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Discussion Questions

Name of Student

Name of the Department, University

Name of course

Name of Instructor

Due Date
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Discussion Questions

Response 1: 

     There is a logic in the perception by some students that neo-Cartesian-ism is the superior

alternative mental construct among the four that were presented by Fodor (1983, p. 3). In the

neo-Cartesian school of thought, in the simplest terms, the brain and its components do not

equate to the mind and what it may contain. All the other mental constructs can be discounted on

different accounts. The richness and diversity of the mind are acknowledged per Chomsky

because what it contains are innate structures in the form of knowledge. On the other hand, when

the mental structure is perceived as functional architecture, the intangible faculties such as

memory, intuition, and creativity are considered to be linked. For instance, when one is intuitive

and has a sharp memory, they may be unable to depend on what they remember to determine

how to deal with a given situation, which they find similarly perilous as one from the past. The

vertical faculties accept all the horizontal architectures of the mind but reject their

interconnectedness. To exemplify, just because one has a good memory, it does not mean that

they will remember grammatical rules with the same accuracy as mathematical calculations. In

contrast, association-ism psychologists disagree that the mind is limited to various faculties, and

imply that it has infinite capacities. Evidently, at different stages of learning, individuals

continue to tap more into the capabilities of the mind beyond what were previously limits in

calculating, reasoning, or memorizing contents.  

Response 2

     At first glance, it is possible to find an absence of superiority among the different constructs

in the modularity of the mind. Fodor presents arguments that are disputed on the principles of

synesthesia. Synesthesia is a cross-modal association where the laws of modularity breakdown

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(Gray, 2001). In earlier research, Moscovitch used memory as a mental faculty of capacity to

determine the inter-relatedness and connectedness of different components of each module’s

functionality. With these two publications, it is possible to defend the opinion that knowledge-

based, horizontal, vertical, and associative mental constructs are all equal and depend on the

ability to find connections between them. However, the response would have been more robust

in logos if one of the methodologies would have been chosen to be rationally superior. Most

respondents find neo-Cartesian-ism to be a better approach.

Response 3

     Cui et al. (2007), Kelley & Lavie (2011), and Ericsson & Kintsch (1995) use comparable

methods to verify if long term memory exists. There is no clear proposal of a technique that

would be used to confirm that long term memory storage is accessed using short term memory

cues when performing activities that require high levels of skills. The process is well defined in a

proposal known as the skilled memory theory (Ericsson & Kintsch, 1995). One of the better

recommendations to prove this would be how youngsters resort to skills that are committed to

long term memory such as tunes and rhythms, to remember what should be done immediately.

For instance, pre-teens sing a song about looking left, right and left again before, a long term

memory, to remember what to do when skillfully crossing the road. To research this in adults,

researchers can measure if boxers or basket-ballers take specific postures and make unique facial

expressions just before they execute their signature moves. This would be the usage of subtle

physical cues to measure how skilled individuals recall what to do and how to do it. The

response, however, re-affirms that Ericsson and Kintsch used better methods that Cui et al. or

Kelly and Lavie in finding the relationships between short and long term methods and

acknowledges the vivid ways in which their processes overlap.

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References

Cui, X., Jeter, C. B., Yang, D., Montague, P. R., & Eagleman, D. M. (2007). Vividness of mental

imagery: Individual variability can be measured objectively. Vision Research, 47, 474-

478. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.visres.2006.11.013

Ericsson, K. A., & Kintsch, W. (1995). Long-term working memory. Psychological Review,

102(2), 211–245. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.102.2.211

Fodor, J. A. (1983). The modularity of mind: An essay on faculty psychology. Cambridge, Mass:

MIT Press.

Gray, R. (2001). Cognitive modules, synaesthesia and the constitution of psychological natural

kinds. Philosophical Psychology, 14(1), 65-82.

https://doi.org/10.1080/09515080120033562

Kelley, T. A., & Lavie, N. (2011). Working memory load modulates distractor competition in

primary visual cortex. Cerebral Cortex, 1(21) 659-665.

https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhq139

Moscovitch, M. (1994). Memory and working with memory: Evaluation of a component process

model and comparisons with other models. Memory systems, 1994(369-394), 224.