Psychology 85
INTRODUCTION TO COGNITIVE SCIENCE
Winter Quarter, 2012
Instructor: Dr. Jesse Rissman Office: 6639 Franz Hall
Office Hours: Thurs, 2:00-3:00pm (or by appt.) email: rissman@psych.ucla.edu
TA: Michael Friedman Office: 6586 Franz Hall
Office Hours: Tues, 2:00-3:00pm; Weds, 3:00-4:00pm (or by appt.) email: m.friedman@ucla.edu
Class Time and Location: Tues. & Thurs., 12:30 pm – 1:45 pm, 2258A Franz Hall
Course Website: http://courses.psych.ucla.edu [click on 85 – INTRO-COGNITIVE SCI (Lec 1)]
Course Overview:
This course is intended to present a broad introduction to the exciting and highly interdisciplinary field of Cognitive Science, which aims to examine the nature of intelligent systems, both natural and
artificial. A relatively new discipline, it has been formed from the interactions of philosophy, cognitive psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, anthropology, computer science, and artificial intelligence. Unfortunately, this 10-week course cannot be a comprehensive survey of this vast field; rather, we will aim to provide a reasonably deep introduction to several of the key topics and research approaches. Our emphases include philosophy of mind, cognitive and neuroscientific models of perception, attention, memory, knowledge representation, language, and reasoning, as well as some coverage of connectionist models and artificial intelligence.
Textbook:
Friedenberg & Silverman (2011). Cognitive Science: An Introduction to the Study of Mind (2nd
Edition). SAGE Publications, Inc. [ISBN: 978-1-4129-7761-6]
This newly revised textbook will be the main source of readings for this course. Each chapter focuses on a single disciplinary approach to the study of cognition and presents an overview of the key terms and concepts associated with that approach. At the end of each chapter, you will find a link to the student study website associated with this book, which contains electronic flash cards, quizzes, and links to other resources that you may find helpful. At least one copy of this textbook will be placed on reserve in the College Library.
For those who prefer e-books, the UCLA Bookstore will be offering a digital version of this textbook at a reduced price. However, please note that the e-book version cannot be resold at the end of the term.
Supplemental Readings:
In addition to the assigned textbook readings, there will be a number of required readings posted as PDF files on the course website. The weekly course schedule below lists the assigned textbook and/or supplemental readings for each week. The reading assignments associated with a given day should be read BEFORE that day’s lecture. Cognitive science is a demanding topic. You have the best chance of gaining understanding in this field (and this class) by combining careful advance reading with active participation in class.
For those of you are interested in diving deeper into the course material, I would strongly encourage you to read the optional readings, which will also be posted on the website. While you will not be directly tested on any of the material covered in the optional readings, these articles will enrich your understanding of each topic and will likely help you to write better answers to the essay questions on the exams.
Lecture Notes:
The lecture slides will be posted in PDF format on the course website shortly after each class.
Grading:
Breakdown of your grade:
Midterm Exam 30%
Final Exam 35%
i>clicker Quizzes 15%
Final Paper 15%
Class Participation 5%
By default, the following scale will be used to assign your grade for this course. If necessary, grades will be curved up, but they will not be curved down. In other words, you are certain to get at least the grade corresponding to the points listed below.
Percentage: Grade:
90+ A-..A+
80..89 B-..B+ 70..79 C-..C+
60..69 D..D+
Plus (+) grades will only be assigned for the top two percentage points in any grade range (e.g.,
B+=88-89), and minus (-) grades for the bottom two percentage points (e.g., A-=90-91). Although this scale looks pretty easy, be aware that the TAs and I grade conservatively. On essay and short-answer questions, the central score will be awarded for just-adequate work. For example, a just-adequate answer to a 7-point essay question will be awarded 4 points. To earn more points, answers must be more than just-adequate, for example, insightful, integrative, and/or well-written.
Extra Credit:
You have the opportunity to earn up to 3 extra credit percentage points by participating in an experiment through the Psychology Department Subject Pool. By participating in experiments, you will have the opportunity to contribute to on-going research at UCLA while getting an inside glimpse
of how research studies are conducted. One credit is given for every hour of experiment participation (i.e., if you complete 3 hours of experiments, you will have 3 percentage points added to your final course grade).
The posting and scheduling of experiments is handled via the Psychology Department Subject Pool system at http://ucla.sona-systems.com/. More information on how to use the system can be found at
http://www.psych.ucla.edu/undergraduate/subject-pool-experiment-participation. Before signing up for experiments, you MUST select the course for which you want your experiment credits to count. All experiments for Winter quarter must be completed by March 15, 2012 (Thursday of 10th
Week).
Use of i>clickers:
An i>clicker remote is required for this course so that you can respond to in-class quizzes (graded),
and to other (non-graded) questions that are posed in class. You may use either an original i>clicker
(ISBN: 10716779390) or an i>clicker2 (ISBN: 1429280476), both available at the UCLA Bookstore, or through Internet sites such as iclicker.com, amazon.com or ebay.com. We will not be using the alphanumeric features of the i>clicker2 in this course, but future courses you take at UCLA might require this newer model, so you may want to consider investing in it now. Please register your device online as soon as possible (http://www.iclicker.com/registration). Complete the fields with your first and last name, student ID, and remote ID. The remote ID is the series of numbers and sometimes letters found on the bottom of the back of your i>clicker remote. You must have come to class at least once and responded to at least one question with your remote in order to complete the registration process. We will begin using the i>clickers on January 17th, so make sure you have yours by then.
During lectures, questions will periodically come up that require a clicker response. Responses to these clicker questions are not graded and are primarily used to encourage active class participation. Your clicker response rate to these questions (regardless of the accuracy of your responses) will be a primary determinant of the Participation portion of your course grade. It is our hope that you will find the use of the clickers in this course to be fun and rewarding.
Responding in class for another person (by using their remote) or having someone attend class and respond for you is academic misconduct and will be treated as such.
Quizzes:
On most days, class will begin with a brief quiz (3-5 questions) administered with the i<Clickers. These are designed to assess your understanding of the topics covered in the assigned readings, as well as materials covered from the previous lecture. You will not be quizzed on any materials covered in the
optional readings. The quiz questions will be relatively easy, such that you should not need to study for
them in the same way that you would study for an exam. If you read the assigned chapters/articles and pay attention during the lectures, you should do just fine. Your mean score on these quizzes will
constitute 15% of your final course grade. The first quiz will be on January 17th.
Extensive research on learning has shown that students consistently perform better on a final test if they take practice tests on a lesson (such as these mini-quizzes), as compared with simply restudying the lesson materials; this phenomenon is known as the “testing effect” (Roediger & Karpicke, 2006).
If you forget to bring your clicker to class on a given day or it is out of batteries / not working, unfortunately you will receive 0 points for that day’s quizzes. However, we allow for these sorts of issues by automatically dropping your two lowest quiz scores for the quarter.
Exams:
The midterm and final exams will consist of a mixture of essay, short-answer and multiple-choice questions. You are responsible for everything covered in the assigned readings and in the lectures. An attempt will be made to design questions that test your knowledge of general concepts and definitions, underlying principles, and important experimental methods and results. You should study and read for comprehension as opposed to brute memorization. The final exam will overwhelmingly draw upon material from the second half of the course, but it will assume a cumulative understanding of the course material for the whole quarter [note that the final exam will have a 2-hour time limit]. There will be one and only one make-up exam for the midterm exam, which will consist of different questions than the original exam. Please note that the make-up exam will be considerably harder, so try very hard not to miss the scheduled exam. There will be no make-up for the final exam. If you have an unavoidable conflict for the final exam, please speak to the instructor or TA at your soonest convenience, but no later than one week before the final exam date. The TA will hold review sessions before each exam (date/time TBA).
Policy on Incompletes:
To receive an Incomplete, you must have completed more than half the course, including the midterm exam, with passing scores. Be sure to check with the Undergraduate Advising Office and instructors if you are planning to take an Incomplete.
Short Final Paper:
The only writing assignment for this course will be a 2-page paper, to be turned in at the beginning of class on March 8th. Your assignment will be to find an article in the media (i.e., newspaper or
magazine) that relates in some meaningful way to one or more of the topics covered in this course, and to briefly describe in your own words what the article is about and how an understanding of cognitive science informs your interpretation of the article. The article you choose should NOT be a description of an actual scientific study from a science journal or magazine, but rather a story about real-world issues/events that makes contact with the course materials. To give just a few examples, you could find a news story about the assessment of conscious awareness in coma patients, a story describing
examples of cognitive biases that lead to irrational decision-making, a story about the limitations of human memory, attention, or perception (or alternatively, about cases of exceptional cognitive abilities), a story that draws upon our scientific understanding of attention, a story about language learning, a story about psychological strategies used in consumer marketing or political campaigns, a story about the cognitive abilities of animals, a story about sports that clearly relates to cognitive psychology (e.g., inhibitory control, pattern recognition, expertise), an story about visual art (paintings, sculptures, or architecture) that has tie-ins with our scientific understanding of visual perception. However, please refrain from selecting an article that relates most closely to the readings and materials that will not yet have been covered by the due date for this assignment (e.g., artificial intelligence). You should include a copy of the article with your paper when you turn it in. Your paper must be limited to 2 single-sided pages (although feel free to print it double-sided on a single sheet of paper); please use 12-point font, but any choice of line spacing and margins is acceptable. If you are unsure about whether a particular article/topic would be a good choice for this assignment, please email the
TA with a brief summary of what article you’re considering and the cognitive science angle you plan to take on it. Late papers will be penalized by 10 percentage points per day late.
Course-related Correspondence:
Please do not directly email the instructor with questions relating to the course materials. Rather, you should post any questions you have on the discussion board that is part of the course web page. When posting a question on the course discussion forum, please clearly identify the subject of your question in the post title (i.e. "Question about the relationship between working memory capacity and general intelligence"). Before you post on the forum, look over the subjects of previous posts to make sure your question has not already been addressed in a previous post. Email should only be used when the matter to be discussed is of a personal nature, and it is not possible to attend office hours; please include “Psych85” in the subject line.
Academic integrity:
Academic dishonesty, including, but not limited to, cheating or plagiarism, is a serious violation of UCLA’s code of student conduct. Any act of academic dishonesty will be reported to the Dean of Students’ Office for adjudication.
Accommodations for Disabilities:
If you wish to request an accommodation due to a disability, please contact the Office for Students with Disabilities as soon as possible at A255 Murphy Hall, (310) 825-1501, (310) 206-6083 (telephone device for the deaf). Website: www.osd.ucla.edu.
GETTING THE MOST FROM THIS COURSE:
Given that this course is focused on the exploration of the human mind, it is my hope that you will find the course materials to be interesting and relevant to your day-to-day life. The following suggestions may help to ensure that you get the most from this course.
1. Engage the material actively. Deep learning comes from engaging the material in an active and
personal way. Ask questions of the readings, your instructor and TA, your classmates, and
yourself. Explain the material to yourself. Being able to articulate the issues and concepts produces deeper understanding than mere reading or familiarization.
2. Look for connections to the course and to cognitive science in everyday life. As you encounter the
course materials, try to think about the ways in which each topic relates to your own life
experiences. As students, this is especially true for you, as cognitive science encompasses, among other things, the scientific understanding of how people learn, think, and remember.
3. Try to grasp the fundamental issues. You are studying a discipline created in contemporary times
to grapple with some of the most fundamental questions in science and human life. What is a mind? Can machines think? How can we explain perception, thought, and language?
Understanding data and experiments and getting the details right is important, but always keep in mind the motivation for the inquiry and the implications of the results.
4. View the field as an evolving effort, not as a completed work. This is a young, exciting,
interdisciplinary field – one that can benefit from your efforts to think deeply, ask questions, and think about new ideas. Without doubt, some of the cognitive scientists of the future will come from students at UCLA who are or will be undergraduate Cognitive Science majors or minors.
Course Schedule and Reading Assignments
Date Topic Textbook
readings
Readings on website
1/10 Introduction to Cognitive Science:
The interdisciplinary discipline
Ch. 1
OPTIONAL: Ch. 3
OPTIONAL: Gardner (1985)
1/12 The Philosophical Approach:
The mind-body problem
Ch. 2 OPTIONAL: Searle (2007)
1/17 The Cognitive Approach:
Levels of analysis & modularity of mind
Marr (1982); McClamrock (2006) 1/19 Visual Perception and Attention:
Features, selection, and binding
Ch. 4 OPTIONAL: Evans et al. (2011)
1/24 Visual Illusions:
What they teach us about visual perception
Gregory (2006) 1/26 Visual Imagery:
Debating the nature of our ‘mental theater’
Ch. 5 (p. 125-132) Moulton & Kossyln (2009)
OPTIONAL: Pylyshyn (2010)
1/31 Working Memory:
Cognitive models of short-term storage
Ch. 5 (p. 109-125) Baddeley (2000) 2/2 Cognitive Expertise:
What differentiates novices from experts?
Foer (2011); Ross (2006) 2/7 Categories and Concepts:
Prototypes, exemplars, and boundaries
Goldstone & Kersten (2003) 2/9 Judgment and Decision Making:
A tale of two systems
Kahneman (2003)
2/14 MIDTERM EXAM
2/16 The Neuroscience Approach I:
The cognitive neuroscientist’s toolkit
Ch. 6 (p. 145-158) OPTIONAL: Bassett & Gazzaniga (2011)
2/21 The Neuroscience Approach II:
What can brain damage reveal about the functional architecture of cognition?
Ch. 6 (p. 158-180) Ch. 7 (p. 283-287)
OPTIONAL: Behrmann (2010)
2/23 The Neuroscience Approach III:
Multiple memory systems
Eichenbaum (2010) 2/28 Language Acquisition:
Guest lecture by Dr. Catherine Sandhofer
Ch. 9 (p. 269-280) OPTIONAL: Maratsos (2006)
3/1 Linguistic Relativity:
Does our language shape how we think?
Ch. 9 (p. 294-298) Deutscher (2010) 3/6 Animal Cognition:
Similarities and differences from humans
Premack (2007); Wohlforth (2010) 3/8
***
The Evolutionary Approach:
Guest lecture by Dr. H. Clark Barrett
Ch. 8 OPTIONAL: Van Horik & Emery (2011)
3/13 The Network Approach:
Connectionist models of mind
Ch. 7 (p. 187-212) McClelland & Rogers (2003) 3/15 The Artificial Intelligence Approach:
Thinking machines
Ch. 12 OPTIONAL: Turing (1950); Pinker (1997)
3/20 FINAL EXAM (11:30 AM - 1:30 PM)
Note: This schedule of lecture topics and reading assignments is tentative and subject to change.
*** Paper due on March 8th
