The Teaching of Cognitive Science

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The Teaching of Cognitive Science
Sanjay Chandrasekharan Cognitive Science Ph. D.
Program Carleton University
Cognitive Science, artists impression
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Roadmap

• What is Cognitive Science?
• Challenges in Teaching Cognitive Science
• Research in Teaching Interdisciplinary
  Topics/Cognitive Science

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What is Cognitive Science?
My version.
A Roman Bridge Circa BC 20
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The Confederation Bridge
What is Cognitive Science?
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What is Cognitive Science?

• Significant difference The Roman bridge was
  built when we didnt know how to make bridges
• We had no explicit understanding of
• Stress
• Strain
• Geophysics
• Corrosion
• Resonance
• Wind speed etc.
• We had no explicit understanding of how bridges
  work.
• But we could still build decent bridges (from
  Kirlik, 1998)

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What is Cognitive Science?

• The Confederation Bridge is based on explicit
  understanding of all these factors
• Without the explicit understanding of all these
• We cannot move from building Bridge 1 to Bridge 2

Explicit models
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What is Cognitive Science?

• Analogy Our mind/brain works like the first
  bridge.
• We can
• Sense the world (sensory system)
• Categorize things in the world (representations,
  memory)
• Understand the relations between things (logic,
  reasoning)
• Communicate the categories and relationships
  (language)
• Build tools using these categories and relations
  (problem-solving)
• Infer what other people think, want etc
  (propositional attitudes)
• Entertain ourselves (music, art, games etc.)
• But we have no explicit understanding of how we
  do all this

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What is Cognitive Science?

• Cognitive Science seeks an explicit understanding
  of how we can do these things...
• So that we can build a better mind/brain
• This means
• Cognitive Science is an engineering enterprise...
• Seeking to reverse engineer the mind/brain

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What is Cognitive Science?

• Pushing the bridge analogy
• Bridge-building is an interdisciplinary
  enterprise
• It brings together
• Physics
• Geology
• Chemistry
• Meteorology...
• Being an engineering enterprise, Cognitive
  Science is also interdisciplinary

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What is Cognitive Science?

• The Cognitive Science enterprise brings together

Computer Science
Linguistics
Psychology
Philosophy of Mind
Neuroscience
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What is Cognitive Science?
Three things to take home
Central Dogma Mind/Brain can be understood as a
kind of computer, an information processing
machine Central Focus Developing models of
mental processes that are implementable on a
computer/robot Central Assumption If we can
build something (a mind), we have made some
progress in understanding that thing
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Challenges in Teaching Cognitive Science

• 1. Component disciplines are all new at the
  under-grad level
• Introducing even one is hard. Mixing all?
• Doesnt work
• So in Carleton, Introduction to Cognitive Science
  is taught
• ...as a 3rd year course
• Debate in the background should Cognitive
  Science be a graduate-only program?

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Challenges in Teaching Cognitive Science

• 2. Three levels of analysis, four frameworks,
  many methodologies, waaaaaaay too many concepts
• Levels Functional, Computational, Physical
• Frameworks Symbolic Processing, Connectionist
  Processing, Dynamic Systems, Situated/Distributed
  Cognition

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• Methodologies Computational modeling, psychology
  experiments, ethnographic studies, neural
  imaging, conceptual analysis...
• Concepts/jargon Turing Machines,
  Representations, Intentionality, Propositional
  Attitudes, Qualia
• How can all this be brought together?
• No one does.

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Cognitive Science Artists Impression
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Challenges in Teaching Cognitive Science

• 3. What is the objective, what should students
  learn?
• Concepts?
• Frameworks?
• Research Methodologies?
• All of the above?
• Currently, instructor chooses
• Usually focuses on his/her discipline, concepts,
  frameworks and methodology

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Silver lining

• Highly motivated students
• Only 7-10 stay on till 3rd year
• Heavy course load
• Required to do 5 computer science courses, most
  quite challenging
• But they get a BA!

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Research on Interdisciplinary Teaching
Central message Theme-oriented teaching Should
be Integrated Show how content across several
fields is interrelated Holistic Focus on
principles, theories, laws, questions of
universal significance Inquiry-oriented Invite
students to explore questions using varied types
of research Constructivist Enable students to
derive their own meanings through the tasks they
are given Promotes higher-order critical
thinking skills
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Research on teaching Cognitive Science
Almost no research available One workshop report
(Kolodner, 1994) One conference paper (Dahlback,
2003) One brief conference report (Abrahamsen et
al, 2003) All advocate following the
interdisciplinary teaching principles, but focus
on different aspects.
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Kolodner 1994

• Summary Recommendations
• Teaching Objective Create a Creole discipline
  from the current pidgin efforts.
• What to learn Computational modeling of the
  mind, how to develop crisp, implementable models
  of mental processes
• Strategy Problem-based teaching
• Topical courses, centered around an interesting
  problem (say memory, or vision, or language)
• Different perspectives on the problem
  (psychology, philosophy etc.)
• Assign real-world problems to students to solve
• Collaborative problem-solving project-work,
  group work, roles
• Invited speakers, team-teaching

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Dahlback, 2003

• Summary Recommendations
• Cognitive science can be viewed as a
  three-dimensional matrix
• Dimension one is the domain, or content
  (language, memory etc.)
• Dimension two is levels (Neurons to societies)
• Dimension three is methodologies (empirical
  experiments etc., formal logic etc., modeling
  simulations etc.)
• Unique character of cognitive science
  encompasses all three methodological traditions

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Dahlback, 2003

• Therefore, the Teaching Objective all three
  methodologies
• Reports the design of the Cognitive Science
  program at Linkoping University, Sweden
• Strategy Immersion from 1st year in three
  methodological cultures
• Domains Psychology, Linguistics and Artificial
  Intelligence
• Methods Experiment design statistics, discrete
  math logic, programming
• Help students live the scientific cultures

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Abrahamsen et al, 2003
Summary Reports a web-based teaching tool for
Cognitive Science, developed at Washington
University, St. Louis. http//inquiry.wustl.edu Us
es interactive modules Focuses on research
techniques Core modules empirical strategies and
modeling strategies Other semi-independent
modules, can be selected and recombined to meet
objectives
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Abrahamsen et al, 2003

• Combined with in-class projects
• Example View unedited interview with amnesic
  patient and diagnose her memory deficit
• Example Construct an interesting experiment in
  their field of choice, envision possible results,
  discuss what each result means

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• Conclusion
• Though the discipline is complex and challenging,
  Cognitive Science teaching follows the principles
  of other interdisciplinary teaching
• There is an added focus on methodologies,
  especially computational modeling.
• This is to develop Cognitive Science into the
  Creole discipline it seeks to be.

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• REFERENCES
• Abrahamsen, A., Bechtel, W., Bradley, P., Craver,
  C.F. (2003) Teaching the How of Cognitive
  Science The Inquiry Website. Proceedings of the
  25th annual meeting of the Cognitive Science
  Society, Lawrence Erlbaum.
• Dahlback, N. (2003) If Cognitive Science is
  Multidisciplinary, Which are the Disciplines?
  Cognitive Science as Three Methodological
  Cultures, Proceedings of the European Conference
  on Cognitive Science (EuroCogSci'03), September
  10-12, 2003, Osnabruck, Germany.
• Kirlik, A. (1998). The design of everyday life
  environments. In W. Bechtel and G.Graham, (Eds.),
  A Companion to Cognitive Science, Oxford
  Blackwell. (pp. 702-712).
• Kolodner, J. (1994) Workshop on Cognitive Science
  Education An idiosyncratic view.
• Martinello, L. M., Cook, E.G. (1994)
  Interdisciplinary inquiry in teaching and
  learning, Maxwell Macmillan Canada
• White, A.M. (Ed) (1981) Interdisciplinary
  teaching. New directions for teaching and
  learning series, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco

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• Clark's Law
• Everything leaks.
• There are no clear-cut level distinctions in
  nature. Neural software bleeds into neural
  firmware, neural firmware bleeds into neural
  hardware, psychology bleeds into biology and
  biology bleeds into physics. Body bleeds into
  mind and mind bleeds into world. Philosophy
  bleeds into science and science bleeds back.
• The idea of levels is a useful fiction, great for
  hygienic text-book writing and quick answers that
  defend our local turf, but seldom advance
  scientific understanding.
• Andy Clark