Introduction to Cognitive Science

Syllabus for Q500

Please check webpage for the latest syllabus:
http://www.cs.indiana.edu/~port/teach/500/syll.html

Dec 12, 1999

Prof. Robert F. Port and Sean McLennan

Office Hours;

Sean McLennan, T 11am-12:30pm, Sycamore 0012.
Robert Port, TR 11-12, Mem 330, 5-9217.

Course Requirements: (1) Read assigned readings before the lectures. (2) Write 5 essays, some in two drafts. (3) Read and comment on other students essays. (4) Midterm exam on readings, (5) Final exam, (6) Several lab assignments and homework projects.

Texts:

Introduction

Wk 1. Aug 31-Sept 2. Minds and Bodies.

Essay 1.Write essay, 1000-1500 words. First draft due next Wed evening by midnight.
Lab Wednesday, Sept 1 in Sycamore 0006 (sic, in the sub-basement)
Lecture Notes, Week 1.
Readings:
*Haugeland, John (1985) The saga of modern mind. In AI/VI, Chapter 1.
Haugeland, J. (1997) What is mind design? In Mind Design II (MD2).
Thagard, Paul (1997) Mind, Chap 1 `Representation and computation.'
Other Useful Readings:
Fodor, Jerrold (1981/1994) The mind-body problem. Scientific American. Reprinted in E. D. Klemke, A. David Kline, Robert Hollinger (eds.) Philosophy: Contemporary Perspectives on Perennial Issues (4th ed). St. Martin Press, New York, 1994.
Reed, Edward S. (1997) From Souls to Minds: The Emergence of Psychology from Erasmus Darwin to William James. Yale University Press.

Wk 2. Sept 7, 9. Descartes, Dualism and Behaviorism.

Lab (Sept 8): Tutorial on Annotate software for sharing manuscripts.
Essay 1 - first draft due to be posted by midnight Wednesday. Commentaries due by Saturday midnight.
Lecture Notes, Week 2
Readings:
Chomsky, Noam (1968) `Linguistic contributions: Past' from Language and Mind: Enlarged Edition. Harcourt-Brace-Jovanovich, New York, 1968/1972. pp. 1-23.
Skinner, B. F. (1980) Cognitive science and behaviorism. British Journal of Psychology 76.
Other Useful Readings:
Boring, E. G. (1950) A History of Experimental Psychology, 2d Ed. Chapters 1-3, 9-10, 24.

Wk 3. Sept 14, 16. Two Thought-Experiments: `Turing Test' & `Chinese Room.'

Lab (Sept 15):Turing machines
Essay 1, final draft due, midnight Friday.
Comments on Ch'i and Dualism (RP and Peter Murray)
Lecture Notes, Week 3
Readings:
Turing, Alan (1950) Computing machinery and intelligence. In MD2-2.
Searle, John R. (1980) Minds, brains and programs. In MD2-7.
Other Useful Readings
Newell, Alan (1980) Physical symbol systems. Cognitive Science 4, 135-183.

Classical Cognitive Science

Wk 4. Sept 21, 23. Classical Cognitive Science.

Lab (Sept 22): Doing logic.
Essay 2, due Friday, Sept 24
Lecture Notes, Week 4 (preliminary draft)
Readings:
Alan Newell quote on symbol processing . (from Newell, A. (1980)`Physical Symbols Systems' Cognitive Science 4, 135-183. )
Thagard, Paul Mind : Ch 2 `Logic'
Newell, Alan and Herbert Simon (1976) Computer science as empirical inquiry.Communications of the Assoc. of Computing Machinery (ACM) 19, 113-126. Also MD2-4.
Other Useful Readings: Barwise, Jon and John Etchemendy (1989) Model-theoretic semantics. In M. Posner (ed) Foundations of Cognitive Science. Bradford/MIT Press. pp. 207-243.

Wk 5. Sept 28, 30. AI and Rules.

Lab (Sept 29):.
Lecture Notes, Week 5.
Production System Example: camel identification
Readings:
Thagard, Paul. Mind. Ch 3 `Rules'
*Anderson, John R. `ACT-R and addition'

Wk 6. Oct 5, 7. Concepts and Cognitive `Things'.

Lab (Oct 6): Prof. Jon Mills, Ballantine Hall 135, 7-8:30. `Analog computing'
Essay 3 assignment. Due Wed, October 13 midnight.
Lecture Notes, Week 6.
Readings:
Thagard, Paul Mind, Ch 4 `Concepts'.
Deacon, Terrence (1997) The Symbolic Species: The Coevolution of Language and the Brain. (Norton). Excerpts ``Symbolic reference and human evolution''
Notes on Human Signs and Symbols according to Deacon
Port, R. Essay on dualism. See the course Annotate webpage, Essay 1, Version 1.
Recommended: Rosch, Eleanor `Principles of categorization' in E. Rosch and B. B. Lloyd (eds) Cognition and Categorization (L. Erlbaum, 1978). Reprinted in A. Collins and E. Smith (eds) Readings in Cognitive Science: A Perspective from Psychology and Artificial Intelligence. (Morgan-Kaufmann, 1988). *

Wk 7. Oct 12, 14. Knowledge Representation and Critiques


Lab (Oct 13):. Prof. Robert Goldstone, Ballantine Hall 135, 7-8:30. `Categories and concepts'
Readings:
Minsky, Marvin `A framework for representing knowledge' (MD2-5)
Dreyfus, Hubert `From microworlds to knowledge representation' (MD2-6)
Smith, Brian Cantwell (1998) `Situatedness/Embeddedness.' In MITECS (MIT Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science. A draft is available online or as hardcopy in packet (3 pages). *
Recommended: Smith. Brian Cantwell (1991) `On the threshold of belief: Or, the owl and the electric encyclopedia.' Mspt. Revised version appeared as `The owl and the electric encyclopedia', Artificial Intelligence 47 (1991), 251-288. *

Biology-based Cognitive Science

Wk 8. Oct 19, 21. Ecological Psychology: J. J. Gibson

Lab (Oct 20): Midterm exam, written in class. Covers material thru Wk 7.
Lecture Notes: Week 8
Readings:
Gibson, J. J. (1979) The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. (Houghton-Mifflin, Boston) pp. 1-32, 47-63.
Bruce, Vicky and Patrick Green (1990) Visual Perception: Physiology, Psycholgoy and Ecology, 2d Ed. (L. Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ), Chaps 10 and 11.

Wk 9. Oct 26, 28. Neuroscience.

Lab (Oct 27): Brainwave intro: IAC network. (Meet in Ball'n Hall 118).
Lecture Notes, Week 9
Essay 4, due Friday Nov 5.
Readings:
Kandell, E., J. Schwartz and T. Jessell (1991) Principles of Neuroscience, 3d Ed. Chapters 1, 2 (pp. 1-32).
Grossberg, Steven (1995) Neural dynamics of motion perception, recognition learning and spatial attention. In Mind as Motion, Ch 15.
Recommended: Rosenbaum, David (1987) `Neuroscience: Brain and cognition'. In Stillings, Neil et al. (1987) Cognitive Science: An Introduction. (MITP) Chapter 7, pp.265-301.
Changeux, Jean-Pierre (1985) Neuronal Man: The Biology of Mind. (Oxford UP). Thoughtful overview, but a mediocre translation from French.
Grossberg, Stephen (1995) The attentive brain. American Scientist 83, 438-449. Available in postscript from Grossberg's online papers list. For an FAQ on Adaptive Resonance Theory, you could check this page for references on ART, a glossary and pointers to ART simulators.

Wk 10. Nov 2, 4. Genetic Algorithms and Emergence.

Lab (Nov 3): Star Logo.
Lecture Notes
Readings:
Holland, John (1998) Emergence: From Chaos to Order. (Addison-Wesley). Chap 1, pp. 1-15. *
Holland, John H. (1995) Hidden Order: How Adaptation Builds Complexity. (Perseus Books, Reading, Mass). Excerpt from Chap 2, pp. 41-80 on `adaptive agents'. *

Wk 11. Nov 9, 11. Connectionism.

Lab (Nov 10): Brainwave: backpropagation learning.
Lecture Notes, Week 11.
Readings:
Rumelhart, David (1989) The architecture of mind: A connectionist approach. In Michael Posner (ed.) Foundations of Cognitive Science. MIT P/Bradford, Cambridge Mass. Chapter 4, pp. 133-159. (MD2-8).
Port, Robert (1994) Tutorial sketch of the McClelland-Rumelhart model for word and letter recognition. (unpublished, 5 pages). *
Rumelhart, D. and Jay McClelland (1981) An interactive activation model of context effects in letter perception. Part 1. An account of basic findings. Psychological Review 88, 375-407. *

Wk 12. Nov 16, 18. Dynamical Systems.

Lab (Nov 17): Brainwave: individual network project.
Lecture Notes, Week 12.
Essay 5, due Fri, Dec 3.
Readings:
Norton, Alec (1995) Dynamics: An introduction. In Mind as Motion, Ch 2.
van Gelder, Tim and R. Port (1995) `It's about time' In Mind as Motion. Ch 1, pp 1-43.
Other Useful Reading:
Abraham, Ralph and Christopher Shaw (1980) Dynamics: the Geometry of Behavior, Vol 1, (Aerial Press) pp. 1-50 (dynamical systems in general, simple and driven oscillators).

Wk 13. Nov 23. Motor Metaphors. (Thanksgiving week)

Lecture: Prof. Geoff Bingham, Psych `Gibson and Emprirical Research'
Lecture Notes (none)
Readings:
Thelen, Esther (1995) Time-scale dynamics and the development of an embodied cognition. In Port and van Gelder Mind as Motion, Ch 3.
Lakoff, George (1989) A figure of thought. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity 1. Reprinted in Honeck et al (eds) Introductory Readings in Cognitive Psychology, Dushkin Publishing Group, Guilford, CT, pp. 201-207.*
Recommended: Beer, Randall (1995) Computational and dynamical languages for autonomous agents. In Mind as Motion, Ch 5.

Wk 14. Nov 30, Dec 2. Speech Production and Temporal Pattern Perception

Lab (Dec 1): Web-research on newfangled cog sci.
Lecture Notes: Week 14
Readings:
Browman, Catherine & Louis Goldstein (1995) Dynamics and articulatory phonology. In Mind as Motion, Chap 7, pp 175-194.
Port, McAuley and Cummins (1995) Naive time, temporal patterns and human audition. In Mind as Motion, Ch 12.

Consciousness

Wk 15. Dec 7, 9. Consciousness and Conclusions.

Lab: Surprise project
Lecture Notes: Week 15.
Read both for Tues (review on Thursday):
Chalmers, David (1996) Facing up to the problem of consciousness. Available on Chalmer's web page. To appear in S. Hameroff, Kazniak and Scott (eds) Toward a Science of Consciousness. (MITP). Also available at this location as Journal of Consciousness Studies 2, 1995, pp. 200-219.
Dennett, Dan (1978) Where am I? In Douglas Hofstadter and Dan Dennett (eds) The Mind's Eye: Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul. (Basic Books, New York, 1981). Excerpt from Brainstorms (1978) by Dan Dennett. *

Final Exam. Scheduled for Thurs, December 16, 10:15am. Final exam questions are here. The exam will be a subset of this list. The exam will be written using Annotate in Sycamore 0006. You will have two hours.


RFP