Introduction to Cognitive ScienceSection F

Kevin kjenson@ucsd.edu Office Hours: Tuesday 1400-1500 @ CSB 229

Announcements● Midterm next Monday (2/26) on weeks 4-6

○ Review section this Friday in class led by TAs○ TED Quiz over the weekend on week 6 material○ Friday Sections will be holding midterm review as well.

● Go to any TA’s office hour to view your quiz grades.

The topics of last week

• Distributed Cognition - Taylor Scott• Reading - “Cognition, Distributed”

• Social Cognition - Federico Rossano• Reading - “The ultra-social animal”

• Introduction to Neural Networks - Mary Boyle• TED Talk - “Introduction to Deep Learning”• TED Talk - “Neural Network Art”

Distributed Cognitionw/ Taylor Scott

Review questions - Distributed Cognition1. What are the various views on cognition? Compare and contrast how they differ.

• Behaviorism

• Cognitivism

• Post-cognitivism

2. What does “Cognition in the Wild” mean?

3. What are the insights about cognition come from the distributed cognition approach?

4. What is the BIG problem associated with studying cognition? Know its manifestations. What can we do to rectify this

problem?

5. Economists have been interested in the tension between what is individually rational and what is rational at the

aggregate level. This theme has been explored in what paradigms?

6. According to “Cognition, Distributed”, cognitive processes can be distributed across what domains?

7. According to “Cognition, Distributed”, how do complex information transfer processes, such as language, arise?

8. What is the classical cognitive science approach to the environment?

Vote!!

Behaviorism

1. Know the history of different approaches to studying cognition and how they differ.

Cognitivism

1. Know the history of different approaches to studying cognition and how they differ.

Post-Cognitivism

3. What insights about cognition come from the distributed cognition approach?

● The brain is the place for human cognition, BUT, analyzing it alone is not enough!

● Interaction of brain with the outside environment is crucial ● Analysis of the outside environment entails a wider range of analysis,

necessitating the practice of cognitive ethnography

2. What does “Cognition in the Wild” mean?

Edwin Hutchins

● The title of Edwin Hutchin’s seminal work “Cognition in the Wild”○ He conducted an ethnographic inquiry on a naval vessel

● Came out with a ton of data which was then analyzed and further developed as D-cog: an ethnographic approach to studying cognition.

● His book demonstrates the effectiveness of Cognitive Ethnography which entails:○ The scientific description of the customs of individual

peoples and cultures.○ Accurate records of specific instances of real world

human behavior.○ Analysis of the cognitive aspects of those instances.

4. What is the BIG problem associated with cognitive ethnography?

● Seeing but not seeing problem○ Neglect details, remember the gist ○ Fill the gaps in visual scenes○ Neglect background info e.g. Invisible gorilla○ Do not hear disfluencies and unimportant words○ Shared cultural models

● We need tools and techniques○ Cognito-scope: slow down and be honest.

5. Economists have been interested in the tension between what is individually

rational and what is rational at the aggregate level. This theme has been explored

in what paradigms?

Paradox (or Tragedy) of the CommonsPrisoner’s Dilemma

6. According to “Cognition, Distributed”, cognitive processes can be distributed

across what domains?

They can be distributed across:- A brain(neural networks;pathways)- Internal and external information structures

- brain and pen + paper- A social group- Time

7. According to “Cognition, Distributed”, how do complex information transfer

processes, such as language, arise?

Social requirements/Information bottlenecks

“Information needs to transfer across “low-traffic” boundaries, and symbol systems arise to deal with transferring information across

these bottlenecks”

8. What is the classical cognitive science approach to the environment?

Body=

Computational input device

Environment =

Problem space

Social Cognitionw/ Federico Rossano

Review questions - Social Cognition

1. What scopes of comparative study were mentioned by Dr. Rossano?2. What does WEIRD stand for? Why is this concept important to keep in mind when studying the mind3. What is accountability? What were the examples of this concept mentioned in class?4. What is the ‘Ultimatum Game’?5. At what level does Dr. Rossano study social interaction?6. Know the characteristics that differentiate humans, chimpanzees and bonobos that were mentioned in class.7. What is property? How does our concept of property change across the life span? 8. What are the voice and gaze following studies presented by Rossano in lecture? What do they illustrate? What is so important about darkly colored sclera?9. Young human children treat resources generated collaboratively in special ways. What principle seems to guide their food sharing behavior?10. How do chimps and human children choose to act when given the option of acting alone or in collaboration ?11. Know the results of Vaish, Carpenter, and Tomasello’s study (2011).

12. Know the three bases of a stable cooperation.

Vote!!

1. What scopes of comparative study were mentioned by Dr. Rossano?

2. What does WEIRD stand for? Why is this concept important to keep in mind

when studying the mind

96% of subjects come from countries representing 12% of the world population and 80% of them are undergraduates!!

Western

Educated

Industrialized

Rich

Democratic

WEIRD (Henrich,Heine and Norenzayan, 2010)

3. What is accountability? What were the examples of this concept mentioned in

class?

Accountability: Taking into consideration how others will perceive, understand and judge our actions when we act/plan to act.

4. What is the ‘Ultimatum Game’?

5. With what perspective does Dr. Rossano study social interaction?

6. Know the characteristics that differentiate humans, chimpanzees and bonobos

that were mentioned in class.

7. What is property? How does our concept of property change across the life

span?

● Property is a social construct that concerns relations among people

with regards to things.

○ Humans’ belief in differential rights over access to objects, ideas,

places, people, etc.

● Across the life-span:

○ 2 vs 3 year olds (Rossano, Rakoczy, and Tomasello 2011)

■ At the latest, around 3 years of age, young children begin to

understand the normative dimensions of property rights

○ 5 year olds actively indicate that they have a concept of the toys

being their property and others should see that.

(Rossano, Rakoczy, and Tomasello 2011)

8. What are the voice and gaze following studies presented by Rossano in lecture?

What do they illustrate? What is so important about darkly colored sclera?

● Experimenter stands behind a barrier. A box is placed to the left and right

of the barrier. The experimenter ducks down and hides. Then she

indicates the direction of the correct box by directing her voice toward it.

● Head direction

● Sclera ○ 12 month old human babies ✔�○ Puppies (were the best at it depending on level of socialization) ✔�○ Adult dogs ✔�○ Goats ✔�○ Wolves ✘○ Chimps ✘

9. Human children treat resources generated collaboratively in special ways. What

principle seems to guide their food sharing behavior?

Principle: Share food equally but only when it was produced collaboratively

10. How do chimps and human children choose to act when given the option of

acting alone or in collaboration ?

Chimps: Act alone!Human children: Act collaboratively!

11. Know the results of Vaish, Carpenter, and Tomasello’s study (2011).

5-year-old human children are more forgiving when norm violators (in this case perpetrators of harm) express regret or shame.

“...[guilt] serves to preemptothers from punishing them on the spot (because they feel sympathyfor how bad the guilty person is feeling) and/or judging them tobe either ignorant or disrespectful of the social norm they arebreaking.” - Tomasello

12. Know the three basics of a stable cooperation.

1. Spoils must be shared over time2. Coordination/collaborative decisions3. Free-riders must be dealt with accordingly.

They mess up the whole system.

Introduction to Neural Networksw/ Mary Boyle

Review questions - Neural Networks

1. What are the characteristics of an ‘integrate and fire’ neuron?2. Discuss the simple neuron model used in neural networks – in which ways does that model capture a real

neuron? In which ways does it diverge?3. What are the three types of learning presented in lecture?

• What are the differences between sensitization, habituation and conditional learning• How are these changes reflected in the neuron’s response?• How would you relate these changes to the concept of Hebbian Learning?

4. Describe and discuss the steps to building a neural network to read hand-written digits.• How was the input to the neural network represented? How did this representation relate to the activation

value for each input unit? What is the purpose of the weights in the network? • How did the network distinguish between a 9, 8 and 4? • What is the purpose of the sigmoid function? What happens to very large numbers? Very small numbers? • What is the output of the network?

5. What aspects of digit recognition (in a simple neural network) are similar to how visual information is processed in the brain? 6. What was interesting about the art produced in the deep learning networks presented in the TED lectures?

Vote!!

3. What are the three types of learning presented in lecture?

• Habituation, sensitization and conditional learning

• Donald Hebb’s Hebbian law: “Cells that fire together, Wire together”

1. What are the characteristics of an ‘integrate and fire’ neuron?

Dendrites

Axon

Soma

2. Discuss the simple neuron model used in neural networks – in which ways does

that model capture the behavior of real neurons?

● In Natural Neural Networks:○ Input signal from dendrites (weighted) - Soma integration - Output

signal to axons● In Synthetic Neural Networks:

○ Weighted Input -> integrated -> output○ Use of the sigmoid function to integrate input potentials.

4. Describe and discuss the steps to building a neural network to read handwritten

digits.

In an artificial neural network…...● Digits are decomposed to basic units/features

○ Example: The number 4 composed of the weighted sum of edge features earlier in the network.

● Higher level meanings are built from the weighted sum of earlier features.● The sigmoid function is used to determine the activation of a neuron.

8 9 4

5. What aspects of digit recognition (in a simple neural network) are similar to how

visual information is processed in the brain?

6. What was interesting about the art produced in the deep learning networks

presented in the TED lectures?

Thoughts?