Synaesthesia and Encapsulation

The concept of informational encapsulation has been important in promoting a view of the mind that has dominated cognitive science. Multisensory phenomena, such as synaesthesia, have been used as evidence for challenging this view. The main objective of this paper is to provide a more detailed understanding of the nature of such a challenge by examining the two types of grapheme–colour synaesthesia, projectors and associators. It is argued that the phenomena under consideration exemplify partial encapsulation failure and that it is expressed in three forms: intramodal, intermodal, and top-down. Additional support for these claims is provided by considering some evidence on synaesthetic-like experiences in relation to the continuity thesis.