Instructor: Dr. Zenzi M. Griffin

E-mail: zgriffin@cc.gatech.edu

Office: 204 Psychology Bldg

Office hours: F 3:30-4:30 and by appointment

Course web page: http://www.cc.gatech.edu/classes/AY2003/cs6795_spring/

Course discussion swiki: http://swiki.cc.gatech.edu:8080/cogsci-grad

Teaching assistant: Marty Geier - megak@cc.gatech.edu

Office hours: T/R 11:00-12:00 or by appointment in the CoC commons area

Meets: W 10:05-11:55 in 169 Skiles, F 10:05-10:55 in 256A/256B Psychology

Announcements:

• Calendar for Spring 2003 Cogsci Colloquia! Lots of great speakers this semester.
• Talks in the Computational Perception and Robotics series 
• "Models of Attention and Intention in Computing" Eric Horvitz Monday 4/7  
  
• FINAL EXAM - Html, Rtf

• Reading guide/questions
  • part 1 - html, rtf
• Lectures notes
  • Part 1 - Philosophy of Mind - html, rtf
  • Part 2 - Symbol Systems - html, rtf
  • Part 3 - Language - html, rtf
  • Part 4 - Representation - html, rtf
• Part 5 - Reasoning - html, rtf  
• Part 6 - Memory - ppt  pdf
• Part 7 - Connectionism - ppt pdf  
• Part 8 - Review & preview - ppt pdf 
• Part 9 - ALife - ppt pdf
• Part 10 - Robotics - ppt pdf  
  
• Part 11 - Consciousness - ppt pdf  
  
• Midterm Exam Model Answers - Word
• Connectionist Links and demos
  
• Artificial Life & Robotics links and demos

Cognitive Science is the study of cognition or intelligent behavior: its nature, characteristics, and processes. It is intimately tied to issues in the philosophy of mind via its subject matter and to issues in the philosophy of science due to its multidisciplinary nature. Thus, the course will focus initially on philosophical aspects of cognitive science as well as its historical development to provide an overview. Then we will focus on major approaches (symbol systems, connectionism, dynamical systems), prominent issues, such as the properties of mental representations, innateness, modularity, and consciousness. Along the way we will touch on various areas of study such as decision-making, analogy, and language processing. As an introductory course, no knowledge of cognitive science will be presupposed, but students will be expected to read quite a bit, as well as clearly and intelligently write about and discuss the content. The goal of the course is to provide students with a deep understanding of the scope and goals of cognitive science, experience considering its fundamental issues, and the opportunity to develop and articulate their views about the nature of the mind.

Students will be evaluated based on a number of modest assignments that are primarily designed to keep them thinking about the content of the course and thereby developing their views. The exams provide opportunities to bring together information presented in different parts of the course and relate them to each other within an essay. For this reason, they will be take home and open book. Exams may also include a few short answer questions. Short assignments from last year included writing potential essay questions for an exam and questions for a guest speaker based on readings. Class presentations will be made in groups of 2-3 students but each will graded separately based on what they present. Reaction papers are described in the following section.

Lectures are designed to provide background material so that students may get the most from the readings. Thus, lectures will not cover the same the material as readings do. Students will be responsible for material covered in both. Although lecture notes will be posted, they are not necessarily interpretable without having attended the lectures. They will be posted primarily to help students take notes strategically and recall lecture content.

Deadlines: Extensions will considered if the student notifies the instructor 24 hours prior to the deadline with a reasonable excuse. Otherwise, 10% of points (1 grade) will be deducted for every 24-hour period following the deadline.

Presentations: Each student in the class must give a short presentation in class. Presentations will be done in groups of 1-3 per topic, depending on the number of students enrolled and the topic. Each student a group must speak for at least a few minutes as part of the presentation. The entire group presentation should take 20-30 minutes and cover a topic or topics listed under Presentation in the schedule.

Topics for the presentation can be personalized and enriched but must address the topic listed under presentation and the corresponding reading. You may select a topic related to your research area or interests. You may argue for or against any viewpoint presented in the readings or in class. If you need additional information about what to address for your topic, the Professor and the TA would be more than happy to assist.

You may choose your own group mates and dates that you wish to present. Sign up will be first come first serve as only a few students can present on any given day.

When presenting it is a good idea to do that class’s reading in advance and meet in a discussion group prior to the presentation day. Discussion groups are a great way to learn and more deeply understand the material by sharing knowledge on a subject and collaborating to form a presentation.

Reaction papers & exams: Reaction papers should be sent in text (ASCII) or rich text (RTF) format via e-mail to the TA by 10 am on the days that they are due. Hard copies will not be accepted. Graded papers will be returned via e-mail. Comments on papers will be written in square brackets [] so students should avoid using these themselves.

Reaction papers serve several functions. They provide a motivation for students to read assignments according to schedule and be prepared for lectures and discussions. They provide the instructor and TA with information about students’ current understanding of readings and how they relate to the themes of the course. They provide the instructor and TA a way to give feedback and direct the students’ attention to other areas or deeper questions. They also provide students with a way of monitoring their own understanding of and thoughts about the material.

The structure of reaction papers is relatively free. Each paper should be about 800-1000 words long. A topic is assigned for each of the reaction papers, although within this topic students may write a narrow critique of a single chapter or a more general discussion loosely related to the reading assignments. To prepare for writing the papers, students should review the general and specific questions for readings. These may form the basis of reaction papers. Ultimately, the reaction papers should show that the student is thinking about the content of the course.

All students are assumed to have read the Honor Code and consented to be bound by it. Violations of the Honor Code are taken extremely seriously and will result in a failing grade for the course and referral to the Dean of Students for further action. Students are expected to distinguish their own ideas and observations from those that come from readings, discussions, or lectures. When possible this should be done by citing the source of the idea, as in "(e.g., Chomsky, 1959)". When citing an exact source is impossible or inconvenient, other phrases may be used to indicate that the source is not oneself (e.g., "Although philosophers often note that functional brain mapping may be impossible without type-type identity, I haven't seen the issue discussed within the neuroscience literature"). Plagiarism is claiming the ideas of another as ones own. It does not matter whether the ideas are expressed in the source's exact words or in a paraphrase. If you have any questions, please ask.

For reaction papers, students are expected to write clearly but not necessarily formally. Use of the pronoun ‘I’ is encouraged, especially in statements such as ‘I wonder …’ and ‘I think …’ Reaction papers may take the form of essays with an introduction and conclusion, but given their brevity, they need not. Misspellings and ungrammatical sentences interfere with evaluating a student’s thoughts and may therefore lead to lower marks.

For exams, a more formal writing style is encouraged. Specifically, for essay questions, answers are expected to take the form of an essay with an introduction, arguments, and conclusion.

Please review the academic honor code. If you have any questions or concerns come talk to the professor or TA. Cognitive Science is a course based on ideas. You may argue for or against any idea, but please make sure you give appropriate credit where credit is due. You may of course collaborate in discussions with classmates and others, but your writing must be your own. You may use other’s ideas in your writing just make sure you cite them.

Required readings

(Recommended/Optional readings)

These are listed in parentheses in the schedule.

Clark refers to the Mindware text. Blackwell and A+number refer to sections of The Companion to Cognitive Science. Other reading assignments will be available from the web or elsewhere.

Full list of proposed readings