The Disencapsulated Mind: A Premotor Theory of Human Imagination

Abstract

Our premodern ancestors had perceptual, motoric, and cognitive functional domains that were modularly encapsulated. Some of these came to interact through a new type of cross-modular binding in our species. This allowed previously domain-dedicated, encapsulated motoric and sensory operators to operate on operands for which they had not evolved. Such operators could at times operate nonvolitionally, while at other times they could be governed volitionally. In particular, motoric operations that derive from the same circuits that compute hand motions for object manipulation could now be retooled for virtual manipulation in a mental workspace in the absence of any physical hand or other effector movements. I hypothesize that the creativity of human imagination and mental models is rooted in premotor simulation of sequential manipulations of objects and symbols in the mental workspace, in analogy with the premotor theory of attention, which argues that attention evolved from “internalized” eye movement circuitry. Overall, operator “disencapsulation” led to a bifurcation of consciousness in humans: a concrete form centered on perception of the body in the physical world and an abstract form focused on explanatory mental models. One of the consequences of these new abilities was the advent of psychotic disorders that do not exist in species possessed solely of the concrete type of consciousness.

Full text

The Disencapsulated Mind: A Premotor Theory of Human Imagination
Peter Ulric Tse
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College
Our premodern ancestors had perceptual, motoric, and cognitive functional domains that were modularly
encapsulated. Some of these came to interact through a new type of cross-modular binding in our species.
This allowed previously domain-dedicated, encapsulated motoric and sensory operators to operate on
operands for which they had not evolved. Such operators could at times operate nonvolitionally, while at
other times they could be governed volitionally. In particular, motoric operations that derive from the same
circuits that compute hand motions for object manipulation could now be retooled for virtual manipulation
in a mental workspace in the absence of any physical hand or other effector movements. I hypothesize that
the creativity of human imagination and mental models is rooted in premotor simulation of sequential
manipulations of objects and symbols in the mental workspace, in analogy with the premotor theory of
attention, which argues that attention evolved from “internalized”eye movement circuitry. Overall, operator
“disencapsulation”led to a bifurcation of consciousness in humans: a concrete form centered on perception
of the body in the physical world and an abstract form focused on explanatory mental models. One of the
consequences of these new abilities was the advent of psychotic disorders that do not exist in species
possessed solely of the concrete type of consciousness.
Keywords: demodularization, mental models, virtual hand, premotor theory, causal reasoning
The cognitive, perceptual, and emotional capacities of humans
and apes share much in common (e.g., numeric thought: Hauser
et al., 2002; certain substrates of language: Hauser et al., 2002).
However, there are core modes of cognition that make humans
fundamentally different from other primates. Capacities that set
humans apart in kind, not just in degree, from all other extant
primates include capacities and propensities for art, music, dance,
analogical reasoning, causal reasoning, abstract thought, the
spontaneous generation and use of symbols, and the ability to
reason abstractly, as well as the ability to manipulate symbols
recursively and syntactically (e.g., Povinelli et al., 2002;Povinelli
& Preuss, 1995).
Why might human cognition be so innovative compared to that of
other extant primates? Like us, they have perceptual and emotional
systems that evaluate bodily states and the environment in order to
fulfill meaningful goals such as finding food, mates, and shelter.
This (a) first domain comprises a sensory–emotional–somatic form
of consciousness. In addition, most complex animals also have
working memory, allowing them to represent events and objects that
are not in the sensory input. But this (b) simulative domain is an
elaboration of the first domain of consciousness and still typically
represents events and possibilities in their concrete world. For
example, my dog might look for a ball that I threw, because he
knows that it is likely somewhere in the thicket where it landed.
Humans, however, have the capacity to represent events and objects
that might have nothing to do with the world as it now is. This
(c) third domain of counterfactual imagination allows humans to
simulate “might be’s,”“might have beens,”and the impossible. It
is also central to causal model formation and abstract theorizing
(Carruthers, 2002;Liebenberg, 1990). Whereas other animals are
concrete, meaning that they might simulate or model the world as it
likely is in light of what is perceived, humans can simulate and
model the counterfactual and abstract.
But how did our capacities for complex mental models, abstract
reasoning, counterfactual thinking, and creative imagining evolve
from a more concrete ancestral form of thinking? Here, I explore the
idea that these capacities emerged as a consequence of brain processes
in our lineage that became less modular, perhaps as a consequence of
evolutionary pressures brought to bear by tool manufacture and use.
Fodor (1983) argued that many brain processes are modular. By this,
he meant that they involve fast, specialized, dedicated, and largely
automatic processing of information in an “encapsulated”domain
where functions proceed in a manner that makes no reference to
contents or processes active in other modules. Here, I explore the
possibility that once-modular operators in the more concrete minds of
our ancestors evolved to become “disencapsulated”or “demodular-
ized”in humans. This allowed such operators to act on the operands
of other modules in a common mental workspace. I particularly focus
on a premotor theory of imagination in which manual manipulation
of a “virtual hand”and perceptual grouping operations could now
connect and combine operands across modules.
In addition to seeing how the world concretely is, we have models
about invisible causes and facts that overlap the concrete perceptual
world representation. Our consciousness is bifurcated in a way that
the experience of other animals is not. We see and feel a perceptual
world like a chimpanzee might, but in addition, we experience a
“metaconsciousness”that is rich with mental models that link what
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
This article was published Online First January 9, 2025.
Kara J. Blacker served as action editor.
Peter Ulric Tse https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0802-4037
Peter Ulric Tse played a lead role in conceptualization and writing–
original draft.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Peter
Ulric Tse, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth
College, H. B. 6207, Moore Hall, Hanover, NH 03755, United States.
Email: peter.tse@dartmouth.edu
Psychological Review
© 2025 American Psychological Association 2025, Vol. 132, No. 4, 895–915
ISSN: 0033-295X https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000535
895