ABSTRACT
This is the first chapter of the book’s second section, presenting the authors’ theory. This chapter focuses on the architecture of the mind. Many of our studies, which explored the processes involved in the mind and their organization, are summarized. A four-fold architecture is postulated assuming that the mind involves (i) domain-specific systems specializing in the representation and processing of specific types of relations in the environment, such as similarity, quantitative, spatial, causal, and social relations; (ii) representational systems, such as short-term storage, allowing the representation and mental processing of information; (iii) inferential relational systems, such as inductive and deductive reasoning, allowing the integration and evaluation of information and interpretations, and (iv) cognizance systems, allowing self-monitoring, self-representation, and self-regulation and self-modification, if needed. A central mechanism is proposed involving three interdependent processes: abstraction, representational alignment, and cognizance—the AACog mechanism. Several experiments are summarized which investigated the relations between the AACog mechanism and the various processes involved in the four-fold architecture.
