A current problem in the philosophy of neuroscience consists in determining how to individuate cognitive capacities using neurobiological evidence. One recent proposal grounded on fundamental insights from mechanistic philosophy is an iterative strategy that cycles between neural mechanisms and cognitive capacities, using the former to individuate the latter and vice versa (Francken et al. Synthese, 200(5):378, 2022). However, this view cannot be applied to a fundamental aspect of research on cognitive capacities. Understanding a capacity requires delineating its behavioral profile by identifying the different effects or phenomena associated with it in different task settings. If mechanisms are necessary for integrating these phenomena into a single capacity in a bottom-up way, the iterative cyclic strategy requires a criterion for assessing the across-context identity of the mechanism, which is missing from this view. However, we argue that introducing this criterion turns the strategy into something else. It requires substituting its bottom-up phase with a bi-dimensional stage in which the capacity and its mechanism are individuated simultaneously through the identification of the generalization that connects them and the assessment of how the generalization behaves across contexts.