SYLLABUS

Psychology 0005, Fall 2005
Introduction to Cognitive Science
2:30pm - 3:45pm Tuesday + Thursday

Instructor: Christian Schunn, Ph.D.TA: Debra BernsteinLibrary Consultant: Carmela Rizzo
Office: 821 LRDCOffice: 101 LRDCOffice: 813 LRDC
E-mail: -mail: -mail:
Phone: 412 624-8807Phone: 412 624-7788Phone: 412 624-1672

WWW:

Office Hours: Tuesday + Thursday 1pm-2:30pm, or by appointment
Course Prerequisite: none

Required Text: Paul Thagard’s (2nd Edition) Mind: Introduction to Cognitive Science. MIT Press.

Course Objectives

This course will examine intelligent behavior from a cognitive science perspective. It will show how researchers in cognitive psychology, artificial intelligence, philosophy, linguistics, and neuroscience have approached these issues. Sociologically, the term Cognitive Science is applied to three different broad research areas. The first is what I call visual science and covers different disciplinary approaches to visual image processing. The second is linguistic science and covers different approaches to language understanding and language production. The third is “cognitive” science and covers memory, categorization, reasoning, problem solving, decision-making, and learning. This course will touch on all three, but will focus on the third.

The goals of this course are to give students a general understanding of the research topics and scientific methods used in cognitive science and to give students a more detailed understanding of the areas that overlap with their long-term interests. To meet the general understanding goals, we will have a mixture of textbook and research paper readings each week that overview general research areas, as well as in class demonstrations and discussions of research. Each student will be expected to do the core readings in advance of each week’s class and be prepared to discuss the most general and central issues of those readings.

To meet the more detailed understanding goals of some specific areas, students will select particular topics to examine more deeply. For one topic, students will find and read additional papers, and write their own short paper, to be read and discussed by other students and the instructor. The details of this paper are discussed in a later section. For two other topics, students will give short presentations in class.

Exam: There will be a final exam consisting of 2 short answer questions for each chapter of the textbook.

Quizzes: There will be weekly online quizzes that test basic understanding of the textbook materials. You will take the quizzes online on courseweb. The quizzes will be timed, such that you won’t be able to read the chapters while taking the quizzes. The questions should be very easy to answer if you have read the chapter in advance. These quizzes must be taken by 11:59pm on the Monday of the week we are covering the topic---in other words, before we talk about the material in class. If you don’t do the readings in advance, we can’t have interesting discussions and I have to bore you with lecturing on material you could have learned more easily by reading. There will be a quiz for every chapter we cover, except the first chapter in the book.

Papers: You will have to write a paper on any one of the chapter topics (except for chapter 1, 8, and 14). The goal of the paper is to take some key scientific finding or theory from one of these chapters and apply it to everyday life: explain something about everyday life, make an argument about how life could be improved using that piece of cognitive science, either in terms of how artifacts around us are built, or how education is done, or some other application. Your paper should be 5-8 pages long (double-spaced). Your paper will be graded by 5 of your fellow students. You will submit two drafts of the paper, and both drafts will be graded by your peers. Papers submitted late will be penalized 5% per day (i.e., 5% for 0.1-24 hours late; 5% for 24.1-48 hours late). Papers submitted more than 48 hours late will not be evaluated and will receive a zero grade. The paper submission and feedback will all be done online. Your identity will not be known by the reviewers. Details will be revealed later in class.

Reviewing: You will have to review 5 papers for one of the chapter topics. You will review both drafts of this set of papers. Your reviews will consist of numerical ratings of the papers and written comments on what the strengths and weaknesses are of the paper and how the author might improve their paper (if necessary). You will be graded on the quality of your reviews in two ways. First, the consistency of your numerical grades that you assign will be graded. For example, if you give grades that are all too high or all too low, or if you don’t seem to be able to tell the difference between good papers and poor papers, then you will get a low review grade. Second, you will be graded on how helpful your written comments are to the authors. Reviews will have to be done by the deadlines (2 weeks after the papers are submitted). Late reviews will not be accepted.

Presentations: During every lecture, we will identify a burning question. Two students will volunteer (or be volunteered in the absence of volunteers) to each give 5-minute presentations on the answer to the burning question at the beginning of the next lecture. To find the answers, some Internet research will be required ( and The format of the presentation is simple: 1) remind the class of the burning question; 2) explain the answer to the question; and 3) give some evidence for the answer. Grades will be given for quality of the content and the clarity of the presentation. Presentations which are less than 4 minutes or more than 6 minutes long will get an automatic low grade—the easiest way to avoid that problem is to practice the presentation (while timing yourself) at least twice.

Participation: The lectures will involve regular discussions. Discussions are not so good if students do not participate. Your learning will be not so good if you don’t participate in the discussions. If that is not enough incentive for you, note that your participation grade will be particularly poor if you do not participate in the discussions. There will also be occasional worksheets to fill-out in class or as homework to be handed in during the next class, and these will count towards participation.

Grading: Your overall grade will be based on the following:

Paper16% (8% for each draft)

Reviewing16% (8% for each set)

Calibration + Paper planning tool4%

Presentations10% (5% for each presentation)

Online Quizzes24% (2% for each quiz)

Participation10%

Final Exam20%

Policy on late work, make-ups: The policy for missed quizzes and late papers or reviews are indicated above. If there is a documented medical illness or family emergency, special arrangements may be made.

Policy on cheating and plagiarism: Cheaters and plagiarizers will receive a failing grade for the course. Suspected cheaters may be asked to answer additional questions or to re-take all or part of the exam. The final grade for an exam may be based on this additional testing.

Disability policy: Students requiring special assistance or accommodations due to disabilities should contact the instructor in the first two weeks of class to make special arrangements.

Date / Reading completed by / Paper Deadlines
Aug 30
Sept 1 / 1 – Representation & Computation
Sept 6 / 2 – Logic *
Sept 8
Sept 12 / 3 – Rules *
Sept 15
Sept 27 / 4 – Concepts * / Calibration
Sept 29
Oct 4 / 5 – Analogies * / Paper Planning Tool
Oct 6
Oct 11 / 6 – Images * / Draft 1
Oct 13
Oct 18 / 7 – Connections *
Oct 20
Oct 25 / 8 – Review & Evaluation * / Review 1
Oct 27
Nov 1 / 9 – Brains *
Nov 3
Nov 8 / 10 – Emotions * / Draft 2
Nov 10
Nov 15 / 11 – Consciousness *
Nov 17
Nov 22 / 12 – Bodies & the World * / Review 2
Nov 29
Dec 1
Dec 6 / 13 – Societies *
Dec 8

* = online quiz, completed by the day before