Early Faculty Psychology   An early view of the mind as modular, originally due to the French scientist Franz Josef Gall.  Early faculty psychology degraded into phrenology and fell into disrepute.  However, this hypothesis was revived by the philosopher/cognitive scientist Jerry Fodor in his 1983 monograph, Modularity of Mind.  On Fodor's view, the mind consists of a set of modules and a general cognitive faculty.  Modules have the following essential properties:

• distinctive inputs and outputs
• idiosyncratic computations narrowly optimized for the module's tasks
• distinct neurological basis
• cognitive impenetrability

Some examples of this last property may be found here.