INFORMATION INTEGRATION IN CROSS-MODAL PATTERN-RECOGNITION - AN ARGUMENT FOR ACQUIRED MODULARITY

Three experiments addressed the issue of whether modularized operation s (Fodor, 1983) in pattern recognition could be acquired. In Experimen t 1, blind and sighted individuals were compared in the speech-tactile domain of pattern recognition. The results were inconsistent with the assumptions of the fuzzy logical model of perception (FLMP) (Oden and Massaro, 1978) and with the assumptions of modularized pattern recogn ition processes, but were consistent with the assumptions of 'penetrab ility' into non-modularized operations. Experiments 2 and 3 compared s ighted individuals across speech-visual and speech-tactile domains, re vealing fundamentally different patterns of performance that we argue demonstrate modularized and non-modularized FLMP operations in pattern recognition, respectively.