Section 01: MWF 1:30-2:20pm
This class has no formal prerequisites - no background in computer programming, philosophy, psychology or any related discipline is assumed or required. However, it is assumed that students are able to use a Web browser to navigate the Web and to conduct simple searches. In addition, it is assumed that students are familiar with a word processing program and can produce appropriately formatted written work.
An interdisciplinary course that addresses the issue of how humans and (perhaps) computers are able to reason.
This course meets the JINS requirement, counts toward the required 63 LAS hours and is writing enhanced.
Human and Computer Cognition is an interdisciplinary course that addresses the issue of how humans and (perhaps) computers are able to reason. We will spend some time looking at how human thinking is thought to work. Then we will look at some approaches that explore how machines might think. In particular we will spend significant time on what is sometimes referred to as "good old-fashioned artificial intelligence" or GOFAI. We will also examine more recent approaches to AI including a set of ideas often referred to as "embodied intelligence". The general thrust of GOFAI argues that the human mind is a computer that does explicit symbolic reasoning. We will look at where this idea came from, what the main arguments in its favor are, and some of its shortcomings. The Embodiment approach argues that human intelligence is fundamentally tied to human interactions with the world that are mediated by our bodies. While there can be some overlap between this approach and GOFAI, the guiding paradigm (meaning, at least, the assumed principles, methods of research and problems that are considered interesting) is distinctly different. We will look at why this approach has arisen, what kind of explanations it provides, and how it has interacted with the prevailing GOFAI approach.
Much of the material covered in this course falls under the academic heading of cognitive science. Cognitive science is not usually considered a discipline in itself, rather it is a "place" where philosophers, psychologists, computer scientists, neuroscientists, anthropologists, linguists and others gather to study the human mind. This course could be considered an introduction to some of the important ideas studied in cognitive science, from a unified perspective, rather than the perspective of a single particular discipline.
This course is writing-enhanced: students will write every week and in a variety of styles, using writing as a learning tool. In addition to short written assignments, students will produce a longer research paper of 10-15 pages, and participate in peer reviews of their classmates' papers.
Attendance is mandatory; each absence will count against the participation grade. There will be classroom presentation of material not covered in readings (by the instructor and by classmates). There will be in-class demonstrations of programs, etc. which will not be available elsewhere.
It is acceptable (indeed, encouraged) for you to seek comments/reviews of drafts of your work from your classmates (or from consultants at the Writing Center); it is not acceptable for anyone but you to rewrite sections of your assignments for you! Failure to credit others' for their ideas (failure to use appropriate citations) is plagiarism. Either type of cheating is grounds for failure of the course.
If you have a disability for which you are or may be requesting an accommodation, you are encouraged to contact both your instructor and the Disability Services office (x4478) as soon as possible.
For each day that a writing assignment is overdue (including holidays & weekends), a half-grade will be deducted from that assignment.
| Date | Assignment |
|---|---|
| 26 August | Short Writing Assignment 1 out |
| 11 September | First draft of Short Writing Assignment 1 due |
| Peer review assignment out | |
| 14 September | Peer review assignment due |
| 18 September | Final draft of Short Writing Assignment 1 due |
| Short Writing Assignment 2 out | |
| 2 October | Short Writing Assignment 2 due |
| Short Writing Assignment 3 out | |
| 5 October | Research paper topic and bibliography out |
| 19 October | Research paper topic and bibliography due |
| Short Writing Assignment 3 due | |
| 9 November | First draft of Research paper due |
| 4 December | Final draft of Research paper due |
You are expected to work on the art of writing abstracts during the course of this semester. You will write an abstract or outline for each of the shared reading assignments (as indicated by an ab or outline listed by it). This involves synthesizing the information contained therein, deciding what the most important points are, and using the most formal and concise language to state these within a limited number of words (150 maximum!).
Your abstracts will be evaluated both for content (displaying understanding of the assigned text) and for form. The quality of the abstracts you write toward the end of the semester will count more than those at the beginning. (You must write all of the abstracts to receive full credit, but it is expected and accepted that your earlier ones may not be as wonderful as the ones you produce toward the end of the semester.)
I will occasionally critique some student-produced abstracts in class or distribute particularly nicely done examples (no names attached, either way). In addition to helping you develop general strategies for abstract writing, the focus of this activity on concise, formal language should help prepare you to write your research paper.