Course overview. Intro to Cognitive Science. - Intro to Cognitive Science: Cognitive Modeling - Fall 2009

Contents

Slides

Are We In The Right Room? [1/19, 2009/09/10]

Course: Intro to Cognitive Science: Cognitive Modeling (HON 207)

Instructor: Peter Hastings

Overview of Today's Class [2/19, 2009/09/10]

Administrative information.

Overview of the course.

Intro to Cognitive Science.

First, a quick motivation from NPR 1/3/2007

Or this from Nova on PBS

Contact Information [3/19, 2009/09/10]

Office: CDM 717

Office Hours: Tuesday and Thursday 1:30-3:00 or by arrangement Note: Please call or email before noon if you're planning on stopping by. I'll be in the building, but may be having lunch away from my office.

Homepage: http://reed.cs.depaul.edu/peterh/

Email: peterh@cdm.depaul.edu

Phone: 312-362-5736

If you leave a phone message, repeat your phone number slowly.

I check email more often than voice-mail.

Please check that the email address on your CampusConnect record is correct.

Course Homepage [4/19, 2009/09/10]

Course homepage: http://reed.cs.depaul.edu/peterh/class/hon207/

Please check it frequently and before coming to class.

Lecture slides are available in two HTML formats: one slide per page and all slides on one page.

Lecture slides are available if a check is shown (click on the check). Lecture slides may not be available before the class.

Attendance [5/19, 2009/09/10]

Class attendance is not exactly mandatory BUT because discussion is integral to your learning and part of your grade, it is expected. I will not give an A grade to anyone who has missed more than 4 classes. Furthermore, if you are absent from class you are responsible for understanding the material and for finding out about any announcements made in that class.

HOWEVER, if you're feeling like you might have a flu (fever, aches/pains, etc), please DO NOT COME TO CLASS. Just let me know, and I'll fill you in on assignments, etc.

Assessment [6/19, 2009/09/10]

Your final grade will be based on:

• Class participation: 10%
• Written homework: 25%
• Midterm quiz: 5%
• Final exam: 20%
• Four hands-on projects: 40%

The grading scale will be: 90-100, A; 80-89.99, B; 70-79.99, C; 60-69.99, D; 0-59.99, F. Plusses and minuses will be given at the high/low ends of each grade range (no A+'s or D-'s).

Unless otherwise stated, written assignments are due in hardcopy form at the beginning of class. You are expected to complete all of the written assignments by the deadline. Late homework submissions will only be accepted in the case of dire emergencies, and with prior permission of the instructor. Except as noted below, all homework assignments will count towards the final grade.

For each class session on which a reading is assigned (i.e. not test days or lab days or the first day), your homework assignment will be to write a half-page analysis of the reading for that day. I will grade a randomly selected subset of these each time, but if you do not submit an assignment, you will be penalized. More detail about this later.

Each project will consist of exploring and altering a model of cognition and describing your results. To help you learn more deeply about the material, you will complete the projects in pairs which I will assign randomly, with different pairings for every project. The grade for the project will be shared equally by the pair, and I expect that the work will be shared equally as well.

Textbooks [7/19, 2009/09/10]

Required:

• Notes and handouts as indicated

Additional reading (optional):

• Cognitive Modeling. Thad A. Polk and Colleen M. Seifert, editors. MIT Press.

Prerequisites [8/19, 2009/09/10]

• Willingness to read and think and grapple with new ideas.

Course Objectives [9/19, 2009/09/10]

By the end of this course you should (at least) be able to answer these questions:

• What are the basic topics of Cognitive Science?
• What are the component disciplines of Cognitive Science?
• How is Cognitive Science research performed?
• Why does Cognitive Science have to be interdisciplinary?
• How does Cognitive Science relate to you?

Course emphasis [10/19, 2009/09/10]

Cognitive Modeling: creating formal models in concert with human experimentation to test theories of cognition.

How the course will go [11/19, 2009/09/10]

The course will involve

• reading (more about this in a bit),
• writing about the readings,
• discussing the readings,
• a quiz and a final to see how well you're understanding everything,
• and 4 projects (more about these in a bit)

Reading [12/19, 2009/09/10]

Question: Who here knows how to read?

Question: What's easy to read?

Question: What's hard?

The readings for this course: challenging!

• written for cognitive science audience
• will require some serious effort
• with experience, will get easier

To help you learn how to approach the readings, please follow this procedure for when you're doing the reading (especially in the first part of class):

1. Read the title and quickly scan the paper it to try to find the main point, basic categories (relation to other topics we've studied), and major organization of the paper.
2. Write down your questions about the paper.
3. Read the abstract.
4. Write down more questions about the paper.
5. Read the intro and the conclusions.
6. Write down more questions about the paper.
7. Read the paper, but not with uniform effort.
• Dig in to the parts you've identified as most important.
• Really dig in to central examples (slow down, ask yourself if you understand it)
• Skim over the rest, but look for interesting twists
8. Write notes for your summary all along.

The written assignments are meant to reinforce this approach.

For next Tuesday and for class sessions 3 and 5: hand in a word-processed document that lists these items:

1. Your initial idea of the main point of the paper (in one sentence)
2. Your questions after reading the title and scanning the paper.
3. Your questions after reading the abstract
4. Your questions after reading the intro and conclusions
5. A list of three to five main points of the paper, as well as any connections you can think of to other related topics.

For the rest of the lectures:

• Identify two "talking points": key points/issues/ideas or confusing areas that you want to bring out in discussion
• Write a half-page critical analysis of the assigned reading, as follows:
• Your analysis should include a brief summary which identifies the main points of the paper, and should bring out any problems, insights or questions that you have about the paper. I want to see that you have read the paper and thought about it.
• Note: this should not be simply a summary of the paper. It should include enough detail about the paper so I can see you've read it, but it should also include your own analysis of the paper.
• Please don't take up a bunch of space by repeating the title of the paper and the authors' full names.
• Finally, you don't need to tell me how difficult/ challenging/confusing the paper is. I know this already.
• An example critical analysis

All written assignments should be word-processed and spellchecked.

After the first couple weeks, I will grade only a portion of the analyses, selected semi-randomly.

Tell Me About Your Neighbor [13/19, 2009/09/10]

• Name (Last, First Last, e.g. "Bond, James Bond")
• Major and degree and how long here, how much to go
• Something about cognition that that person really wants to know more about
• Something that that person does really well (referred to later as your expertise)

Pretest [14/19, 2009/09/10]

Take out a piece of paper, and write your best answer to the following question. I know you haven't studied this yet. Just think about what must be happen in order for it to work, and give it your best shot.

From a cognitive science perspective, list the steps that are required to read and understand this sentence. Start with the light reflecting off the paper and into your eye.

What is Cognitive Science? [15/19, 2009/09/10]

Group discussion time

General procedure: Take turns doing the following:

• Write an answer to the question
• Tell the group your answer
• Pass paper to the next person

Rules:

• Continue until you run out of ideas
• You can "pass"
• One person will explain to the class

Question 1 [16/19, 2009/09/10]

What do you think Cognitive Science is about?

What does Cog Sci do for us? [17/19, 2009/09/10]

• Helps test theories of cognition.
• Suggests new hypotheses and theories for studying humans.
• May lead to more intelligent computers.
• Helps us understand ourselves better.

Question 2 [18/19, 2009/09/10]

How does Cognitive Science apply to your major?

The End! (of the beginning) [19/19, 2009/09/10]