Cognitive Science Class Schedule

 

DATE

LEC 1

LEC 2

SEP  1

BONEVAC

Rationalism

INTRO/ORG

SEP  8

BONEVAC

Empiricism

BALLARD

Brain Computation

SEP 15

BALLARD Brain Overview

SEIDEMANN

SEP 22

STANKIEWICZ

Spatial Cognition

KUIPERS

SSH

SEP 29

HUK

Low-level Vision

GIESLER

TBA

OCT 6

MARKMAN

Reward

DISCUSS

Course Review; Projects

OCT 13

HAYHOE

Eye Movements and Cognition

HAYHOE

Sensory Motor Prediction

OCT 20

LIFSCHITZ

Action

LOVE

Categorization

OCT 29

MEIER

Sign Language

KIRAM

Impaired language

NOV 3

STONE

Robots

SCHNYER

Memory

NOV 10

ASHER

Discourse

SAKAR

Philosophy of Science

NOV 17

PORTER

Knowledge Bases

DISCUSS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Readings

Collaborative Paper

 In collaboration with another student (or two), you will also write a short paper (approximately 5-7 pages double-spaced) discussing significant research on a topic you find of interest (we will also suggest topics). In the paper you should go beyond what you have heard in class or read for class. We are open as to the format of these papers: you could propose an experimental study that would address an issue that has been raised in the course; you could outline a design for a computational model; or you could even develop a theory of a cognitive phenomenon and compare and contrast it with the existing theories. Remember though that this paper should present original thinking: just a summary of the literature is not sufficient.

 

 To emphasize the interdisciplinary nature of cognitive science, the paper will be written as a collaboration with another student who works in a department different from your own. To make it easier for you to find a collaborator, we will ask you to email us a summary of your background and your research interests. We will compile and distribute them electronically.

 

 Once you and your collaborator have agreed to a topic, you will propose it to one of the instructors (closest to your topic). The paper proposals are due by this deadline, but it is to your advantage to do it a lot earlier. The idea is to get feedback on the topic, and references to the literature, and to make sure your paper is not too ambitious to be finished before the end of the semester.

 

 The last class meeting will be devoted to short project presentations. These are not supposed to be formal talks, but rather informal discussions of what you did in your project. You should put down your main ideas on a couple of slides, and explain what the project was about and what your conclusions were. The presentation should take no more than 10 minutes, so that we have at least 5 minutes for discussion. The presentation can be done with one person representing the whole group, or you can divide it up among yourselves. Try to keep it as informal as possible and encourage discussion, but keep in mind that we will have to cut you off after 15 minutes!

 

 Note that it should go without saying that the work you turn in for this class will represent your own efforts. Plagiarism--that is, turning in work that is not your own--will merit an F (specifically, a zero) for the assignment in question. Copying material from a published (or unpublished) source without proper citation and without the use of quotation marks constitutes plagiarism.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Discussion Notes

 To foster your understanding and integration of the readings, you will be asked to turn in a number of "discussion notes " (see course schedule for due dates; the notes are due at 2pm). The discussion notes will be two-page critical commentaries on one of the lectures and associated papers from the period prior to and including the due date. These notes should NOT be summary of what you have read or heard. Rather, they should be evaluative: what are the important contributions? What are the limitations? What are the outstanding questions? You might suggest an additional study/experiment/analysis that would help resolve the issues raised in the lecture/paper. Also, if you happen to know of literature from another area of cognitive science that was not discussed in class but that is of particular relevance to the issue you are addressing, you could discuss that literature, but again, the point is to evaluate and propose original ideas instead of just summarize.