Department of Computer Science
CS 355 - Cognitive Architecture

Fall 2002 Syllabus

COURSE OBJECTIVES:

Advances in computer science, psychology and neuroscience have shown that humans process information in ways that are very different than computers. The purpose of this course is to explore the architecture and mechanisms that the human brain uses to process information. In many cases these mechanisms will be contrasted with their counterparts in traditional computer design. One of the main focuses of this course will be to discern when the human cognitive architecture works well, when it performs poorly, and why.

The primary teaching tool in this course will be readings from the various subfields of cognitive science. Class will be run as a seminar with significant student contributions expected. The syllabus should be treated as a work in progress. Readings and assignments will be added and subtracted based upon the progress of the class. Updates can be found online.

The primary goal of this course is to teach you to learn and think like a cognitive scientist. This means you should be able to read articles in the literature (or even in a newspaper) critically. Further, you should be able to communicate ideas from what you have learned either to other cognitive scientists or to novices in the field. This means that an important component of the course will involve making arguments without relying on your audience's knowledge of jargon or extensive background knowledge.

TEXTS (required):

Valentino Braitenberg, Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology, The MIT Press, 1984, Coursepack, and on-line handouts

INSTRUCTOR:

Eric Chown, 219 Searles Science Bldg.
Email address: echown@polar.bowdoin.edu
Web address: http://www.bowdoin.edu/~echown
Office Hours: by arrangement

MEETING TIMES:

Class meeting: TTH 10:00-11:25 - Searles 217

COURSE OUTLINE:

 

Introduction: System Constraints and Challenges

A Small Brain in a Big World

September 10.

Dawkins, R. (1976). The selfish gene. New York: Oxford Press. (II: Memes, the new replicators, 202-215). (coursepack)

September 12.

Newell, A. (1990). Unified theories of cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard. Ch. 3. (coursepack) orientation.

September 17

Ballard, D.H. (1999). An Introduction to Natural Computation., Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Ch. 1: Natural Computation. pp. 1-23. (coursepack)

Braitenberg, V. (1986). Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Introduction

September 19 Feldman, J. (1988). Connectionist representation of concepts. From Connectionist models and their implications: Readings from cognitive science. Waltz, D. and Feldman, J. (eds.), Ablex: Norwood, NJ. (electronic reserve)

Clark, A. (2001). Mindware, New York, NY: Oxford. Ch 2: Symbol Systems (electronic reserve)

Evolution

September 24

Braitenberg, V. (1986). Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Ch 6: Selection, the impersonal engineer

Clark, A. (1989). Microcognition: Philosophy, cognitive science, and parallel distributed processing. The MIT Press. — Ch. 4: Biological Constraints. (pp. 61-80) Epilogue: The parable of the high-level architect (pp. 185-186). (coursepack) orientation

The unit of thought

September 26 Braitenberg, V. (1986). Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Chs. 1, 2, 3, 4 orientation

Kaplan, S. (1978). Perception of an uncertain environment. In Humanscape, Kaplan, S. and Kaplan, R., Duxberry Press. (electronic reserve)

McCloud, S. (1993). Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. Harper Collins. Chapter 2: The Vocabulary of Comics (electronic reserve)

October 1

Perky, C.W. (1958). An experimental study of imagination, in Readings in Perception, Beardslee, D.C. and Wertheimer, M. (eds.), Princeton, New Jersey: D. Van Nostrand Company. pp. 545-551. (electronic reserve)

Weaver, M. (1992). An active symbol connectionist model of concept representation & concept learning. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Ch. 3: Properties of Categories (pp. 12-16), Ch. 4: The Role of Supervision (coursepack)

McCloud, S. (1993). Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. Harper Collins. Chapter 3: Blood in the Gutter (electronic reserve)

October 3

Hebb, D.O. (1972). Textbook of Psychology. Philadelphia, PA: W.B. Saunders Company. Ch. 4: Mechanisms of Learning and Development (pp. 56-76) (coursepack)

Braitenberg, V. (1986). Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Ch. 7

October 8 Kaplan, S., Weaver, M. & French, R. (1990). Active symbols and internal models: Towards a cognitive connectionism. AI & Society, 4:51-71. (coursepack)

October 10 Kaplan, S., Sonntag, M. & Chown, E. (1991) Tracing recurrent activity in cognitive elements (TRACE): A model of temporal dynamics in a cell assembly. Connection Science, 3, 179-206 (web)(html version, loses some formatting and figures) PDF version)

October 15 Fall Break October 17 TRACE pt. 2

October 22 Mystery Day

October 24 Mystery Day Feedback, Mid-course corrections

Larger Structures: Maps and Hierarchy

October 29 Lakoff, G., and Johnson, M. (1999). Philosophy in the flesh: The embodied mind and its challenge to western thought. Ch 3: The embodied mind. Basic Books (electronic reserve). October 31 Chown, E. (1999). Making predictions in an uncertain world: Environmental structure and cognitive maps. Adaptive Behavior.

Alexander, C., Ishikawa, S., & Silverstein, M. (1977). A pattern language. New York: Oxford University Press. — Chapter 53: Main Gateways (pp. 276-279) (coursepack)

November 5 Kaplan, S. (1973) Cognitive maps in perception and thought, in Image and Environment, Downs, R.M. and Stea, D. (eds.), Aldine Publishing. (electronic reserve)

Predictive Structure

November 7

November 9. Booker, L.B. & Kaplan, S. (1989). Learning in Difficult Environments: A new look at some classical principles. Unpublished manuscript. (coursepack)

Chown, E. (1994). Consolidation and Learning: A Connectionist Model of Human Credit Assignment. Doctoral dissertation. The University of Michigan. Ch. 2: Consolidation, Ch. 3: Credit Assignment (web) (web), (html version)

Sonntag, M.L. (1991). Learning sequence in an associative network: A step towards cognitive structure. Doctoral dissertation. The University of Michigan. Ch 2: The Importance of Learning Sequences (coursepack-optional)

Braitenberg, V. (1986). Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Ch. 7 (optional)

November 12 Chown, E. (2002). Reminiscence and arousal: A connectionist model. In the Proceedings of the 24th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Soceity.

Emotions

November 14 Picard, R. (1997). Affective Computing, Ch 2: Affective Computers, The MIT Press. (coursepack)

November 19 Damasio, A. (1986). Descarte's Error

November 21 Chown, E., Jones, R.M. and Henninger, A.E. (2002) A neural architecture for emotions (rough draft).

Control Mechanisms

November 26 Emotion cleanup

November 28 Thanksgiving!

December 3 Kinsbourne, M. (1982). Hemispheric specialization and the growth of human understanding. American Psychologist, 37(4): 411-420. (coursepack)

Schwartz, D.A. and Kaplan, S. (1995) Some species of attention: A functional analysis (unpublished manuscript) (coursepack)

December 5 Nisbett, R. & Ross, L. (1980). Human Inference. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Ch. 11: Assessing the damage. (pp. 249-272) (electronic reserve)

December 10 Exam

WORK FOR THE COURSE: The work for this course includes class participation, readings, two tests, and several group assignments.