BCS 111 Chapter Notes - Chapter 12: Jerry Fodor, Linguistic Relativity

• School: University of Rochester
• Department: Brain and Cognitive Sciences
• Course: BCS 111
• Professor: Yang

Document Summary

There are two extreme positions about the influence that language has over other cognitive processes: Language and other cognitive processes operate completely independently. Language and other cognitive processes are completely related, with one determining the other. There is a middle ground view: language and other cognitive processes are related in some ways but independent in others. John watson thought that thought itself was language and nothing more . he thought that all apparent instances of thinking were really the results of subvocal speech (thinking=talking to yourself) Some cognitive processes are modular . a modular process is domain-specific, meaning it operates specifically with certain kinds of input and not others. Modularity of a process also implies that it is an informationally encapsulated process: it operates independently of the beliefs and the other information available to the processor. An informationally encapsulated process operates relatively independently of other processes. The modularity hypothesis argues that certain perceptual and language processes are modules.