CogSci 3790: Introduction to Cognitive Science

This is a draft of the reading schedule for Spring. It is likely that the schedule will “stretch out” a bit as topics and readings are added. We will try to keep the exams on schedule, however.

Lecture links with asterisks (*) are from Fall term. These lectures will be replaced by the Spring lectures after the lecture is given.

The main textbook for this class is Cognitive Science: An Introduction to the Study of Mind, by Friedenberg and Silverman (hereafter called F&S). It is available from both the Georgia Tech Bookstore and Engineer’s Bookstore. Be sure to look under look under all the crosslisted sections (CS, ISYE, PST, PSY) if you do not find it under your section.

Web-based readings can be accessed directly by clicking on the link for that reading.

Critical dates:

• January 12 (Friday): End of Phase II Registration
• January 15 (Monday): MLK Holiday
• February 19 (Monday): Exam 1
• March 2 (Friday): Last day to drop class
• March 19-23: Spring Break
• April 2: Paper topic due
• April 9: Paper outline draft due
• April 16: Paper mini-draft due
• April 20 (Friday): Exam 2
• May 1 (Tuesday): Final paper due

PART I: AN INTRODUCTION AND AN EXAMPLE DOMAIN

Week 1 (January 8): Introduction to Cognitive Science*

• Lecture 1: Introduction to the class. Reading: F&S, chapter 1.
• Lecture 2: Mind as computer. Reading: Boden, M. (2006), The Mind as Machine: A History of Cognitive Science, pp. 1-18.
• Lecture 3: Leveling the Mind. Reading: Marr(1982). Quotations from Vision, chapter 1. Optional reading: David Marr (1977). Artificial Intelligence: A personal view. Artificial Intelligence 9. 37-48.

Week 2 (January 15): Representation and Analogy*

• January 15: MLK Holiday
• Lecture 4: Knowledge representation. Reading: Davis, Shrobe & Szolovits (1993). What is a knowledge representation? AI Magazine, Spring, pp. 17-33.
• Lectures 5: Things like analogies. Reading: Gentner, D. (1999). Analogy. In R. A. Wilson & F. C. Keil (Eds.), The MIT Encyclopedia of the Cognitive Sciences (pp. 17-20). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Week 3 (January 22): Analogical Reasoning*

• Lecture 6: Feature-based models of analogy (no additional readings)
• Lecture 7: Structure-Mapping models of analogy. Reading: Gentner, D. (1983). Structure-mapping: A theoretical framework for analogy. Cognitive Science, 7, 155-170. An alternative link to the Gentner article
• Open slot

PART II: PHILOSOPHICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS

 

Week 4 (January 29): The Mind-Body Problem*

• Lecture 8: Spock’s brain, Descarte’s pineal gland. Reading: F&S, chapter 2.
• Lecture 9: Headrooms 1: The Cartesian Theatre. Reading: Dennett, D.C. & Kinsbourne, M. (1992) Time and the Observer. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 15 (2) 183-247.
• Lecture 10: Headrooms 2: The Chinese Room: Reading: Searle, J.R. (1980) Minds, brains, and programs. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3 (3): 417-457

Week 5 (February 5): Precursors to Cognitive psychology*

• Lecture 11: Analogies of the mind. Reading: F&S, chapter 3.
• Lecture 12: Gestalt: The sum of its parts. No additional reading.
• Lecture 13: Behaviorism. No additional reading.

PART III: AREAS OF COGNITION

Week 6 (February 12): Perception*

• Lecture 14: Marr’s theory of vision. Reading: F&S, chapter 4.
• Lecture 15: Feature integration theory. No additional reading.
• Lecture 16: High-level models of visual recognition. Reading: Biederman, I. (1995). Visual object recognition. In S. F. Kosslyn and D. N. Osherson (Eds.). An Invitation to Cognitive Science. MIT Press. [Part 1] [Part 2] (Please read pp. 121-132, 136-144, 148-155, & 160-162)
  

Week 7 (February 19): Memory (plus Exam 1)*

• Midterm 1 (February 19)

• Lecture 17: Introduction to Memory models. Reading: F&S, chapter 5.
• Lecture 18: More memory (no additional readings)
  

Week 8 (February 26): Problem solving*

• Monday: Problem solving (plus discussion of exam 1)
• Lecture 19: ACT-R
• Lecture 20: Using ACT-R to model memory deficits

Week 9 (March 5): Imagery and neuroscience*

• Lecture 21: The imagery debate. Reading: TBA
• Lecture 22: Agnosia. Reading: F&S, chapter 6.
• Lecture 23: Other neuroscience topic (or overflow)

Week 10 (March 12): Language*

• Lecture 24: Language acquisition. Reading: F&S, chapter 9.
• Lecture 25: Grammar
• Lecture 26: The Whorf-Sapir hypothesis

Week 11: SPRING BREAK (March 19-23)

PART III: COMPUTER MODELING TECHNIQUES IN COGNITIVE SCIENCE

Week 12 (March 26): Networks*

• Lecture 27: Neural networks. Reading: F&S, chapter 7.
• Lecture 28: Semantic networks.
• Lecture 29: Semantic networks, continued.
  

Week 13 (April 2): Artificial Intelligence*

• Lecture 30: Turing meets Eliza, unhappily. Reading: F&S, chapter 10
• Lecture 31: The frame problem. Reading: F&S, chapters 11
• Lecture 32: Cyc’d — is large scale knowledge possible?

Week 14 (April 9). Robotics*

• Lecture 33: Fuzzy logic. No additional reading.
• Lecture 34: Robotics. Reading: F&S, chapter 12.
• Lecture 35: Behavior-based robotics. Reading: Brooks, R. A. (1990). Elephants Don’t Play Chess. Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 3-15

PART IV: EMERGING AREAS OF COGNITIVE SCIENCE

Week 15 (April 16):Evolutionary models of cognition* (plus Exam 2)

• Lecture 36: Evolutionary cognition – Basic concepts. Reading: F&S, chapter 8.
• Lecture 37: Evolutionary cognition – Evolution’s “fingerprints”.
  
• April 20: Exam 2

Weeks 16 (April 23): Situated cognition*

• Lecture 38: Making cognition affordable. Reading: Gibson (1971). A preliminary description and classification of affordances. More on affordances.
• Lecture 39: Embodied cognition. Reading: Wilson (2002). Six views of embodied cognition
• Lecture 40: Wrapping up. Reading: F&S, chapter 13.

Final paper due on Tuesday, May 1.