Winter,
2007
Winter,
2007 Description: Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary study of mind and intelligence. This seminar will discuss controversial topics concerning the nature of human and computer intelligence.
Organizer: Paul Thagard
Office hours (HH368): Monday, Friday 1-2, and by appointment.
Email: pthagard@uwaterloo.ca. Phone: extension 33594.
Web page: http://cogsci.uwaterloo.ca/courses/cogsci600.2007.html
Time: Tuesday, 1-3, in HH 357.
Readings: Readings for each week are available electronically: see links below.
Assignments: Each student will write a research essay of approximately 20 pages. Essay proposals should be handed in to Paul Thagard by March 6 (NOTE EXTENSION). The proposal should be maximum one page, and indicate the question you hope to answer and how more than one of the disciplines of cognitive science is relevant to answering it. Students will present their work in class April 3. The final essay is due April 10. The essays can be on any topic related to the investigation of mind and intelligence, but must be interdisciplinary: they should draw on at least two of psychology, philosophy, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, linguistics, and anthropology. Any reference style is acceptable, but be sure to indicate your sources.
In addition, 10% of the grade will be based on 1-page essays to be handed in each week concerning the week's readings. Discussion questions to guide your reading will be available 1 week before the relevant class.
Schedule:
| Week | Date | Instructor | Reading | Topic |
| 1 | Jan. 9 |
|
Thagard, 2005 | What is cognitive science? |
| 2 | Jan. 16 |
Ori Friedman, Psychology | Friedman & Leslie, 2004 | Inhibitory processing in belief-desire reasoning and beyond. |
| 3 | Jan. 23 |
Chris Eliasmith, Philosophy & Systems Design | Eliasmith, 2003 | From neurons to cognition |
| 4 | Jan. 30 |
Paul Thagard, Philosophy | Thagard, 2002 | Your brain on drugs: Implications for the mind-body problem |
| 5 | Feb. 6 |
|
Abimbola, Duimering, & Zhang, forthcoming |
|
| 6 | Feb. 13 |
José Arocha, Health Sciences | Patel, Arocha, and Kaufman, 2001 | Clinical reasoning and expertise in medicine |
| 7 | Feb. 27 |
Benoit Hardy-Vallée, Philosophy | Glimcher & Rustichini, 2004 | Economic cognition: Affective moves in social games |
| 8 | Mar. 6 |
Pascal Poupart, Computer Science | A decision-theoretic approach to task assistance
for persons with dementia |
|
| 9 | Mar. 13 |
Jonathan Fugelsang, Psychology | Roser et al., 2005 | Constructing causality: How task set modulates
the interpretation of causality |
| 10 | Mar. 20 |
James Danckert, Psychology | Ferber et al, 2003; Danckert & Ferber, 2004 | Rehabilitating neglect: What works and why? |
| 11 | Mar. 27 |
Chrysanne DiMarco, Computer Science | Blaschke et al., 1999; He & DiMarco, 2007 | Where computer science, linguistics, and biology meet |
| 12 | Apr. 3 |
Student presentations | None | Various |
Note: Students who want audit credit must complete the weekly 1-page essays.
Discussion questions for weeks 2-11.
Computational Epistemology Laboratory.
This page updated Feb. 27, 2007