Introduction to Cognitive and Information Sciences

SYMBSY 100 / LING144 / PSYCH132 / PHIL190
Winter 2009
Tuesdays & Thursdays, 14:15 - 15:30
420-041 (Jordan Hall, Main Quad)

Instructors and Assessment

Lead Instructors
Jay McClelland mcclelland@stanford.edu Office: Jordan Hall 344 (Building 420) Office hours: Monday 1:15 - 2:30 Friday 1:15 - 2:30	Eric Roberts eroberts@cs.stanford.edu Office: Gates 202 Office hours: Tuesday 9:30-11:30 Wednesday 4:00-5:00	Tom Wasow wasow@stanford.edu Office: Margaret Jacks Hall 30B (Building 460) Office hours: Monday 1:30-2:30 Wednesday 1:30-2:30 and by appointment
Teaching Assistants
Anubha Kothari anubha@stanford.edu Section: Thurs 3:45-4:35, 50-51B Fri 2:15-3:05, 90-92Q	Robert Munro rmunro@stanford.edu Section: Thurs 5:15-6:05, 160-318 Office hours: Thurs, 10:30-12:30, 460-030E	Jason Robinson jarobb3@stanford.edu Section: Thurs 6:15-7:05, 160-325 Office hours: Mon, 11:00-1:00 460-040A, Tuesday, 11-1:00, May 26 (Mon holiday)
Assessement
Homework assignments 60% (6 x 10%) See the schedule below for all assignment due dates Assignment 6, due 6/2 Assignment 5, due 5/26 Assignment 4, due 5/12 Assignment 3, due 5/5 Assignment 2, due 4/21 Assignment 1, due 4/14 Include your section leader/time on your assignments	Section participation 15% Section attendance and participation is mandatory	Final exam 25% PDF copy of final Due: Tuesday June 9th, 10pm

Recent News

Assignment extensions:

Please direct all requests for extensions to Robert Munro: rmunro@stanford.edu, and any other enquiries to your section leader.

Schedule

(The syllabus may undergo modifications.
Additional readings and links will be added as the course unfolds.)

Introductions
3/31	Introductions, overview and administrative matters.	4/2	Roberts: The nature and limits of human thought Readings: The first three sections of Alan Turing’s 1950 essay “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” http://www.loebner.net/Prizef/TuringArticle.html Descartes (1641) Meditations on First Philosophy, Meditations II & VI Descartes.pdf Ryle (1949) Descartes' Myth, The Concept of Mind, ch 1 Ryle.pdf Excerpts from Gladwell (2005), Blink Blink.html

Are humans rational?
4/7	McClelland: What does it mean to be rational? Lecture Slides Readings: Tversky and Kahneman (1981), The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice TverskyKahneman81.pdf Gigerenzer et al, Visions of Rationality GigerenzerEtAl_visions_of_rationality.pdf	4/9	McClelland: Inference: Conscious and Unconscious. Lecture Slides Readings: McClelland, J. L. Using conditional relationships between events to make inferences This document constitutes Assignment 1 due Tuesday April 14. Also, read the article below, after completing the experiment if possible. Focus on the Introduction, Experiment 1, and the General Discussion: Pitt_Samuel2006.pdf
4/14	McClelland: Brain Mechanisms of Unconscious Inference Lecture Slides Readings: Kolb, B and Whishaw, I. Q. (1980). Fundamentals of Human Neuropsychology. portions of Chapter 1 (pp 3-8; bottom of 15-30) and Chapter 2 (pp 31-42). Kolb_Whishaw.pdf Saltzman & Newsome (1994) Science paper, showing how neurons combine information in perception SalzmanNewsome94.pdf Assignment 1 due today	4/16	McClelland: Context effects and optimal inference with many interdependent hypotheses Lecture Slides Readings: Rumelhart, D. E. and McClelland, J. L. Interactive Processes in Reading RumelhartMcClelland81InteractiveProcessesInReading.pdf Leopold & Logothetis TiCS paper on binocular rivalry in neurons and perception. LeopoldLogothetis.pdf McClelland, J. L. Applying a Bayesian Approach to Speech Sound Identification in Context and Exploring Possible Neural Network Mechanisms This document constitutes Assignment 2 due Tuesday April 21.
4/21	McClure: Rationality in economic and competitive decision making Readings: Hargreaves Heap, Hollis, Lyons, Sugden, and Weale (1992), Game Theory, The Theory of Choice: A Critical Guide, chapter 7 HargreavesEtAlgametheory.pdf Rangel, A., Camerer, C., & Montague, P. R.. (2008). A framework for studying the neurobiology of value-based decision making. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 9(7), 545-556. http://eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eutils/elink.fcgi?dbfrom=pubmed&id=18545266&retmode=ref&cmd=prlinks Assignment 2 due today	4/23	Wasow: Rationality, language, and human nature Lecture Slides Reading: Intro to Jurafsky & Martin's textbook (second edition) http://www.cs.colorado.edu/%7Emartin/SLP/Updates/1.pdf

Is language innate?
4/28	Lawlor: The empiricist/rationalist debate Readings: Plato (380 BCE), Meno, Stephanus Numbers 70a-90e http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stephanus_pagination&oldid=173727741 Locke (1690), Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book II (chapter 1, sections 1-9) http://arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Philosophy/Locke/echu/ Leibniz (1704/1764), translated by Bennett (2006), New Essays on Human Understanding, Book I (chapters i and iii) and Book II (chapter i - first two pages) http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/pdfbits/leibne.html Hume (1748), An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Sections II-V http://18th.eserver.org/hume-enquiry.html	4/30	Wasow: Rationalism in linguistics Lecture Slides Readings: Chomsky, "Quine's Empirical Assumptions" Chomsky_on_Quine.pdf Wikipedia article on Poverty of the Stimulus: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_of_the_stimulus Recommended reading: Cowie, "Innateness of Language" in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/innateness-language/
5/5	McClelland: A computational model of language acquisition Lecture Slides Readings The Past Tense Debate: Papers and replies by S. Pinker & M. Ullman and by J. McClelland & K. Patterson. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 2002, 6, 456-474. http://psychology.stanford.edu/~jlm/papers/PastTenseDebate.pdf Assignment 3 due today	5/7	Eve Clark: Child language Reading: Chouinard and Clark (2003) Adult reformulations of child errors as negative evidence. Journal of Child Language 30 Clark2003c&cJCL.pdf Clark (2007) Young children’s uptake of new words in conversation. Language in Society 36 Clark2007LiS.pdf
5/12	Wasow: Language and thought Lecture Slides Reading: Boroditsky, Schmidt, and Phillips, "Sex, Syntax, and Semantics" http://www-psych.stanford.edu/~lera/papers/gender.pdf Kay and Regier, "Resolving the question of color naming universals" http://www.pnas.org/content/100/15/9085.full.pdf Assignment 4 due today	5/14	Clifford Nass: Media, Computers, and Psychology Reading: Reeves and Nass (1996), The Media Equation: How People Treat Computers, Television, and New Media Like Real People and Places, chapters 1 and 2 mediaeq.pdf Nass and Brave (2005), Wired for Speech: How Voice Activates and Advances the Human-Computer Relationship, chapters 1 and 2 WiredForSpeech.pdf

Can machines think?
5/19	Roberts: The nature and limits of mechanical computation Lecture Slides Readings: Turing Machines and Computability TuringMachinesAndComputability.pdf Leibniz (1703) “Explanation of Binary Arithmetic” LeibnizBinaryArithmetic.pdf Optional movie: Breaking the Code Optional movie: Cubberley 334, 9:00-10:30pm	5/21	Roberts: Refining the question Lecture Slides Reading: The rest of Alan Turing’s 1950 essay “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” http://www.loebner.net/Prizef/TuringArticle.html
5/26	Sahami: Questioning artificial intelligence Readings: Searle (1980), Minds, Brains, and Programs http://www.bbsonline.org/documents/a/00/00/04/84/bbs00000484-00/bbs.searle2.html Nilsson (2005), Human Level AI? Be Serious! http://ai.stanford.edu/~nilsson/OnlinePubs-Nils/General%20Essays/OtherEssays-Nils/hlai.pdf Assignment 5 due today	5/28	Panel: The Future of AI Readings: Chapter 1 from Heinlein (1966), The Moon is a Harsh Mistress http://www.powells.com/biblio?show=TRADE%20PAPER:NEW:9780312863555:14.95&page=excerpt#page Chapter 1 from Kurzweil (1999), The Age of Spiritual Machines http://media.kurzweilai.net/sin/pub/SingularityisNear_Chapter1.pdf Joy (2000), Why the future doesn't need us http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html
6/2	McClelland, Roberts, & Wasow: Wrap up Lecture Lecture Slides Assignment 6 due today

Introduction to Cognitive and Information Sciences

Instructors and Assessment

Lead Instructors

Teaching Assistants

Assessement

Recent News

Schedule

Introductions

Are humans rational?

Is language innate?

Can machines think?