Introduction to Cognitive Science

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Introduction to Cognitive Science

• COGN 1001
• Schedule
• 1140 1230
• Tuesday K. K. Leung Building, LG 102
• Thursday K. K. Leung Building, LG 109
• Syllabus - http//www.hku.hk/philodep/courses/icog
  sc0001/
• BBoard -
  http//www.hku.hk/cgi-bin/philodep/bbs/start.cgi

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Lecturers

• Psychology - Dr A. Francis
• Computer Science - Dr. Q. Huo
• Linguistics - Dr. A. Bodomo
• Neuroscience - Dr. I. Bruce
• Philosophy - Dr. J. Lau
• Cognitive Science Centre Director

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Tutorials

• Tutors
• Lo Lap Yan
• Savio Wong Wai Ho
• Grading
• 40 Coursework
• 25 Five Assignments
• 10 Tutorial Participation and Attendance
• 05 Attendance
• 60 Final Exam

CogSci Graduates
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So, whats the course about, already!?!

• What do Cognitive Scientists study?
• Why?
• How?

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What?

• Information in the brain

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Basic Assumptions

• Information can be processed and stored
  (remembered), retrieved, changed, communicated
  and turned into action.
• There are rules (logical or otherwise) by which
  information is manipulated or processed.

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Cognitive Science is a basic science

• Like chemistry, physics, or biology
• The activities of the nervous system can be
  analysed at different levels
• Psychological
• Computational
• Neurological
• All the levels are relevant and are not reducible

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History

• It all starts with Philosophy (Decartes,
  Mind/Body problem).
• Post-behaviorist Psychology (Chomsky, Miller
  Modern Linguistics)
• Cognitive Neuropsychology (from Broca to fMRI)
• Computer Science (Turing, von Neuman, neural
  computation)

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Why?

• Brains do amazing things

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A few things brains do

• Recognize people and things
• Reach out and pick up things
• Speak and understand language(s)
• Read and write
• Navigate the streets of Hong Kong
• Lecture on Cognitive Science
• Etc.

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Why study these things?

• To help us better understand human behaviors.

• To help make our computers better at doing
  human-like tasks.

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Why not just study brains?
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The brain is as complex as anything we know

• 12801380 grams
• 180 billion neurons
  (80 billion involved in
  information processing)
• 1 trillion connections (1,000,000,000,000)
  (some cells have up to 15,000 connections!)
• at least 60 possible neurotransmitter chemicals
• dozens of different kinds of cells bushy, spiny,
  stellate, basket chopper Purkinje, Golgi
• nearly 100 functionally distinguishable areas

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The relationship between anatomy or physiology
and behavior is very complex
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• Studying brains (alone) might not tell us what we
  want to know.
• Like studying architecture or urban planning by
  looking only at bricks!
• We need to study behavior from many perspectives.

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How?

• Thats the rest of the course!

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The five major areas
Computer Science
Philosophy
COG SCI
Physiology
Linguistics
Psychology
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Cognitive Psychology

• Information in the brain
• What is the physical structure of the nervous
  system, and what is its role in human behavior?

• Perception
• Categorization
• Representation
• Memory
• Attention
• (Language)
• Learning
• Thought

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Perception
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Computer Science

• "Knowledge representation"
• What is AI?
• Semantic networks and frames
• Predicate logic
• Rule-based systems

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Creatures created by Rodney Brookes at MIT
Partial semantic network for water
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Linguistics

• What are the mental processes and representations
  underlying language production and understanding?
• Language Structure

• Phonology
• Morphology
• Syntax
• Semantics
• Pragmatics
• Literacy

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University of California Perceptual Sciences
Laboratory (D. Massaro) http//mambo.ucsc.edu/
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Physiology

• Horrifying complexity of connections among
  neurons in the brain
• Relatively simple interactions between neurons
• excitation inhibition
• Voyage through the visual system for the image of
  a brown dog
• Simple retinal processing to parallel processing
  of form, colour, motion to object recognition
• Limitations of the Neuroscience approach to
  Cognition

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EEG/ERP recording
MRI (axial)
fMRI (coronal)
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Philosophy

• Two roles of Philosophy in Cognitive Science
• Role 1 baby science nursery
• "what you do to a problem until it can be solved
  by science work with scientists to find the
  best way to study a problem
• many sciences developed out of philosophy
• Role 2 building inspector
• examines foundational assumptions and concepts
  e.g. What are computations? What is
  consciousness? What makes something a
  representation?

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