Fall 1999 Syllabus
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.
Introduction: System Constraints and Challenges
A Small Brain in a Big World
Ballard, D.H. (1999). An Introduction to Natural Computation., Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Ch. 1: Natural Computation. pp. 1-23. (coursepack) (orientation)
Newell, A. (1990). Unified theories of cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard. Ch. 3. (coursepack) (orientation)
McClelland, J.L., Rumelhart, D.E. & Hinton, G.E. (1986). The appeal of parallel distributed processing, in Rumelhart, D.E. & McClelland, J.L., Parallel Distributed Processing Explorations in the Microstructure of Cognition, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. pp. 3-44 (coursepack)(orientation)
Evolution
Kaplan, S. & Kaplan, R. (1982) Humanscape: Environments for people, Ann Arbor, MI: Ulrich’s. Ch. 1: Evolution, Ch. 2: Perception (coursepack + handout) (orientation)
James, W. (1892, 1985). Psychology: The Briefer Course. University of Notre Dame Press Collier ed.. Ch. 16: Instinct (plus additional introduction from Neurocomputing: Foundations of Research)
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)
Dreyfus, H. 1972) What computers can’t do: A critique of artificial reason. Harper & Row, New York. — Preface (pp. 12-40), Ch. 8 The Situation: Orderly Behavior Without Recourse to Rules. (coursepack)
Perception and the Unit of Thought
James, W. (1892, 1985). Psychology: The Briefer Course. University of Notre Dame Press Collier ed.. Ch. 11: Perception (orientation)
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. (handout)
McCloud, S. (1993). Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. Harper Collins. Chapter 2: The Vocabulary of Comics (coursepack)
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) (orientation)
McCloud, S. (1993). Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. Harper Collins. Chapter 3: Blood in the Gutter (coursepack)
September 28, 30. Hebb, D.O. (1972). Textbook of Psychology. Philadelphia, PA: W.B. Saunders Company. Ch. 4: Mechanisms of Learning and Development (pp. 56-76) (coursepack)
September 30. Kaplan, S., Weaver, M. & French, R. (1990). Active symbols and internal models: Towards a cognitive connectionism. AI & Society, 4:51-71. (coursepack) (orientation)
October 5. 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) (zipped Microsoft Word version) (orientation)
October 7. TRACE pt. 2 (orientation)
Larger Structures: Maps and Hierarchy
October 12. Chown, E. (1999). Making predictions in an uncertain world: Environmental structure and cognitive maps. Adaptive Behavior. (web) (orientation)
October 14. Alexander, C., Ishikawa, S., & Silverstein, M. (1977). A pattern language. New York: Oxford University Press. — Chapter 53: Main Gateways (pp. 276-279) (coursepack)
(orientation) (be sure to finish the Adaptive Behavior article)October 19. Review
October 21. Exam 1.
October 28. Exam Feedback, mid-course corrections.
November 2. 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), (orientation), (html version)
November 2. Braitenberg, V. (1984). Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology, Chapters 1-4. (handout).
November 4. James, W. (1892, 1985). Psychology: The Briefer Course. University of Notre Dame Press Collier ed.. Ch. 7: Association. (orientation)
Predictive Structure
November 4. 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)
November 9. James, W. (1892, 1985). Psychology: The Briefer Course. University of Notre Dame Press Collier ed.. Ch. 1: Habit. (orientation)
November 9. Booker, L.B. & Kaplan, S. (1989). Learning in Difficult Environments: A new look at some classical principles. Unpublished manuscript. (coursepack)
Control Mechanisms
November 16. Schwartz, D.A. and Kaplan, S. (1995) Some species of attention: A functional analysis (unpublished manuscript) (coursepack) (orientation)
November 16. Kinsbourne, M. (1982). Hemispheric specialization and the growth of human understanding. American Psychologist, 37(4): 411-420. (coursepack)
November 18. Dawkins, R. (1976). The selfish gene. New York: Oxford Press. (II: Memes, the new replicators, 202-215). (coursepack) (orientation)
November 30. Nisbett, R. & Ross, L. (1980). Human Inference. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Ch. 11: Assessing the damage. (pp. 249-272) (coursepack)
WORK FOR THE COURSE: The work for this course includes class participation, readings, two tests, and several group assignments.