Syllabus Of Intoduction To Cognitive Science

Course Title: Introduction to Cognitive Science

Course no: CSC-255                                                                                         Full Marks: 60+10+10

Credit hours: 3                                                                                                  Pass Marks: 24+8+8

Nature of course: Theory (3 Hrs.) + Lab (3 Hrs.)

Course Synopsis: An introduction to cognitive science and its relation with other

sciences. It covers briefly the area of Artificial Intelligence, Computational

models and connections approach.

Goal:

• The student will gain an introductory understanding of what it means to say that
  intelligence is computational The student will:
• Acquire a good understanding of what an algorithm is and learn how to
  implement algorithms in the programming language LISP
• Develop an introductory understanding of formal models for computation,
  the limits of computation, the Chomsky hierarchy, and the Turing-Church
  hypothesis
• The student will study some of the modern attempts to demonstrate a computational
  model for intelligence through an introduction to the discipline of artificial intelligence, including introductions to knowledge representation, search, and
  artificial neural networks.
• Finally, the student will explore some of the positions taken in the ongoing
  discussion of this issue. In Philosophy and Linguistics, we will begin with
  Descartes, and look (and discuss) Turing, Gelernter, Newell and Simon, Penrose,
  Searle, and others, finishing with a partial response to Descartes given to us by
  Chomsky and others.

Course Contents:

Unit 1. Introduction to the Problem 6 Hrs.

Cognitive Science and other Science, Descartes, Marr, Algorithms and

Computation, Turing’s response to Descartes, Application related system in the

Cognitive Science.

Unit 2. Brief Introduction to Artificial Intelligence 13 Hrs.

History and background of Artificial Intelligence, Knowledge representation,

Human information processing and problem solving, Search, Expert system,

Introduction of Neural Networks.

Unit 3. Computation 11 Hrs.

Introduction, Basic Model for Computation, The Turing Machine, Computational

and Language: the Chomsky hierarchy, The Physical Symbols Systems Hypothesis,

Illustration of practical examples.

Unit 4. Approaches 15 Hrs.

The connections approach, Different models and tool: Gelernter, Penrose, Pinker,

Searle; Response to Descartes: Natural Language Processing, Parameters in the

Natural Language Processing.

Text / Reference books:

1. Thinking about consciousness / David Papineau, Oxford: Clarendon Press New York:
   Oxford University Press, 2002.
2. Copeland, Jack: Artificial Intelligence: A Philosophical Introduction. Blackwell
   Publishers.
3. Cognition in a digital world / edited by Herre van Oostendorp, Mahwah, N.J.: L.
   Erlbaum Associates, 2003
4. The evolution and function of cognition / Felix Goodson, Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence
   Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, 2003.