Instructor: Dana H. Ballard
Office Hours: Wednesday 10-12pm or by appointment
Office: CSA 1.138
Extension: 1-9750
e-mail: dana@cs.utexas.edu
| TA: | Oliver Jensen |
| Office: | ACES 6SEo4E (6th floor, South East corner) |
| Office Hours: | Wednesdays 2:30 - 4:30 |
| E-mail: | ojensen at cs dot utexas dot edu |
| Homework turn-in: | click here <= also has late policy |
One of our major scientific challenges of the century is to understand the functioning of the human brain. Computational models play a vital role in a complete picture of brain function, particularly at modeling more macroscopic structures that more directly relate to our everyday behavior. The goal of this course is to describe computational models of intelligent behavior and how they relate to structures in the brain.
Students will have a mathematical background sufficient to grasp the ideas behind learning algorithms. This would include calculus and some linear algebra.
Students will write short evaluations of a scientific paper in computational brain science each week and review one popular science book in the area.
In addition one group lab experiment will be done and its outcomes written up in a report and presented orally.
Including a group lab report, a total of thirteen papers will be required, each of 1-2 pages in length. Papers must be submitted electronically in Word format.
The choice of books, one of which is to be evaluated is:
The text for the course will be notes written by the instructor. Electronic access for these will be given at the first day of class.
SYLLABUS
| Week | Date | Read | Topic | Assignment | Best Paper | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 8/25 | Introduction | Slides1 | |||
| 2 | 9/30 | Computation | Carlos Reyna | Slides1 | ||
| 3 | 9/6 | Brain Overview | Jackie Leverett | Slides2 | ||
| 4 | 9/13 | Neurons | Andrew Hung | P1 NV1 P2 NV2 Lec_Slides | ||
| 5 | 9/20 | Cortex | ???? whoever got this please email me (ojensen) |
Slides4 | ||
| 6 | 9/27 | LAB WEEK | ||||
| 7 | 10/4 | PRESENTATION WEEK | ||||
| 8 | 10/11 | Basal Ganglia | Choose one:
|
Andrew Spence Brian Nguyen David Lee |
Slides | |
| 9 | 10/18 | Embodiment | Brandon Davis | Walter1 PPT Xue PPT | ||
| 10 | 10/25 | Operating System | Choose one: | James Wang | ||
| 11 | 11/1 | Emotions | Adjudicate between the following two papers: | PPT Brazeal movies | 12 | 11/8 | Altruism |
| 13 | 11/15 | Consciousness | ||||
| 14 | 11/22 | WEGNER BOOK | Second Draft of up to two things you've written (due Midnight of the 5th of December) |
|||
| 15 | 11/29 | Hominids | ||||