book respectively. Primarily, this book sheds light on the nature of moral psychology – with a specific eye toward elucidating hypocrisy. This is great for several reasons – largely because people are, without exception, fascinated by hypocrisy. People seem to love to catch others in moments of hypocrisy. And in a highly political world (as ours is), calling people out on hypocrisy is something of a silver bullet – often used by people in all sorts of contexts to advance their own agenda. Second, per the book’s subtitle, this book sets out to provide an evolutionarily informed argument for why a modular conception of the mind is the best way to understand human psychology.

Modularity of mind and the role of incentive motivation in representing novelty

Animal and human brains contain a myriad of mental representations that have to be successfully tracked within fractions of a second in a large number of situations. This retrieval process is hard to explain without postulating the massive modularity of cognition. Assuming that the mind is massively modular, it is then necessary to understand how cognitive modules can efficiently represent dynamic environments-in which some modules may have to deal with change-induced novelty and uncertainty. Novelty of a stimulus is a problem for a module when unknown, significant stimuli do not satisfy the module's processing criteria-or domain specificity-and cannot therefore be included in its database. It is suggested that the brain mechanisms of incentive motivation, recruited when faced with novelty and uncertainty, induce transient variations in the domain specificity of cognitive modules in order to allow them to process information they were not prepared to learn. It is hypothesised that the behavioural transitions leading from exploratory activity to habit formation are correlated with (and possibly caused by) the organism's ability to counter novelty-induced uncertainty.

Modularity, Theory of Mind, and Autism Spectrum Disorder

The theory of mind (ToM) deficit associated with autism spectrum disorder has been a central topic in the debate about the modularity of the mind. In a series of papers, Philip Gerrans and Valerie Stone argue that positing a ToM module does not best explain the deficits exhibited by individuals with autism. In this article, I first criticize Gerrans and Stone's account. Second, I discuss various studies of individuals with autism and argue that they are best explained by positing a higher-level, domain-specific ToM module.

Cognitive Capacities, Mental Modules, and Neural Regions

Cognitive Capacities, Mental Modules, and Neural Regions Keith Frankish (bio) Keywords neuroimaging, modularity, personal/subper-sonal distinction, dual-system theory, psychopathology Dan lloyd (2011) issues a salutary warning against the assumption of what I shall call neural modularity—the view that there is a one-to-one mapping between cognitive functions and distinct brain regions. He shows how the assumption can distort the interpretation of neuroimaging studies and blind researchers to global structures and activity patterns that may be crucial to many aspects of cognitive function and dysfunction. In this note, I want to add a further dimension to the discussion by making connections with the notion of mental modularity developed by evolutionary psychologists. What is the relation between mental and neural modularity? Do the arguments for massive mental modularity also support neural modularity? I offer some preliminary remarks on these questions and their bearing on issues in psychopathology. Modern discussion of mental modularity takes its start from Fodor's The Modularity of Mind (1983). Fodor's conception of a mental module is a strict one, appropriate for peripheral systems, such as vision and language. Modules in his sense are special-purpose computational mechanisms that are to a large extent innate and hardwired, deliver shallow (nonconceptual) outputs, and operate in a way that is typically mandatory, fast, inaccessible, and informationally encapsulated. More recent writers adopt a more relaxed notion of mental modularity, which is applicable to central cognitive processes (e.g., Barrett and Kurzban 2006; Carruthers 2006; Coltheart 1999). Modules in this sense are functionally specialized mechanisms that are dedicated to particular cognitive tasks, such as theory of mind, biological classification, and cheater detection, and that can deliver conceptualized beliefs and desires as outputs. Their key property is domain specificity, and it is an empirical question to what extent a given module possesses the other features on Fodor's list. It is arguable that evolution would have favored the development of such central modules as well as peripheral Fodorian ones. Complex evolved systems are typically composed of specialized subsystems, and it is likely that specialized, domain-specific cognitive mechanisms would be more efficient than general-purpose ones, especially given the wide range of adaptive problems faced by humans and other animals. Building on such arguments, some theorists maintain that the mind is composed wholly, or mostly, of modular subsystems—a view known as the "massive modularity hypothesis" (e.g., Carruthers 2006; Cosmides and Tooby 1992; Pinker 1997; Sperber 1994). [End Page 279] My aim here is not to defend massive modularity, but simply to ask whether mental modularity involves a commitment to neural modularity as well, and thus whether the arguments for the former carry over to the latter. It will be helpful to think in terms of three descriptive enterprises: personal psychology, subpersonal psychology, and neurology (compare Dennett 1981). Personal psychology is an idealized competence theory; it ascribes psychological traits to organisms on the basis of their behavior. Talk of cognitive capacities is pitched at this level. Subpersonal psychology posits internal information-processing mechanisms that support personal-level psychological traits. The massive modularity hypothesis belongs to this level. Neurology, of course, deals with the fine-grained biological structures and processes in which the other levels are realized. Now, neural modularity is a claim about the relation between personal psychology and neurology; it is the claim that each cognitive capacity is realized in a localized brain region. And the question of whether massive mental modularity entails neural modularity breaks down into two subquestions—one concerning the relation between personal and subpersonal psychology, and the other the relation between subpersonal psychology and neurology. The first question is whether each cognitive capacity is subserved by a single proprietary module; the second whether each module is realized in a distinct brain region. If the answers to both questions are positive, then mental modularity is equivalent to neural modularity. I take that, for a given organism, the answers might be positive, but I shall argue that there is no reason to think that they must be, or even that it is particularly likely that they are—and thus that mental modularity does not entail neural modularity. Consider first the relation between mental modules and...

Massive Modularity, Content Integration, and Language

One of the obstacles facing massive modularity is how a pervasively modular mind might generate non-domain-specific thoughts by integrating the content produced by various domain-specific modules. Peter Carruthers has recently argued that the operations of the language faculty are constitutive of the process by which the human mind is able to integrate content from heterogeneous conceptual domains. In this article, I first argue that Carruthers's data do not provide support for either of two possible interpretations of his thesis. In addition, I provide empirical and theoretical reasons for thinking content integration is performed external to the language faculty.

Explaining the theory of mind deficit in autism spectrum disorder

The theory of mind (ToM) deficit associated with autism has been a central topic in the debate about the modularity of the mind. Most involved in the debate about the explanation of the ToM deficit have failed to notice that autism’s status as a spectrum disorder has implications about which explanation is more plausible. In this paper, I argue that the shift from viewing autism as a unified syndrome to a spectrum disorder increases the plausibility of the explanation of the ToM deficit that appeals to a domain-specific, higher-level ToM module. First, I discuss what it means to consider autism as a spectrum rather than as a unified disorder. Second, I argue for the plausibility of the modular explanation on the basis that autism is better considered as a spectrum disorder. Third, I respond to a potential challenge to my account from Philip Gerrans and Valerie Stone’s recent work (Gerrans, Biol Philos 17:305–321, 2002; Stone and Gerrans, Trends Cogn Sci 10:3–4, 2006a; Soc Neurosci 1:309–319, 2006b; Gerrans and Stone, Br J Philos Sci 59:121–141, 2008).

The Attributive/Referential Distinction, Pragmatics, Modularity of Mind and Modularization

In this paper I deal with the attributive/referential distinction. After reviewing the literature on the issue, I adopt Jaszczolt's view based on default semantics. I relate her view to Sperber and Wilson's Principle of Relevance. I argue in favour of the modularity hypothesis in connection with pragmatic interpretations. I also discuss the issue of modularization à la Karmiloff-Smith in connection with default inferences and, in particular, referential readings of NPs. I reply to some considerations by Cummings and use data from referential/attributive uses of NPs to show that the modularity hypothesis is defensible.

What Can Modularity of Mind Tell Us about the Semantics/Pragmatics Debate?

In this paper I make connections between two domains of information, research on the semantics/pragmatics debate and on modularity of mind, in the hope that establishing connections and parallel structure may be fruitful in deepening knowledge of the interface between semantics and pragmatics. In particular I want to inquire if modularity of mind can help us move towards the resolution of important theoretical problems like Grice's circle, the cancellability of explicatures/implicatures, the analogy between perceptual enrichments and explicatures due to free enrichments, the routing problem for explicatures (do they strictly take input from implicatures?), and satisficing strategies in pragmatic interpretation.

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.

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.