CO1 – Session 1
Session Topic: Introduction
COGNITIVE COMPUTING
(Course code: 18CS3272)
Cognitive Science
What Is Cognitive Science?
The (interdisciplinary) study of mind and intelligence.
The study of cognitive processes involved in the acquisition,
representation and use of human knowledge.
The scientific study of the mind, the brain, and intelligent
behaviour, whether in humans, animals, machines or the
abstract.
What IS Cognitive Science?
Some possible definitions:
“The interdisciplinary study of mind and intelligence”
“Study of cognitive processes involved in the acquisition,
representation and use of human knowledge”
“Scientific study of the mind, the brain, and intelligent behaviour,
whether in humans, animals, machines or the abstract”
Cognitive Processes
Learning and Memory
Thinking and Reasoning (Planning, Decision Making, Problem Solving ...)
Language
Vision-Perception
Social Cognition
Dreaming and Consciousness
Disciplines in Cognitive Science
Computer Science- Artificial Intelligence
Neuroscience
Psychology – Cognitive Psychology
Philosophy
Linguistics
Anthropology, Education
Paradigms of Cognitive Science
Computational Representational Understanding of Mind
Mind = mental representation + computational processes
Computational Theory of Mind
Duplicating mind by implementing the right program
Cognitivism, Functionalism
Symbolicism – Connectionism- Dynamicism - Hybrid approaches
Methods of Cognitive Science
Computational Modeling (artificial intelligence, computational
neuroscience, cognitive psychology)
Experimentation (psychology, linguistics, neuroscience)
Introspection, Argumentation, Formal Logic (philosophy, linguistics)
Mathematical Modeling (cognitive psychology, linguistics,
philosophy)
Ethnography (cognitive anthropology)
Cognitive Modeling
A model is a simplified (usually formal) representation of reality
Cognitive modeling
Create formal (e.g. mathematical, algorithmic, symbolic) representations of
cognitive processes
Then, use these models to predict or explain behavior associated with those
cognitive processes
Computational modeling: the models usually implemented as computer
programs with output corresponding to the predicted behavior
Example of cognitive process: categorizing objects into groups. Modeling: use
decision trees, or neural networks, or rules, etc.
What are Formal Models
• Quantitative (mathematical) or Procedural (computer program)
implementations of a theory
• The formal model attempts to mimic (“fit”) human data from the
tasks they are modeling
• In Cognitive Psychology, formal models exist for memory,
perception, language comprehension, decision-making...
• But WHY? What is the point of modeling?
Advantages of Computational Modeling
Push predictive aspects of a theory: more formal, precise and
abstract specifications
Avoids ambiguity, vagueness in theory
Forces a more complete specification of the assumptions of a
theory
Quantitative as well as qualitative predictions – just like they do in
the “real” sciences!
Representation and Computation
Central hypothesis of cognitive science
thinking can best be understood in terms of representational structures in
the mind and computational procedures that operate on those structures.
much disagreement about the nature of the representations and
computations that constitute thinking
The Information-Processing Metaphor
Mind has mental representations analogous to computer data structures, and
computational procedures similar to computational algorithms.
Symbolic View: mind contains such mental representations as logical propositions,
rules, concepts, images, and analogies, and that it uses mental procedures such as
deduction, search, matching, rotating, and retrieval.
Connectionist View: mental representations use neurons and their connections as
mechanisms for data structures, and neuron firing and spreading activation as the
algorithms – i.e., cognition can be explained by using artificial neural networks
Is cognition information processing?
Church-Turing Thesis
Universal Turing Machine
The information-processing metaphor: data+ algorithms
Levels of Analysis: Background
[ -- Continuing Marr (1982)]:
“This duality – the representation and the processing of information – lies at the
heart of most information-processing tasks and will profoundly shape Our
investigation of the particular problems posed by vision.”
- If one accepts the information-processing approach, how does one move
forward in understanding a complex information-processing system (e.g. some
aspect of cognition, such as vision)?
~ Marr’s suggestion – Three Levels of Understanding
Levels of analysis (Marr):
Three kinds of questions
computation
what is the problem?
inputs, outputs
what is being computed or maximized?
algorithm
what are the methods?
Data representation, “process”
implementation
what are the mechanisms?
springs or neurons
Three Levels (from Marr, 1982):
