This course introduces cognitive science, an interdisciplinary field that draws upon aspects of cognitive psychology, philosophy, linguistics, anthropology, education, neuroscience and artificial intelligence. Its unifying goal is to construct and evaluate process-oriented theories of how people think and reason. Researchers in cognitive science typically work under the assumption that processes of human thinking can be understood in computational terms.
Students will read articles describing cognitive models and discuss how well the model accounts for human behavior. When possible, the articles will be chosen from journals such as Cognitive Science. For projects, students will experiment with computer programs that purport to be models or simulations of some aspect of human cognition. In some cases, the goal will be to modify these programs and then re-evaluate them as a new scientific theory. Students will discuss to what extent these models constitute an explanation for how people think as well as debate whether certain models serve as viable scientific theories.
The following class schedule is tentative and subject to change as the course progresses.
Lecture slides will normally be available just before each lecture.
Advanced standing and experience programming or with methods for evaluating human behavior.
Required:
Additional reading (optional):
My suggestions for maximizing your learning:
Instructor: Peter Hastings
Instructor Home Page: http://reed.cs.depaul.edu/peterh/
Instructor Email: peterh@cdm.depaul.edu
Phone: 312-362-5736
Office: CDM 717, College of CDM, DePaul University, 243 South Wabash Avenue, Chicago, IL 60604-2301, USA
Office Hours: Tuesday and Thursday 1:30-3:00 or by arrangement
Course Home Page: http://reed.cs.depaul.edu/peterh/class/hon207/
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.
Your final grade will be based on:
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.