Fall 2002

Foundations of Cognitive Science

Cognitive Science 050.326/626

Prof. Paul Smolensky

T.A. Jared Medina

Prerequisites: At least one course at the 300-level or higher in cognitive science, psychology, computer science, linguistics, or philosophy of mind. Additionally, for 626: graduate standing.

Course goal: To introduce students to the broad spectrum within cognitive science of: empirical methods, theoretical methods and frameworks, general conceptual issues, and major authors. The course is short on concrete content, long on understanding and integrating the basic perspectives on cognition provided by multiple disciplines. The key skill in focus is logical argumentation.

Course theme: Research on ‘neural network’ or ‘connectionist’ computational models will provide one concrete context in which to consider a number of general course themes. Several cognitive domains are considered, but language is the one most frequently discussed.

Coursework: Reading (mostly major papers from the research literature); daily written work on readings; class attendance, and participation in class discussion. Graduate students will write additional integrative essays.

Course Requirements

Attendance and participation in class discussion is extremely important, as this is an entirely discussion-based class. The reading and writing demands of the course are rather high (undergraduates receive ‘W’ credit for the course). Friday work will likely need to be begun before class time Thursday.

Students will hand in a write-up for every reading at the beginning of the class meeting during which that reading is to be discussed. Students will have 4 ‘waivers’ of this requirement, to use any time during the semester. For the student, the goal is to gain experience in extracting and evaluating the logic of the arguments presented in cognitive science. For the class, the goal of this requirement is to ensure that students have given sufficient thought to the day’s reading prior to class to be able to contribute to a high-level discussion. Quality contributions to class discussion is an important part of the course and of the grade. Students may lead discussions in some classes.

Write-ups fall into two categories: ‘prose’ and ‘diagrams’.

The prose write-ups do not have a prescribed format, but they should by and large provide answers to the following sorts of questions:

(1) With what questions is the author mainly concerned?

(2) What are the author’s main claims concerning these questions?

(3) What arguments are given to support these claims? Are they sound?

(4) On what methodologies are these arguments based?

(5) How do these claims relate to the major course issues?

(6) How do these claims relate to those of other authors we’ve (or you’ve) read?

Prose write-ups should NEVER reiterate the reading. The write-ups address the CONTENT of the paper, not the paper itself. (Not ‘First the author talks about this and then she talks about that and I don’t think she did a good job talking about either one.’) If directly addressed to the point, and concise, such write-ups may require less than a single page (single spaced). Two pages may be more realistic much of the time. One well-thought-out point is worth much more than a dozen superficial comments.

The format for the ‘diagrams’ write-ups is more prescribed. These are formal diagrams of the logic of the reading -- at least a key portion of it. These argument diagrams will be discussed in class; to get the general idea, check the 7 posters on the wall of the corridor containing the Cog Sci seminar room, Krieger 234C.

Graduate students (in 626) will be expected to complete at least one diagram every two weeks, starting in the second or third week; the other write-ups can be in prose form if preferred.

Undergraduates (in 326) will not be expected to begin diagramming until around the second month of the class; then they too will be expected to submit at least one diagram every two weeks, the other write-ups being in prose form if preferred.

Daily write-ups will not, in general, be checked in detail, simply assigned a grade on a 3- or 5-point scale based primarily on the degree of thought and effort exhibited. Some number of diagram write-ups will be checked in more detail; the specifics will be determined later.

Students are strongly encouraged to work together on any of the class assignments. For prose write-ups and essays, each student is expected to do their own write-up, and the other students worked with must be identified. For diagrams, groups can submit a single diagram listing all group members.

A few times during the semester, graduate students will submit short essays (number of essays, timing, and length to be negotiated). These essays will attempt to integrate the material encountered to date. Undergraduates are also encouraged to submit such essays for extra credit.

There will be no exams and no final paper.

Late work/incompletes. Work handed in late will be marked down (one point per day), work more than a few days late will not be accepted, and no incompletes will be given, except for medical emergencies.

Reading Schedule: Foundations of Cognitive Science
Date	Reading	Alternate	Author’s discipline
Sept. 5	Issues & stuff
6	McClelland et al. 1986	Sejnowski & Rosenberg 1987*	Psychology
12	Plato, Aristotle, Descartes		Philosophy
13	Locke, Hume, Kant		Philosophy
19	Hebb 1949*	Rosenblatt 1958*	Neuroscience
20	Lashley 1950*	Ungerleider & Mishkin 1982*	Neuroscience
26	Lettvin et al. 1959*	McCulloch & Pitts 1943*	Neuroscience
27	Turing 1950*		Computer Science
Oct. 3	Skinner 1953; Chomsky 1959		Psychology, Linguistics
4	Chomsky 1957\|65\|67*\|86\|88		Linguistics/Philosophy
10	Putnam 1967*	Chomsky 1969*	Philosophy
11	Newell & Simon 1972	Newell & Simon 1963*	Computer Science/Psych
17	J. R. Anderson et al. 1979*	Anderson 1989	Psychology
18	Marr 1982	Haugeland 1981	Computer Vision [Phil]
24	Searle 1980*		Philosophy
25	Hofstadter 1985	Hofstadter 1979	Computer Science
31	Rosch 1978		Psychology
Nov. 1	Lakoff 1987	Talmy 1988	Linguistics
7	Rumelhart & McClelland 1986*	Plunkett & Marchman 1993	Psychology
8	Pinker & Prince 1988H	Lachter & Bever 1988H	Psychology & Linguistics
14
15	McCloskey 1992		Psychology
21	J. A. Fodor & Pylyshyn 1988H	Fodor 1975*	Philosophy
22	Smolensky 1991*	Fodor & McLaughlin 1990*	Philosophy
28
29
Dec. 5	¿Spelke 1994*; Elman et al. 1997?		Ling & Psych
6	Smolensky 1988	Smolensky 1994	Whatever

This schedule as of Sept. 5: subject to change.

Key:

pre-20^th century philosophy: not primary reading; excerpts from B. Russell, A History of Western Philosophy

* = in the Cummins & Dellarosa Cummins (eds) collection (Minds, Brains, and Computers[CS1] )

H = in the Pinker & Mehler (eds) collection (Connections and Symbols)

unmarked: copies available in Cognitive Science Department Readings Room

General Methodological Topics

Research methods

Empirical methods	Theoretical methods
Introspection	Philosophical analysis
Linguistic generalization	Linguistic analysis
Empirical neuroscience	Computational and mathematical modeling
Experimental psychology	Theoretical psychology

Major distinctions and issues

Theory- vs. data-centering

Theories of behavior vs. theories of mental knowledge vs. theories of brain function

Levels of cognitive analysis

Explanation vs. description

Formal vs. non‑formal theories

Computational vs. non‑computational frameworks

Representational vs. non‑representational frameworks

Competence vs. performance

Mind as structure processor vs. mind as statistical processor

Nativism vs. empiricism

Conscious vs. unconscious processes

Knowledge/concepts as rules/definitions vs. as examples

Inference and decision making: logic‑based vs. non‑rational approaches

Serial vs. parallel processing

Independent mental faculties ('modules') vs. interactionism

Localized vs. distributed neural embodiment

Situated vs. non-situated cognition

Covert aphorisms of cognitive science

Philosophy of science

Science = Data or Data ≫ Theory

Data = Experiments

Better theory = More data coverage

Serious constraint on theory Þ Data or AI, Philosophy Þ BS

Theory = Description

Theory = Empirical generalizations

Unmeasurable Þ Unscientific

Precise theory Þ Computer implementation

Precise theory Þ Mathematical formalism

Implausible (introspective intuition) Þ False

Explanation Þ External (e.g., functional) justification

Internal explanation Þ Circular reasoning

Functional fable Þ Explanation

Demystification Þ Trivialization/Denigration

Simplification Þ Irrelevance

Model Þ Theory

Substantive

Mind = Brain

Cognition = Behavior

Thought Þ ¬Logic

Mind Þ ¬Formal system

Knowledge = Experience

Knowledge = Rules

Concept = Definition

Category = Categorization

¬[Computational Þ Intentional]

Level of representation = Level of cognitive computation

Connectionism Þ Associationism

Connectionism Þ Empiricism

Neurally informed Þ Neural model

Language = X (= Communication; Words; Speech recognition)

Reading List

Books at the bookstore

Chomsky, N. 1965. Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. MIT Press. [1/4 chapters]

Cummins, R. & Dellarosa Cummins, D. 2000. Minds, Brains, and Computers: The Foundations of Cognitive Science. Blackwell.

Pinker, S. & Mehler, J. eds. 1988. Connections and Symbols. MIT Press/Bradford Books. [2/3 chapters]

Russell, B. 1945. A History of Western Philosophy. Simon & Schuster. [9/31 chapters] Russell readings:

Title	Chapter	Pages:Paragraphs
[Plato:] The Theory of Ideas	XV	119-132
Plato's Theory of Immortality	XVI	138:2-140:3
Knowledge and Perception in Plato	XVIII	149-158
Aristotle's Metaphysics	XIX	162-167
Aristotle's Logic	XXII	195-202
Descartes	IX	561:1-568
Locke's Theory of Knowledge	XIII	609:3-613:1
Hume	XVII	659-674
Kant	XX	706:3-708:1; 712:3-718:1

Readings

Anderson, J.R. 1989. A theory of the acquisition of human knowledge. Artificial Intelligence 40:313-351.

Anderson, John. R., Kline, Paul J., and Beasley, Charles. M, Jr. 1979. A general learning theory and its application to schema abstraction. Psychology of Learning and Motivation 12.

Bechtel, W. 1988. Philosophy of Mind: An Overview for Cognitive Science. Erlbaum. Chapter 1: Some perspectives on philosophy of mind, pp. 1-17. [optional reading]

Chomsky, N. 1959. A review of B.F. Skinner's Verbal Behavior. Language 35:26-58 [Sections 1-4,11; reprinted in Block, N. ed., 1980, Readings in Philosophy of Psychology, Harvard University Press, 48-63.]

Chomsky, N. 1957. Syntactic Structures.

Chomsky, N. 1965. Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. MIT Press. Preface, pp. v-vii, and Chapter 1: Methodological Preliminaries, pp. 1-62. [read §§1-4, pp. 3-27; skim §§5-7, pp. 27-47; read §8, pp. 47-59; skip §9, pp. 60-62.]

Chomsky, N. 1967. Recent contributions to the theory of innate knowledge. Synthese, 17:2-11.

Chomsky, N. 1969. Linguistics and philosophy. In S. Hook (ed.) Language and Philosophy. NYU Press.

Chomsky, N. 1986. Knowledge of Language. Praeger. Preface, Chapter 1, pp. xxv-13.

Chomsky, N. 1988. Language and Problems of Knowledge: The Managua Lectures. MIT Press.

Elman, Jeffrey L., Bates, Elizabeth A., Johnson, Mark H., Karmiloff-Smith, Annette, Parisi, Domenico, and Plunkett, Kim. 1997. Rethinking Innateness: A Connectionist Perspective on Development. MIT Press.

Fodor, J.A. & Pylyshyn, Z.W. 1988. Connectionism and cognitive architecture. Cognition 28:3-71. [Reprinted in S. Pinker & J. Mehler (eds.), Connections and Symbols.] [Skim §4; leaves 52 pp.]

Fodor, J. A. 1975. The language of thought: First approximations. The language of thought. Harvard University Press.

Fodor, Jerry A. and McLaughlin, Brian P. 1990. Connectionism and the problem of systematicity: Why Smolensky’s solution doesn’t work. Cognition 35.

Haugeland, J. 1981. Semantic engines: An introduction to mind design. Mind design. MIT Press.

Hebb, D.O. 1949. The Organization of Behavior. Wiley. Introduction, pp. xi-xix, Chapter 4: The first stage of perception: growth of the assembly, pp. 60-78. [Reprinted, with new introduction, in J.A. Anderson & E. Rosenfeld eds., Neurocomputing: Foundations of Research, MIT Press/Bradford Books; pp. 43-56.]

Hofstadter, D. 1985. Metamagical Themas. Basic Books. Chapter 26: Waking up from the Boolean dream, or, subcognition as computation, pp. 630-665.

Hofstadter, Douglas R. 1979. Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. Basic Books.

Lachter, J. , and Bever, T.G. 1988. The relation between linguistic structure and associative theories of language learning : A constructive critique of some connectionist learning models. Cognition 28:195-247. [Reprinted in S. Pinker & J. Mehler (eds.), Connections and Symbols.]

Lakoff, G. 1987. Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things. University of Chicago Press. Excerpts: Preface, pp. xi-xvii; Chapter 1: The importance of categorization, pp. 5-15; Chapter 2: From Wittgenstein to Rosch, pp. 56-67.

Lashley, K.S. 1950. In search of the engram. Society of Experimental Biology Symposium, 4: Psychological Mechanisms in Animal Behavior. Cambridge University Press. Pp. 454-455, 468-473, 477-480. [Reprinted, with new introduction, in J.A. Anderson & E. Rosenfeld eds., Neurocomputing: Foundations of Research, MIT Press/Bradford Books; pp. 57-67.]

Lettvin, J. Y., Maturana, H. R., McCulloch, W. S., Pitts, W. H. 1959. What the frog’s eye tells the frog’s brain. Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers 47.

Marr, D. 1982. Vision. W. H. Freeman and Company.

McCarthy, J. 1968. Programs with common sense. In M. Minsky ed., Semantic Information Processing, MIT Press, 403-418. [Reprinted, with new introduction, in R. Brachman & H. Levesque eds., 1985, Readings in Knowledge Representation, Morgan Kaufmann, pp. 299-307.]

McClelland, J.L., Rumelhart, D.E., & Hinton, G.E. 1986. The appeal of parallel distributed processing. In D.E. Rumelhart, J.L. McClelland & The PDP Research Group, Parallel Distributed Processing: Explorations in the Microstructure of Cognition; Vol. 1: Foundations, 3-44. [Reprinted in Collins & Smith eds., pp. 52-72.]

McCloskey, Michael. 1992. Networks and theories: The place of connectionism in cognitive science. Psychological Science, 2:387-395.

McCulloch, Warren S. and Pitts, Walter. 1953. A logical calculus of the ideas immanent in nervous activity. Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics 5.

Newell, A. & Simon, H.A. 1963. GPS, A program that simulates human thought. In E. A. Feigenbaum & J. Feldman eds., Computers and Thought, 279-293. [Reprinted in Collins & Smith eds., pp. 453-460.]

Newell, A. & Simon, H.A. 1972. The theory of human problem solving. Prentiss-Hall, Chapter 14. [Reprinted in Collins & Smith eds., pp. 33-51.]

Pinker, S. & Prince, A. 1988. On language and connectionism: Analysis of a parallel distributed processing model of language acquisition. Cognition 28: 73-194. [Reprinted in S. Pinker & J. Mehler (eds.), Connections and Symbols.] [Skim §4, skip §7 and appendix; leaves 47 pp.]

Plunkett, K., Marchman, V. 1993. From rote learning to system building: Acquiring verb morphology in children and connectionist nets. Cognition 48, 21-69.

Putnam, H. 1967. The ‘innateness hypothesis’ and explanatory models in modern linguistics. Synthese 17:12-22

Rosch, E. 1978. Principles of categorization. In E. Rosch & B.B. Lloyd eds., Cognition and Categorization, Erlbaum, pp. 27-48. [Reprinted in Collins & Smith eds., pp. 312-322.]

Rosenblatt, F. 1958. The perceptron: A probabilistic model for information storage and organization in the brain. Psychological Review 65.

Rumelhart, D.E. & McClelland, J.L. 1986. On learning the past tenses of English verbs. In J.L. McClelland, D.E. Rumelhart, & The PDP Research Group, Parallel Distributed Processing: Explorations in the Microstructure of Cognition; Vol. 2: Psychological and Biological Models, pp. 216-271 [Skim pp. 248-260].

Schank, R. & Abelson, H. 1977. Scripts, Plans, Goals, and Understanding. Erlbaum. Chapters 1-3, 1-68. [Reprinted in Collins & Smith eds., pp. 190-223.]

Searle, J.R. 1980. Minds, brains, and programs. In The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 3:417-424. [Reprinted in Collins & Smith eds., pp. 20-31.]

Sejnowski, Terrence J. and Rosenberg, Charles R. 1987. Parallel networks that learn to pronounce English text. Complex Systems 1.

Skinner, B.F. 1953. Science and Human Behavior. Macmillan. Excerpts: pp. 27-35, 62-66, 87-90. [Reprinted in Block, N. ed., 1980, Readings in Philosophy of Psychology, Harvard University Press, pp. 37-47.]

Smolensky, P. 1988. On the proper treatment of connectionism. The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 11:1-23.

Smolensky, P. 1991. Connectionism, constituency, and the language of thought. In B. Loewer & G. Rey (Eds.), Meaning in Mind: Fodor and his Critics. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. 201–227.

Smolensky, P. 1994. Computational theories of mind. In S. Guttenplan (Ed.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind. Blackwell Publishers. 176-185.

Spelke, Elizabeth. 1994. Initial knowledge: Six suggestions. Cognition, 50.

Talmy, L. 1988. Force dynamics in language and cognition. Cognitive Science, 12:49-100.

Turing, A.M. 1950. Computing machinery and intelligence. Mind, 59:433-460. [Reprinted in Collins & Smith eds., pp. 6-19.]

Ungerleider, Leslie G. and Mishkin, Mortimer. 1982. Two cortical visual systems. In D. J. Inles (ed.), Analysis of Visual Behavior. MIT Press.

Date

Author’s discipline

Research methods

Readings