Fodor’s Theory Of Modular Mind

Until the last decades of the last century, the brain was claimed to function as an “online” information processor. According to this idea, all incoming data was processed globally by the entire system which returned outgoing data. The modular theory of mind (TMM) represents a breaking point and a different paradigm than in the past.

When it was almost assumed that the brain was a kind of computer capable of processing only a finite set of information per unit of time and that it could not process new data until it had finished the previous operations, the modular theory of mind introduced the notion of parallel or simultaneous processing. And even more important is the concept of module.

An alternative theory

An alternative theory that represents an important step for understanding cognition and for observing the way our brain works. It has come to be understood that the brain is made up of modules and that each of them is highly specialized.

Each module, however, is not to be understood as a neuroanatomically delimited brain region. The focus must be on functional specialization. A specific function, therefore, is performed in a modular way by different areas or by different functional systems.

Basic concepts of the modular theory of mind

In the past, the functioning of the mind has been studied as if it were a unitary process that was activated in front of any type of information. Regardless of the information modality (perceptive, logical, social, mathematical, etc.), the brain would be activated as a whole starting from the incoming information and producing outgoing information already processed and resolved.

In the second half of the 1980s, Jerry Fodor, a renowned psycholinguist considered today as the true father of cognitive science, hypothesized that the mind was made up of a set of innate modules each with a specific highly specialized activity.

The mind would no longer be a serial computational organ with unitary functioning, but rather an integrated and coordinated set of specialized functions. After providing a specific result that converges in the others, they would allow an efficient and separate distribution of the mental sub-functions that would contribute to the optimization of the functioning processes of the brain.

An intermediate position between behaviorism and cognitivism

With his postulates on mental processing, which led to the theory of the modular mind, Fodor managed to occupy an intermediate position between behaviorism and cognitivism.

According to him, the modules of the mind are activated in a similar way to a behavior or a reflex, but in an “inferential” way. In other words, they are able to provide more information in a more flexible way than the specificity of a reflex requires.

Essential characteristics of the modules

Fodor (1983) argues that any modular system must meet, totally or partially, certain criteria:

• Domain specificity. Each module specializes only in certain types of incoming information.

• Information encapsulation. For their activation, the modules do not depend on other mental systems.

• Obligation to activate the modules. If a type of information reaches the cognitive system, the module specialized in processing that information is activated without giving up its task.

• High speed. The modules run at high speed, probably thanks to the efficiency of the previous two points.

• Simplicity of outgoing information. The result of modular processing is a simple and basic type of information, like the single brick of a building.

• Limited accessibility.

• Characteristic ontogenesis. The ontogenetic development of modules occurs with regularity in every human being.

• Preset neuronal architecture. It supports and allows each module to be functional.

An observable and replicable mental phenomenon that, like many others, offers empirical support to the modular mind theory is the so-called Müller-Lyer illusion.

This illusion occurs when a person who perceives an illusory vision, even after becoming aware of the falsity of visual information, is unable to stop perceiving it with its false attributes.

Conclusions on the modular theory of mind

After the necessary extrapolations of the modular theory of mind, we can come to the conclusion that the diversity of mental modules corresponds to the enormous variety of needs that arise when the individual develops cognitively in a given context.

The widely accepted connectionist model of mental functioning, which holds that mental information is processed and stored in relatively differentiated neural circuits, would represent neurophysiological support for the modular theory of mind.

Finally, the modular mind theory also accommodates the proven phenomenon of brain plasticity. In fact, it would be thanks to this neuroplasticity that the development, from a psychophysical point of view, of the mental modules would take place.