The exam will have 6 short-answer questions taken from the following list. You will have to answer 5 of the 6 questions. There will also be 2 short-essay questions taken from the 5 below; you will have to answer 1. Make your answers as accurate and detailed as you can. You need to show that you understand the key people and issues. The number of marks is shown in parentheses: (3) means 3 marks so try to find 3 parts to your answer.
1. How are brain scanning techniques such as fMRI useful for identifying brain functions?(3) What are the limitations of fMRI? (2)
2. How do brains represent and process information? (3) What is the role of neural groups? (2)
3. How do molecules matter to mental computation? (3) How is neurochemistry relevant to cognitive science?(2)
4. What role do emotions play in human thinking? (3 contributions: 2 + 2 + 1)
5. What is the difference between cognitive and physiological theories of emotions? (2 + 2 + 1 for difference)
6. According to Oatley, what are the cognitive functions of emotions? (3 + 2 for examples)
7. What are qualitative experiences(2) and why do they pose a challenge to cognitive science? (3)
8. According to Flanagan, what are the prospects for a scientific theory of consciousness?(3) What kind of materialism does he advocate? (2)
9. What is the world challenge to cognitive science? (2) What are the ways in which cognitive science can respond to it? (3)
10. How are dynamics systems (2) helpful in responding to the world challenge? (3)
11. What is Searle's Chinese room argument (3) and how can cognitive science respond to it? (2)
12. According to Mackworth, how is the situated action approach (2) superior to old-fashioned AI and robotics? (3)
13. In what respects is the acquisition and application of knowledge a social process? (3) Are these compatible with the computational-representational understanding of mind?(2)
14. What is the difference between "distributed" in "distributed artificial intelligence" and "parallel distributed processing". (2 + 2 + 1 for difference)
15. According to Durfee, what are the main social skills necessary for successful distributed artificial intelligence? (5 skills X 1)
16. What are chaotic dynamic system (3) and how do dynamic system explanations of mind differ from traditional explanations? (2)
17. According to Eliasmith, do dynamic systems (2) provide an alternative to symbolic and connectionist explanations of mind? (3)
18. What are the three kinds of possible integration in future work in cognitive science? (2 + 2 + 1)
19. What does it mean to say that cognition is embodied? (3) Does this contradict the computational-representational theory of mind? (2)
1. Can the computational-representational understanding of mind explain consciousness? Discuss.
2. Is the mind a chaotic dynamical system? Is the dynamical-system view of mind compatible with the connectionist and symbolic versions of the computational- representational view of mind? Discuss.
3. Do current advances in understanding of the brain, particularly brain scanning and the biochemistry of neurons, undermine the computational-representational view of mind? Discuss.
4. Can the role of emotions in human thinking be explained within the computational-representational understanding of mind? Discuss in relation to analogies, imagery, and neural networks.
5. Can theoretical neuroscience provide a unified understanding of all kinds of mental representation involved in human thinking?
The exam will have 6 short-answer questions taken from the following list. You will have to answer 5 of the 6 questions. There will also be 2 short-essay questions taken from the 4 below; you will have to answer 1. Your answers should be detailed and accurate. You need to show that you understand the key people and issues. The number of marks is shown in parentheses: (3) means 3 marks so try to find 3 parts to your answer.
1.According to Gentner and Markman, how are similarity and analogy related? (3) What is structure mapping (2)?
2. What are the three main constraints on analogical thinking, (3) and how do they affect the major stages of analogical thinking (2)?
3. How can analogies contribute to creative thinking (3), and how can they stifle it (2)?
4. How are analogies different from concepts and rules? State 2 differences (3+2).
5 What experiments support the psychological plausibility of mental imagery? Describe 2 experiments (3+2).
6. What sorts of problems can be better solved with images than with verbal representations? Describe 2 sorts (3+2).
7. What kinds of neurological evidence supports the plausibility of mental imagery? Describe 2 experiments (3+2).
8. According to Glasgow and Papadias, what kinds of computational procedures are particularly suited to visual representations? State 4 (1 each + 1 for clarity).
9. How do units in artificial neural networks differ from natural neurons? State 3 differences (2 + 2 +1).
10. What is the difference between a local and a distributed representation? (1 for local, 1 for distributed, and 3 for difference)
11. What psychological phenomena are most naturally explained in connectionist terms? (3 phenomena: 2+ 2 +1)
12. What does Rumelhart see as the advantages of brain-style computation? (3 advantages: 2 + 2 +1)
13. What is parallel constraint satisfaction (3) and how does it provide an alternative to rule-based and logic-based thinking (2)?
14. How is problem solving viewed differently from the perspectives of analogies, images, and connectionist networks? (1X3 for each approach + 2 for difference)
15. How is language learning viewed differently from the perspectives of analogies, images, and connectionist networks?(1X3 for each approach + 2 for difference)
16. How is decision making viewed differently from the perspectives of analogies, images, and connectionist networks?(1X3 for each approach + 2 for difference)
Essay questions: Your answer should show a good understanding of opposing answers to the question and develop an evidence-based argument in support of the answer you prefer.
1. What does cognitive science research on analogies, imagery, and neural networks tell us about the nature of effective teaching? Discuss. (2X3 for each approach + 3 for comparision + 1 for conclusion).
2. Does connectionism provide a complete theory of mind? (1) What are its central claims? (3) What psychological phenomena are most naturally explained in connectionist terms? (3) What psychological phenomena are most difficult for connectionists to explain ?(3)
3. What does cognitive science research on analogies, imagery, and neural networks tell us about the prospects for developing computational intelligence equal to or surpassing human intelligence? Discuss. (2X3 for each approach + 3 for comparision + 1 for conclusion).
4. Are analogies, images, and connectionist networks competing or complementary approaches to understanding the mind? How can they be reconciled? (2X3 for each approach + 3 for comparision + 1 for conclusion).
The exam will have 6 short-answer questions taken from the following list. You will have to answer 5 of the 6 questions. There will also be 2 short-essay questions taken from the 4 below; you will have to answer 1. Your answers should be detailed and accurate. For example, a good answer to the question on Medin would include a clear exposition of Medin's explanation-based theory of concepts and a description of at least 3 kinds of evidence that he thinks supports his view.
1. What is the proposed analogy between thinking and computing? What is the relation between representations and procedures?
2. According to Simon, what are three ways in which computer models are useful in psychology?
3. What is the main difference between deduction and induction? Give examples.
4. According to Johnson-Laird and Byrne, what are the three main classes of theory about the process of deduction?
5. Describe two experiments that cast doubt on the psychological plausibility of formal logic and say how.
6. What is a rule (as a form of mental representation)? What is a linguistic rule? Give examples.
7. What areas of knowledge are most plausibly described in terms of rules, and in what areas of knowledge are rules hardest to apply? Give examples.
8. According to Anderson, how do production rules explain human skills such as arithmetic? Give examples.
9. According to Pinker, why does the formation of past tenses in English require explanation in terms of rules? Give examples.
10. Do concepts have exact definitions in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions? If not, what is their structure? Give examples.
11. How might concepts be learned? What concepts are most plausibly regarded as innate? Give examples.
12. According to Medin, why must concepts be understood in terms of theories? Give examples.
13. What does thinking of knowledge in terms of logic, rules, and concepts tell us about the nature of effective teaching?
14. What approach to mental representation so far discussed tells us most about the nature of language?
15. Do logic-based representations have greater or lesser representational power than rule-based representations? Do logic-based representations have greater or lesser computational power than rule-based representations?
16. How is problem solving viewed differently from the perspectives of logic, rules, and concepts?
17. How is abduction (inference to explanatory hypotheses) viewed differently from the perspective of logic, rules, and concepts?
18. What can logic, rules, and concepts tell us about more effective ways to make computers and other machines easier to use by people?
19. From the perspectives of logic, rules, and concepts, what is human memory? What is missing in these perspectives?
20. From the perspectives of logic, rules, and concepts, what is learning?
1. How do students decide what to do for summer and work terms? Discuss this important kind of problem solving in terms of logic, rules, and concepts, critically assessing the usefulness of each representational-computational approach. What aspects of knowledge about non-teaching terms are not well captured by these kinds of mental representation?
2. How do people decide what kind of smartphone to buy, if any? Discuss this important kind of problem solving in terms of logic, rules, and concepts, critically assessing the usefulness of each representational-computational approach. What aspects of knowledge about buying cell phones are not well captured by these kinds of mental representation?
3. Each term, students choose what classes to take. What are the cognitive processes that enable them to make these choices? Discuss this kind of problem solving in terms of logic, rules, and concepts. Use specific examples, and critically assess the usefulness of each representational-computational approach. What aspects of knowledge about classes are not well captured by these kinds of mental representation?
4. Students often have to make choices about what to eat for dinner. What are the cognitive processes that enable them to make these plans? Discuss this kind of problem solving in terms of logic, rules, and concepts. Use specific examples, and critically assess the usefulness of each representational-computational approach. What aspects of knowledge about eating are not well captured by these kinds of mental representation?
Computational Epistemology Laboratory.
This page updated Nov. 17, 2015