Modularity and the Cultural Mind

Modularity and the Cultural Mind: Contributions of Cultural Neuroscience to Cognitive Theory.

A central question in the study of the mind is how cognitive functions are shaped by a complex interplay of genetic and experiential processes. Recent evidence from cultural neuroscience indicates that cultural values, practices, and beliefs influence brain function across a variety of cognitive processes from vision to social cognition. This evidence extends to low-level perceptual systems com...

The Modularity of Mind

Modularity and the Predictive Mind

Modular approaches to the architecture of the mind claim that some mental mechanisms, such as sensory input processes, operate in special-purpose subsystems that are functionally independent from the rest of the mind. This assumption of modularity seems to be in tension with recent claims that the mind has a predictive architecture. Predictive approaches propose that both sensory processing and...

Modularity of Mind and Language

The concept of Modularity, i.e., the degree to which the lexicon, syntax, and other neurocognitive domains operate independently of one another, has played an important role in theorizing about brain architecture and function, both in development and in adulthood. In this chapter, we present an overview of the theoretical and empirical arguments relevant to three parameters of modularity: local...

Pragmatics, Modularity and Mind-reading

The central problem for pragmatics is that sentence meaning vastly underdetermines speaker’s meaning. The goal of pragmatics is to explain how the gap between sentence meaning and speaker’s meaning is bridged. This paper defends the broadly Gricean view that pragmatic interpretation is ultimately an exercise in mind-reading, involving the inferential attribution of intentions. We argue, however...