Course Title: Human concepts and knowledge representations: The impact of language,
memory, and decision making, PSYC689-602
Time & Location: TR 3:55-5:10pm (Fall 2005), Psyc Bldg., PSYC 335
Instructor:
Dr. Takashi Yamauchi
257 Psychology Building
845-2503
tya@psyc.tamu.edu
Class Website:
http://www.tamu.edu/classes/psyc/takashi/psyc689/psyc689.htm
Focus:
This course is concerned with the cognitive processes and structures that underlie language,
memory and knowledge representation. It will begin with a brief examination of traditional
approaches to these areas but will shift quickly to concentrate primarily on recent developments
in cognitive science, cognitive psychology, neuropsychology and cognitive neuroscience that
hold the promise of uncovering the underlying relationships between the three cognitive
functions. Recent empirical and theoretical advances will be considered within the framework of
these three functions. Particular attention will be paid to empirical and theoretical findings that
elucidate the interactions between the three areas. This approach seeks to understand how the
three fundamental processes of cognition are intertwined within each other. In addition to
introducing the basic framework involving language, memory and knowledge structure, this
course will investigate the principles that generate the complex intervention of the three
functions.
Recent computational models developed in the fields of cognitive science and neuroscience
will be also considered to illuminate the processing characteristics of the three functions.
Evaluation:
Papers: There will be two exams – one take-home mid-term exam and one final term paper. In
the final term paper, students are required to develop and discuss their own concrete research
ideas. Psychology graduate students are required to write a research proposal that integrates
their own research area with those topics covered during the class (broadly defined). A review
paper in which students analyze and integrate empirical research and theory on some specific
aspect of the cognitive processes that underlie language, memory and knowledge structure is also
acceptable.
Presentations: Students are required to give two in-class presentations.
Tickets: Every student is required to send me a “ticket” – a short description of the papers you
read 24 hrs before each class. A ticket can contain anything you thought about the papers
including a rough summary, questions, evaluations of the reading materials.
Grading:
One take-home mid-term exam will count 25% of the final course grade. The final paper (either
a research proposal or a review paper) will count 50% of the final course grade.
Two in-class presentations will count 15% of the final grade.
The class participation/ticket will count 10% of the grade.
Main Theme/Key Words
Language, cognition, embodiment, embodied mind, symbol system, neural
network, evolutionary psychology, computational modeling
Tentative reading list
Many of the readings can be retrieved from the class website.
Aug. 30
Organizational meeting
Some intro.
Sep. 1 & 6 & 8 & 13: Foundations:
Marr, D. (1982). Vision. New York: W. H. Freeman and Company. pp. 3-38
Newell, A., & Simon, H. A. (1976). Computer Science as Empirical Inquiry:
Symbols and Search, Communications of the Association for Computing
Machinery, 19, 113-126.
Simon, H. A. (1990). Invariants of human behavior. Annual Review of
Psychology, 41, 1-19.
Marcus, G. F. (2001). The algebraic mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 1-34
Available at E-book: http://www.netlibrary.com/
Title: The Embodied Mind : Cognitive Science and Human Experience (eBook) by
Varela, Francisco J.; Thompson, Evan.; Rosch, Eleanor. Publication: Cambridge,
Mass. MIT Press, 1993.
Read: pp. 35-59, pp. 85-100
Embodiment: Vera:
Cosmides, L., Tooby, J., & Barkow, J. H. (1992). Introduction: Evolutionary
psychology and conceptual integration. In J. H. Barkow, L. Cosmides, & J. Tooby
(Eds.), (pp. 3-15), The Adaptive Mind. New York: Oxford University Press.
Rules of Attraction – LA Times
Sep. 15 & 20 (language & brain)
Warrington & Shallice (1984) Category specific semantic impairments. Brain 107,
829-854
Damasio, A. R., & Damasio, H. (1992). Brain and language. Scientific American,
September, 89-95.
Damasio, A. (1989). The brain binds entities and events by multiregional
activation from convergent zone. Neural Computation, 1, 123-132.
Farah, M. J., & McClelland, J. L. (1991). A computational model of semantic
memory impairment: Modality specificity and emergent category specificity.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 120(4), 339-357.
Sep. 22 & 27 & 29 (representation & brain)
Kosslyn, S. M., Koening, O., Barrett, A., Cave, C., B., Tang, J., & Gabrieli, J. D.
E. (1989). Evidence for two types of spatial representations: Hemispheric
specialization for categorical and coordinate relations. Journal of Experimental
Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 15, 723-735.
Barsalou, L. W. (1999). Perceptual symbol systems. Behavioral Brain Sciences, 22, 577660.
Miyashita, Y. (1995). How the brain creates imagery: Projection to primary visual
cortex. Sciencem, 268 (5218, Jun., 23), 1719-1720.
Oct. 4 & 6: (symbols, language, neural network)
Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
(ch 6 p. 79-91))
Saffran, J.R., Aslin, R.N., Newport, E.L., (1996). Statistical learning by 8-month-old
infants. Science 274,1926–1928
Available at:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/274/5294/1926?maxtoshow=&HITS=
10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=saffran&searchid=1124826879402_
8498&stored_search=&FIRSTINDEX=0
Marcus, G. F., Vijayan, S., Rao, S. B., & Vishton, P. M. (1999). Rule learning by sevenmonth-old infants. Science, 283, 77-80.
McClelland, J. L., & Plaut, D. C. (1999). Does generalization in infant learning
implicate abstract algegra-like rules? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 3, 166-168.
Marcus, G. F. (1999). Connectionism: With or without rules? Response to J. L.
McClelland and D. C. Plaut. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 3, 168-170
Fodor, J. A., & Pylyshyn, Z. W. (1988). Connectionism and cognitive architecture:
A critical analysis. Cognition, 28. 3-71.
Oct 11 & 13
Midterm (Take Home exam)
Discussion and term project
Oct. 18 & 20: (inductive inference & category membership)
Gelman, S. & Markman, E. M. (1986). Categories and induction in young
children. Cognition, 23, 183-209.
Brown, R. (1957). Linguistic determinism and the part of speech. Journal of
Abnormal and Social Psychology, 55, 1-5.
Markman, E. M., & Hutchinson, J. E. (1984). Children's sensitivity to constraints
on word meaning: Taxonomic versus thematic relations. Cognitive Psychology,
16, 1-27.
Sloutsky, V. M. (2003). The role of similarity in the development of categorization.
Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7, 246-558.
Oct. 25 & 27: (symbol system, language and culture)
Tomasello, M. (1999). The cultural Origins of Human Cognition. (pp. 1-55).
Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Deacon, T. W. (1997). The symbolic species. New York: W. W. Norton &
Company. (ch. 2&3) pp. 47-101
Nov. 1 & 3: (inductive reasoning)
Sloman, S. A. (1996). The empirical case for two systems of reasoning.
Psychological Bulletin, 119, 3-22.
Gelman, S., & Heyman, G. D. (1999). Carrot-eaters and creature-believers: The
effects of lexicalization on children’s inferences about social categories.
Psychological Science, 10, 489-493.
Yamauchi, T. (2005). Labeling bias and categorical induction: Generative aspects
of category information. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory
and Cognition, 31, 538-553.
Walton, G. W., & Banaji, M. R. (2004). Being what you say: The effect of
essentialist linguistic labels on preferences. Social Cognition, 22, 193-213.
Nov. 8 & 10 (memory & brain)
Sherry, D. F., & Schacter, D. L. (1987). The evolution of multiple memory
systems. Psychological Review, Vol. 94, 439-454.
Ungerleider, L. (1995). Functional brain imaging studies of cortical mechanisms
for memory. Science, 270, 769-775.
Poldrack, R. A., Clark, J., Pare-Blagoev, E. J., Shohamay, D., Creso Moyano, J.,
Myers, C., & Gluck, M. A. (2001). Interactive memory systems in the human brain.
Nature, 414, 546-550.
Nov. 15 & 17 (computational modeling)
McClelland, J. L., McNaughton, B. L., & O'Reilly, R. C. (1995). Why there are
complementary learning systems in the hippocampus and neocortex: Insights from
the successes and failures of connectionist models of learning and memory.
Psychological Review, 102, 419-457.
Myung, I. J., & Pitt, M. (2004). Mathematical Modeling. In H. Pashler & J. Wixted
(Eds.), Stevens' Handbook of Experimental Psychology (Vol. 4, pp. 429-460). New York:
John Wiley & Sons.
Rumelhart, D. E. (1990). Brain style computation: Learning and generalization. In
S. F. Zornetzer, J. L. Davis, & C. Lau (Eds.), An introduction to neural and
electronic networks (pp. 405-420). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Nov 22.
Class: Discussion on term projects
Nov. 29 & Dec 1: (decision making & evolution)
Gigerenzer, G., & Goldstone, D. G. (1996). Reasoning the fast and frugal way:
Models of bounded rationality. Psychological Review, 103, 650-669.
Todd, P. M., & Gigerenzer, G. (2003). Bounding rationality to the world. Journal
of Economic Psychology, 24, 143-165.
Dec. 6:
Dead day; No class
Dec 12.
Deadline: Class project report
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1.
2.
3.
Cheating
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