Editing Modularity of mind (section)

==Fodor's ''Modularity of Mind''==
In the 1980s, however, [[Jerry Fodor]] revived the idea of the modularity of mind, although without the notion of precise physical localizability. Drawing from [[Noam Chomsky]]'s idea of the [[language acquisition device]] and other work in [[linguistics]] as well as from the [[philosophy of mind]] and the implications of [[optical illusion]]s, he became a major proponent of the idea with the 1983 publication of ''Modularity of Mind''.<ref name=":0">Fodor, Jerry A. (1983). ''Modularity of Mind: An Essay on Faculty Psychology''. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. {{ISBN|0-262-56025-9}}</ref>

According to Fodor, a module falls somewhere between the behaviorist and cognitivist views of lower-level processes.

[[Behaviorism|Behaviorists]] tried to replace the mind with reflexes, which are, according to Fodor, encapsulated (cognitively impenetrable or unaffected by other cognitive domains) and non-inferential (straight pathways with no information added). Low-level processes are unlike reflexes in that they can be inferential. This can be demonstrated by [[argument from poverty of the stimulus|poverty of the stimulus]] argument, which posits that children do not only learn language from their environment, but are innately programmed with low-level processes that help them seek and learn language. The proximate stimulus, that which is initially received by the brain (such as the 2D image received by the retina), cannot account for the resulting output (for example, our 3D perception of the world), thus necessitating some form of computation.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Laurence|first=Stephen|date=2001|title=The Poverty of the Stimulus Argument|journal=The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science|volume=52|issue=2|pages=217–276|doi=10.1093/bjps/52.2.217}}</ref>

In contrast, [[cognitivism (psychology)|cognitivists]] saw lower-level processes as continuous with higher-level processes, being inferential and cognitively penetrable (influenced by other cognitive domains, such as beliefs). The latter has been shown to be untrue in some cases, such as the [[Müller-Lyer illusion]], which can persist despite a person's awareness of their existence.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.illusionsindex.org/ir/mueller-lyer|title=Muller Lyer|last=Donaldson|first=J|date=2017|website=The Illusions Index}}</ref> This is taken to indicate that other domains, including one's beliefs, cannot influence such processes.

Fodor arrives at the conclusion that such processes are inferential like higher-order processes and encapsulated in the same sense as reflexes.

Although he argued for the modularity of "lower level" cognitive processes in ''Modularity of Mind'' he also argued that higher-level cognitive processes are not modular since they have dissimilar properties. ''The Mind Doesn't Work That Way'', a reaction to [[Steven Pinker]]'s ''[[How the Mind Works]]'', is devoted to this subject.

Fodor (1983) states that modular systems must—at least to "some interesting extent"—fulfill certain properties:
# Domain specificity: modules only operate on certain kinds of inputs—they are specialised
# Obligatory firing: modules process in a mandatory manner
# Limited accessibility: what central processing can access from input system representations is limited
# Fast speed: probably due to the fact that they are encapsulated (thereby needing only to consult a restricted database) and mandatory (time need not be wasted in determining whether or not to process incoming input)
# Informational encapsulation: modules need not refer to other psychological systems in order to operate
# Shallow outputs: the output of modules is very simple
# Specific breakdown patterns
# Characteristic [[ontogeny]]: there is a regularity of development
# Fixed neural architecture.

[[Zenon Pylyshyn|Pylyshyn]] (1999) has argued that while these properties tend to occur with modules, one—information encapsulation—stands out as being the real signature of a module; that is the encapsulation of the processes inside the module from both cognitive influence and from cognitive access.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Pylyshyn | first1 = Z.W. | year = 1999 | title = Is vision continuous with cognition? The case for cognitive impenetrability of visual perception | url = http://ruccs.rutgers.edu/ftp/pub/papers/bbs1999_reprint.pdf | journal = Behavioral and Brain Sciences | volume = 22 | issue = 3| pages = 341–423 | doi = 10.1017/S0140525X99002022 | pmid = 11301517 | s2cid = 9482993 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080511184911/http://ruccs.rutgers.edu/ftp/pub/papers/bbs1999_reprint.pdf | archive-date = 2008-05-11 }}</ref> One example is that conscious awareness that the [[Müller-Lyer illusion]] is an illusion does not correct visual processing.<ref name=FP2007/>