ABSTRACT
Many formal and folk psychological theories conceive of the mind as being composed of quasi-independent modules. From Freud to Fodor the mind has been decomposed into constituent parts. Recently, a number of researchers have proposed modular theories of cognitive phenomena such as categorization (Ashby, Alfonso-Reese, & Turken, 1995; Shanks & St. John, 1994), reasoning (Sloman, 1996), automaticity (Logan, 1988), language (Pinker, 1991), and learning and memory (Squire, 1992). In general, these theories are characterized by descriptions of each module and how each serves in those tasks for which it is best suited. However, these theories do not emphasize how modules interact in producing responses and in learning.
