Syllabus jul-nov 2014
cognitive Science is the study of mind. it differs from Psychology in that it focuses on the computations that enable to brain to work. this computational view is a hallmark of cognitive science. it also means that unlike neuroscience, Cog Sci is less concerned about the brain structures - its genetics and its evolutionary history. in order to do its work, the brain also creates some internal representations for structures in the world and inside us; the nature of these representations are some of the key aspects that one attempts to study in cognitive science. a large part of our actions, especially for things we are good at, are based on representations that are subconscious, so we can't describe what it is that we are doing. this is what makes cognitive science challenging. in this course, we shall be looking at a broad range of psychological data and performing some experiments (on ourselves as well) to try to study the operations of the mind. we shall be looking at some of the neural mechanisms that may be underlying our performance. also, we shall be seeking to simulate some of these capabilities on computational systems to understand the internal mechanics of these systems. we shall also consider questions of how an infant learns, and particularly, issues of modeling meaning in language. finally, we shall consider some philosophical issues about what it means to represent something. though there is no textbook, a set of readings is suggested below. also, it may help you to read one of these two exciting books that have become bestsellers in recent years:
- Daniel Kahneman: Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011). almost everything we do, we do effortlessly. this is "thinking fast". as we practice, things that we needed to "think slow" on, gradually become faster. Kahneman is one of the founders of the field of behavioural economics, for which he won the nobel prize in 2002.
- Richard K. Morgan : Altered Carbon (2003). science fiction, hardboiled thriller. what would a world be where you can "download" your brain and "re-sleeve" your body?
there are no special pre-requisites. there will be some computational homeworks, but these should be possible for anyone in IIT. unlike previous years, where we looked at one sub-discipline at a time (psychology, philosophy, neuroscience, linguistics, etc.), this year we will be looking across functionalities. in particular, we will be taking a developmental viewpoint - i.e. how does a baby learn to do something. so the topics we will be looking at are:
- Developmental Cognition,
- Expertise.
- Perception,
- Action,
- Space/Time concepts,
- Language,
- Social cognition,
An excellent text, with lots of top notch essays covering the many of the topics you may wish to explore in the latter parts of the course. Great for browsing as well...
A pathbreaking research compilation, starting with infants in the first year (they learn abstract concepts like number of animacy); focusing on developmental debates such as effect of language on general cognition (ch. 2: whorf without wincing), role of intentionality (ch 5); gender effects (ch 8), etc.
Concepts may be characterized as regions in some multi-dimensional space. Do these have to be convex?
A fascinating study of cognitive processes in infancy. I consider this work as one of my most influential books from the last ten years.
Starting with plato and wittgenstein, go on to prototype theory and probabilistic models. Does a concept have to be conscious?
1 11023 CHE ABHISHEK BANSAL 2 11042 PHY ADITYA TANDON 3 11131 CSE ANUBHAV BIMBISARIYE 4 11190 MSE BANOTH RAKESH NAIK 5 11208 BSBE BRIJESH CHANDRAKAR 6 11212 EE CHAITANYA AHUJA 7 11216 BSBE CHEPURWAR SHASHANK SHARAD 8 11244 CSE DEVENDRA MANDAN 9 11253 CSE DHRUV KUMAR YADAV 10 11350 CSE KANISHK VARSHNEY 11 11354 CSE KARAN SINGH 12 11373 ECO KRISHNA CHANDAK 13 11377 BSBE KULDEEP KUMAR 14 11418 CE MD MANZAR HUSSAIN ANJUM 15 11456 BSBE NEHA ASHOK WAGHMARE 16 11466 CSE NIMAVAT RACHIT ANIL 17 11514 CE PRANJAL GUPTA 18 11640 BSBE SANDESH DNYANDEO CHOPADE 19 11672 BSBE SHALIN MANDOWARA 20 11720 EE SMITH GUPTA 21 11784 BSBE VAISHNAV EESHIT DHAVAL 22 11790 EE VARUN KUMAR 23 11799 CSE VIJAY KESWANI 24 12013 EE ABHIJEET SINHA 25 12051 MTH ADITYA RAMAMOHAN DEGALA 26 12077 EE ALANKRITA BHATT 27 12103 BSBE AMRITA SINGH 28 12129 CSE ANKITA PASRICHA 29 12156 BSBE ARNAB BISWAS 30 12157 CSE ARNAB GHOSH 31 12158 EE ARPIT AGARWAL (S/O AG) 32 12177 EE AVI SINGH 33 12212 ECO SACHET CHAVAN 34 12218 CSE CHIRAG GUPTA 35 12233 BSBE DEEPIKA SACHAN 36 12256 EE GAGANDEEP SINGH JOSSAN 37 12326 ECO JITENDRA SINGH 38 12349 CSE KAVITI SAI SAURAB 39 12407 MTH MD ENAYAT ULLAH 40 12460 EE P NANDHA KUMAR 41 12495 EE PRANAV KUMAR 42 12533 EE RAHUL JADAM 43 12563 CSE RAVI KIRAN S 44 12581 EE RITVIK SRIVASTAVA 45 12611 BSBE SANDARSH PANDEY 46 12656 EE SHANTANU TEWARI 47 12658 CSE SHARBATANU CHATTERJEE 48 12660 PHY SHASHANK BHANDARI 49 12689 EE SHUBHAM ATREJA 50 12703 EE SHUBHAM SINGH (S/O DKS) 51 12707 BSBE SHUBHAM TRIPATHI 52 12710 CSE SHUBHANGEE VERMA 53 12831 CSE VIVEKA KULHARIA