Introduction to
Cognitive Science
• COGN 1001
• Schedule
– 11:40 – 12:30
– Tuesday: K. K. Leung Building, LG 102
– Thursday: K. K. Leung Building, LG 109
• Syllabus http://www.hku.hk/philodep/courses/icogsc0001/
• BBoard http://www.hku.hk/cgi-bin/philodep/bbs/start.cgi
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Lecturers
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Psychology - Dr A. Francis
Computer Science - Dr. Q. Huo
Linguistics - Dr. A. Bodomo
Neuroscience - Dr. I. Bruce
Philosophy - Dr. J. Lau
[Cognitive Science Centre Director]
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Tutorials
• Tutors
– Lo Lap Yan
– Savio Wong Wai Ho
• Grading
• 40% Coursework
• 25% Five Assignments
• 10% Tutorial Participation and Attendance
• 05% Attendance
• 60% Final Exam
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So, what’s the course about,
already!?!
• What do Cognitive Scientists study?
• Why?
• How?
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What?
Information in the brain
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Basic Assumptions
• Information can be processed and
stored (remembered), retrieved,
changed, communicated and turned into
action.
 There are rules (logical or otherwise) by
which information is manipulated or
processed.
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Cognitive Science is a basic
science
 Like chemistry, physics, or biology
 The activities of the nervous system can
be analysed at different levels
 Psychological
 Computational
 Neurological
• All the levels are relevant and are not
reducible
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History
• It all starts with Philosophy (Decartes,
Mind/Body problem).
• Post-behaviorist Psychology (Chomsky,
Miller; Modern Linguistics)
• Cognitive Neuropsychology (from Broca
to fMRI)
• Computer Science (Turing, von Neuman,
neural computation)
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Why?
Brains do amazing things
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A few things brains do
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Recognize people and things
Reach out and pick up things
Speak and understand language(s)
Read and write
Navigate the streets of Hong Kong
Lecture on Cognitive Science
Etc.
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Why study these things?
• To help us better
understand human
behaviors.
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• To help make our
computers better
at doing humanlike tasks.
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Why not just study brains?
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The brain is as complex as
anything we know
 1280–1380 grams
 180 billion neurons
(80+ billion involved in information processing)
 1 trillion connections (1,000,000,000,000)
(some cells have up to 15,000 connections!)
 at least 60 possible neurotransmitter chemicals
 dozens of different kinds of cells: bushy, spiny,
stellate, basket; chopper; Purkinje, Golgi…
 nearly 100 functionally distinguishable areas
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The relationship between
anatomy or physiology and
behavior is very complex
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• Studying brains (alone) might not tell us what
we want to know.
• Like studying architecture or urban planning
by looking only at bricks!
• We need to study behavior from many
perspectives.
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How?
That’s the rest of the course!
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The five major areas
Philosophy
Physiology
Computer
Science
COG
SCI
Linguistics
Psychology
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Cognitive Psychology
• Information in the brain
• What is the physical
structure of the nervous
system, and what is its
role in human behavior?
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Perception
Categorization
Representation
Memory
Attention
(Language)
Learning
Thought
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Perception
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Computer Science
• "Knowledge representation"
– What is AI?
– Semantic networks and frames
– Predicate logic
– Rule-based systems
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“Creatures” created
by Rodney Brookes
at MIT
Partial semantic
network for “water”
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Linguistics
• What are the mental
processes and
representations
underlying language
production and
understanding?
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Phonology
Morphology
Syntax
Semantics
Pragmatics
Literacy
• Language Structure
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QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
University of California Perceptual Sciences Laboratory
(D. Massaro) http://mambo.ucsc.edu/
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Physiology
• Horrifying complexity of connections among
neurons in the brain
• Relatively simple interactions between neurons
– excitation & inhibition
• Voyage through the visual system for the image
of a brown dog
• Simple retinal processing to parallel processing
of form, colour, motion to object recognition
• Limitations of the Neuroscience approach to
Cognition
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EEG/ERP recording
MRI (axial)
fMRI (coronal)
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Philosophy
• Two roles of Philosophy in Cognitive Science
• Role #1 : baby science nursery
– "what you do to a problem until it can be solved by
science”: work with scientists to find the best way to
study a problem
– many sciences developed out of philosophy
• Role #2 : building inspector
– examines foundational assumptions and concepts e.g.
What are computations? What is consciousness? What
makes something a representation?
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