cognitive science history -...
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COGNITIVE SCIENCE HISTORYBy: Brittany Lindsey, Mandi Wofford, Kaitlin
Lawrence, Holly Reynolds, & Baylie Conway
COGNITIVE SCIENCEDefinition: the study of thought, learning, and mental organization, which draws on aspects of psychology, linguistics, philosophy, and computer modeling.
WHAT IS IT AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTThtJMTe
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COGNITIVE SCIENCE: PREHISTORY
Philosophers
Berkeley
Burton
Hobbes
Locke
PREHISTORY: BERKELEY
Student at Trinity College
Direct predecessor of Locke
Methodology is empirical
Attacks Locke's Abstract Ideas
PREHISTORY: BERKELEY
Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision, 1709
provides a detailed analysis of how the two senses of Sight and
Touch furnish the mind with Ideas, and briefly discusses the
relationship between Ideas and their correspondent reality and the
nature of Ideas as the furniture of the mind
Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, 1710
expands his discussion of the impossibility of Abstract Ideas and of the relationship between Ideas and the material world, in which he
defends his position against accusations of Skepticism
Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, 1713
written as a dialogue between two thinkers, one of whom supports
Berkeley's position and the other who launches a series of attacks
against it which reflect the criticisms which Berkeley himself was
subject too
PREHISTORY: BURTON
The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621) is arguably the first
major text in the history of Western cognitive science
Burton's model of human cognition is a mix of philosophizing about the qualitative nature of
consciousness and attempts to identify the physiological mechanisms responsible for carrying out the various cognitive processes of which humans are
capable
At the heart of Burton's cognitive model is a conception of the mind and body as a total organism
everything that is contained within the human body is
composed of either a Spirit or a Humour
PREHISTORY: BURTON
three types of Spirits--Natural, Vital, and Animal--originating in the liver, heart, and
brain respectively
soul is divided into three principle faculties:
'vegetal', 'sensitive' and 'rational'
PREHISTORY: HOBBES
Leviathan 1651
provide the conceptual background for the
major schools of thinking about thinking which
follow in the next two centuries -particularly
the skeptics and associationists
Mediation between Burton & Locke
PREHISTORY: HOBBES Model based upon an application of the rules of geometry and
physics to the human science
professed a theory of motion
all matter was in motion and would remain in motion unless acted upon by another force
constructs a model of the human psyche in which all thought is explained by the motion of things in the material world impacting the senses, which creates a subsequent motion in the senses, which creates a subsequent motion in the brain, which continues to exert its pressure on the brain until its motion is degraded sufficiently by the interference of other new motions
1) that everything is material, including the mind, and the soul (689-693); 2) that we are brought into the world with the mind a tabula rasa (85); and 3) that the senses are responsible for all mental activity
PREHISTORY: LOCKE
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding 1690
comprehensive and detailed analysis of the mechanisms of human thought
All thinking falls into two categories: Sensation & Reflection
Sensation describing the way in which "our senses, conversant bout particular sensible objects, do convey into the mind several distinct perceptions of things, according to those various ways wherein those objects do affect them"
Reflection being "the perception of the operations of our own mind within us, as it is employed about the ideas it has got"
mind is, at birth, an "empty cabinet" or a sheet of "white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas"
claims that these two modes of thinking, Sensations and Reflection, are "the only originals from whence all our ideas take their beginnings"
EXHIBITIONS
Information Age: People, Information and Technology
14,000 square foot display that was
located on the first floor of the National Museum of American History
Opened in May 1990
Features over 900 original artifacts
EXHIBITIONS
Samuel Morse's telegraphs
Alexander Bell's telephones
a Hollerith punched card machine
a 4-rotor German ENIGMA encoder used during World War II
the ENIAC computer
the TELESTAR test satellite
an automotive welding robot
a selection of early personal computers
digital high definition television.
MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTATION
Russell and Whitehead
Allen Turing
Jon von Neumann
Kurt Godel
PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICA
Is a three-volume work on the foundations of mathematics. It was created by Alfred Whitehead and Bertrand Russell.
Published in 1910.
The first volume was the only one that Whitehead worked on with Russell.
Revealed too much about complexity.
ALFRED WHITEHEAD
Born in Kent, England on February 15, 1861.
His strongest subject was Mathematics.
He eventually became a teacher at Trinity College.
First book was Treatise on Universal Algebra, discusses the general principles of the subject and the topics of the algebra of symbolic logic.
Later he started working on the famous book PrincipiaMathematica with Bertrand Russell.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Born at Traelleck on May 18,1872.
In 1896, he published his first political work. It was called German Social Democracy.
Worked with Alfred Whitehead to publish their book Principia Mathematica.
ALAN TURING
Born June 23, 1912.
Founder of Computer Science
Artifical Intelligence
Turing test- is a test of a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behavior.
JON VON NEUMANN
Born on December 28, 1903.
Child prodigy
Worked on the Atomic bomb design created by Seth Neddermeyer.
Realized that data and instructions could be stored in memory.
Von Neumann computer
THE VON NEUMANN ARCHITECTURE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BpgAHBZgec
KURT GODEL Born on April 28, 1906
Studied at the University of Vienna
Known for his Incompleteness Theorem
Developed a technique called Godel numbering, which codes formal expressions as natural numbers.
We can't know everything.
THE NEURONAL
METHOD
Created by Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts
Neuron of a set of inputs and
one output.
The idea of neural nets.
WARREN S. MCCULLOCH Born in Orange, New Jersey on November 16, 1898
American neurophysiologist
Created computational models based on mathematical algorithms.
1952, started working with Norbert Weiner in Massachusetts.
Also played a role in cybernetics.
Wrote a paper with Pitts that talked about how the brain can produce complex patterns.
WALTER PITTS
Born in Detroit, Michigan on April 23, 1923
Worked in the field of Computational Neuroscience
He read Bertrand Russell's Principia Mathematica and even sent him a letter to express his concerns about what was wrong with the book.
Taught himself logic and mathematics and was invited to study at Cambridge University at the age of 12.
MARVIN MINSKY
Born on August 9, 1927
Studied at Harvard and Princeton
He invented the first head-mounted graphical display and the confocal microscope.
Worked with Papert to write a book called Perceptrons, which the foundational work in the analysis of artifical neural networks.
Artifical Intelligence Lab they started to develop the Society of Mind Theory.
SOCIETY OF MIND THEORY
This theory attempts to explain how what we call intelligence could be a product of the interaction of non-intelligent parts.
The ideas came from Minsky's work trying to create a machine that uses robotic arms and other electronic parts to build children's blocks.
SEYMOUR PAPERT
Born on February 29, 1928
Pioneer of Artificial Intelligence
Co-director of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab.
Used Piaget's work in development of the Logo programming language.
Small robot called "Logo Turtle", children used it to solve simple problems in an environment of play.
Theory of constructionism- built upon the work of Piaget.
NORBERT WIENER: FATHER OF
CYBERNETICS
Norbert Wiener lived from November 26th,1894 to
March 18, 1964
Wiener was an American mathematician and Philosopher
Wiener was a child prodigy
Wiener formalied the idea of Feedback whick
revolutionized Enginering, Computer Science, Biology, systems control, neuroscience, and philosophy
NORBERT WIENER:
BACKGROUND
Weiner was born in Columbia, Missouri, to Leo Wiener and Bertha Kahn and he was
homeschooled by his father until 1903
He Graduated from high school at the age of 11 and received his BA in Mathematics
at 14 from Tufts College in Massachusetts.
He studied zoology at Harvard for his Graduate studies, but he transferred to Cornell
in 1910 to study philosophy.
He transferred back to Harvard to continue studying philosophy a year later
WIENER AND CYBERNETICSDuring WW2 Wiener worked on Auto aiming for Anti-Aircraft guns. This caused
him to investigate Information theory
Information theory studies the quantification, storage, and communication of
information
Using the information theory, Wiener went on to develop the Wiener filter, which
is the modeling of an information source as a random process.
His work on the AA gun led him to create cybernetics
After the war he created a team at MIT to study cognitive science
This team had a background in neuropsychology, math, and Biophysics.
CYBERNETICS
Norbert Wiener defined cybernetics as "the scientific study of control and
communication in the animal and the machine."
From the Greek word for Governance
Began as the interdisciplinary study of control systems, mechanical engineering, evolutionary biology, electrical network theory, Logic modeling
neuroscience, anthropology, and psychology.
In the 20th century Cybernetics was divided into first and second order
Cybernetics
FIRST AND SECOND ORDER
CYBERNETICS
First order cybernetics are about the observed systems
Second order Cybernetics " the cybernetics of cybernetics"- the recursive
applications of cybernetics to itself. It is the study of cybernetics itself,
Developed in the 60s and 70s by Margret Mead, Heinz von Foerster. Mead
proposed that cybernetics should be subject to cybernetic critique
CHARACTERISTICS AND PROBLEMS OF
COGNITIVE SCIENCE
Multidisciplinary- philosophy, psychology, linguistics, AI
CHARACTERISTICS AND PROBLEMS
Focus is to study mental processes that create behavior. Not studying behavior for its own sake. Theoretical emphasis and data follows.
CHARACTERISTICS AND PROBLEMS
What is the origin of complexity of system of systems?
Environment? Brain? Or Both?
How a system interacts and forms a relationship with its environment
What is the appropriate level of analysis?
Passive knowledge, formulaic knowledge, knowledge originating in the mind
Can the levels of linguistics analysis be combined?
Syntax of a language describes structure and composition of phrases and sentences. Pragmatics studies the way context contributes to meaning.
CHARACTERISTICS AND PROBLEMS
Can the levels of linguistics analysis be combined?
Syntax of a language describes structure and composition of
phrases and sentences. Pragmatics studies the way context
contributes to meaning.
Can universal dictionaries and translators be created?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=246&v=X4BmV2t8
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CHARACTERISTICS AND PROBLEMS
What is humor and can it be stimulated?
CHARACTERISTICS AND PROBLEMS
There is a lack of historical context and depth.
Linguistics is the scientific study of language and its structure
Logic is the foundation , fuzzy logic
CHARACTERISTICS AND PROBLEMS
New modes of communication and interaction
There are keyboards, voice input, mouse, touch screen, tablets, smartphones, etc., there is new design and software.
PSYCHOLOGY AND BEHAVIORISM
Began in 1913
Behaviorism refers to a psychological approach that focuses on scientific and objective methods of investigation
Only concerned with observable stimulus-response behaviors
States all behaviors are learned through interaction with the environment
J.B. WATSON
Bron January 9, 1878 in Travelers Rest, South Carolina
Known for being the first to promote behaviorism
Published "Psychology as the Behaviorist Views it" which outlined the major features of behaviorism
Emphasis on external behavior of people and their reactions on given situations instead of
the internal, mental state of people
Little Albert experiment in 1920
Conditioned 9-month-old-boy by clanging an iron rod when a white rat was shown to him;
done several times. Watson presented the white rat by itself and the boy cried. Watson later showed the boy a rabbit, a dog, and a fur coat; the boy cried at the sight of them
•https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMnhyGozLyE
IVAN PAVLOV
Born September 26, 1849 in Ryazan, Russia
Known primarily for his work in classical conditioning; founder of modern behavior therapy
Experiments showed that conditional reflexes start in the cerebral cortex which acts as the prime distributor and organizer for all activity
Found that any external agent could become the conditioned signal for the formation of a new conditioned reflex by coinciding in time with an ordinary reflex
•https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhqumfpxuzI
E.L. THORNDIKE
Born August 31, 1874 in Williamsburg, Massachusetts
Known for the Law of Effect: suggested that responses that form a satisfying effect in a certain situation become more likely to happen again in that situation, and responses that form a discomforting effect become less likely to happen again in that situation
Conducted experiments with animals and mazes where his subjects were rewarded when they could push a lever and escape—subjects able to do this faster with repetition
KARL LASHLEY
Born June 7, 1890 in Davis, West Virginia
Big contributions to the study of learning and memory; pioneer of neuroscience
Made big discoveries on how the brain stores and processes information
Unsuccessful search for the "engram"--the localized trace of memory for a maze in a trained rat's brain
Proposed principle of "mass action"--learning is distributed across all parts of the brain
1951-published "The Problem of Serial Order in Behavior"
Behavior must be controlled by a central, hierarchically organized program—guided
the study of motor behavior
B. F. SKINNER
Born March 20, 1904 in Susquehanna Depot, Pennsylvania
Inventor, author; known for operant conditioning, radical behaviorism, applied behavior analysis, verbal behavior
Argued that human behavior was always controlled by its environment
Invented the Skinner box (shaping and counting lever-pressing in rats and key-pecking in pigeons), the cumulative recorder (records rates of behavior as a pen tracing), a WWII-era missile guidance system that was never used, teaching machines for programmed learning (students were given a sentence at a time and filled in the blank in a similar sentence, shown in a small window), air crib (temperature controlled glass box his infant daughter would play in)
NEUROPSYCHOLOGY
The study of brain-behavior relationships
It is a branch of psychology that focuses on how the brain and the nervous system influence a person's cognition and behaviors
Professionals tend to focus on how injuries or illnesses of the brain affect cognitive functions and behaviors
WAR STUDIES
Both WWI and WWII yielded extensive numbers of subjects for studies of traumatic brain damage
Different types of aphasias were found and were difficult to interpret within the behaviorist model
In psychology, aphasia is an impairment of language that affects the production or comprehension of speech and the ability to read or write
Aphasia is always cause by an injury to the brain
SYNERGY
Synergy refers to the situation where two or more discrete influences or agents are working together to create an effect that is bigger than what each individual/agent could create alone
A large number of researchers from many disciplines gradually learned that they were working on similar problems
W. Ross Ashby, Herbert Simon, George Miller, Allen Newell, Marvin Minsky, and others