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Introduction to Cognitive Science

• COGN 1001• Schedule

– 11:40 – 12:30 – Tuesday: K. K. Leung Building, LG 102– Thursday: K. K. Leung Building, LG 109

• Syllabus - http://www.hku.hk/philodep/courses/icogsc0001/

• 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

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So, what’s 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

1280–1380 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?

That’s the rest of the course!

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The five major areas

Psychology

Physiology

PhilosophyComputerScience

Linguistics

COGSCI

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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” createdby 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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QuickTime™ and a decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

QuickTime™ and a decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

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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MRI (axial)

fMRI (coronal)

EEG/ERP recording

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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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