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On the neural implausibility of the modular mind: Evidence for distributed construction dissolves boundaries between perception, cognition, and emotion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2017

Leor M. Hackel ,
Grace M. Larson ,
Jeffrey D. Bowen ,
Gaven A. Ehrlich ,
Thomas C. Mann ,
Brianna Middlewood ,
Ian D. Roberts ,
Julie Eyink ,
Janell C. Fetterolf  and
Fausto Gonzalez
...Show all authors
Leor M. Hackel
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, NY 10003. leor.hackel@nyu.edu
Grace M. Larson
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208. gracelarson2017@u.northwestern.edu
Jeffrey D. Bowen
Affiliation:
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106. bowen@psych.ucsb.edu
Gaven A. Ehrlich
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244. gaehrlic@syr.edu
Thomas C. Mann
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853. tcm79@cornell.edu
Brianna Middlewood
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16801. blm266@psu.educarlosgarrido@psu.edu
Ian D. Roberts
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210. roberts.1134@osu.edu
Julie Eyink
Affiliation:
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405. jeyink@indiana.edu
Janell C. Fetterolf
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ 08854. j.fetterolf@gmail.com
Fausto Gonzalez
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720. fjgonzal@berkeley.edu
Carlos O. Garrido
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16801. blm266@psu.educarlosgarrido@psu.edu
Jinhyung Kim
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77840. jhkim82@tamu.edu
Thomas C. O'Brien
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Amherst, MA 01003. tcobrien@psych.umass.edu
Ellen E. O'Malley
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, State University of New York, Albany, Albany, NY 12222. ellen.e.omalley@gmail.com
Batja Mesquita
Affiliation:
Center for Social and Cultural Psychology, University of Leuven, B-3000 Leuven, Belgium.mesquita@psy.kuleuven.be
Lisa Feldman Barrett
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115. l.barrett@neu.edu Department of Psychiatry and the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02114.
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Abstract

Firestone & Scholl (F&S) rely on three problematic assumptions about the mind (modularity, reflexiveness, and context-insensitivity) to argue cognition does not fundamentally influence perception. We highlight evidence indicating that perception, cognition, and emotion are constructed through overlapping, distributed brain networks characterized by top-down activity and context-sensitivity. This evidence undermines F&S's ability to generalize from case studies to the nature of perception.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 39 , 2016 , e246
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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