Cognitive Science 203

Thinking and Doing


Course Information · Time: Tuesdays & Thursdays 9:30-11 AM · Location: CSB 003 · Instructor: Seana Coulson · Office: CSB 161 · email: coulson@cogsci.ucsd.edu · Home Page: http://www.cogsci.ucsd.edu/~coulson/ · Course Page: WebCT.ucsd.edu (use your AD login) · Syllabus: http://www.cogsci.ucsd.edu/~coulson/203/ · Office Hours: Monday/Wednesday 3-4pm or by appointment Course Description "It is so obvious that knowing is for the sake of doing and that doing is rooted in valuing--but how? How in the name of all that is psychological should we put the mind, the heart, and the body together?" Miller, Galantner, & Pribram (1960) In this survey course we will discuss how cognitive scientists have studied various sorts of intelligent behavior among humans. The plan is to read a few of the classic papers in cognitive science as well as covering more recent debates in higher cognition. Hopefully this will give us a sense of where we've come from, what we currently know, and what we might learn in the coming years. Course Requirements
Reading and Essays Background reading is optional: it covers facts you presumably would learn in an undergraduate cognitive psychology course. If you haven't taken such a course, you will find these readings helpful. The other readings are required. Weekly writing assignments are intended to help you consolidate material in the readings. These essay topics are usually very open-ended, but hopefully will provide some structure. If you don't like the topic, you can always write a summary of the readings. Summaries can consist of either, a paragraph or so about each of the readings, or, an integrative piece about themes common to a number of them. Each of you has a unique set of knowledge and experiences to draw from, and I hope you will share some of this in your essays/summaries. Besides turning in a hard copy on Thursday morning, essays/summaries should be posted to the Discussion board on WebCT so that you can all see what each other are writing about. Class Presentation/s Each student will present at least one article and lead discussion. If the article/enrollment ratio permits, everyone might get to do this multiple times! Remember, the ideal seminar is not a methodical, exhaustive presentation of the contents of an article. It is a novel synthesis of the fundamental issues, theoretical components, empirical evidence, and controversies evoked by the article. Your presentation should stimulate discussion, questions, and reflections on core issues. Homework Assignments 4 numbered assignments (labelled in bold), described below. Length is up to you, but remember that brevity is a virtue and writing overly long papers is the 8th mortal sin.
Week 1: Deductive Reasoning Background Reading: "Chapter 11 Reasoning" from Cognitive Psychology (3rd Edition) by D.L. Medin, B.H. Ross, and A.M. Markman. Assignment: Write a brief essay (2-5 pages) on the issue of whether human reasoning is rational; or, write a brief summary of each of the assigned articles for week 1. Due: Thursday (at the beginning of class). *Numbered Assignment 1:* Formulate a hypothesis about why people are subject to errors on the Wason Selection Task, and devise a simple task to test it (make up your own version of the WST). Give your task to at least 5 people to solve. Write a short APA style paper that describes the motivation for your task, your findings, and what (if any) implications your findings have for models of human reasoning. You must write your own paper. However, feel free to collaborate with others in the class to collect data. Due: October 12 in Coulson's mailbox. *Tuesday* Newell, A. & Simon, H.A. (1961). Computer simulation of human thought. Science 134: 2011-2017. PDF Wason, P.C. & J. St. B. T. Evans. (1975). Dual processes in reasoning? Cognition 3:141-154. PDF *Thursday* Johnson-Laird, P.N. (1999). Deductive reasoning. Annual Review of Psychology 50: 109-135. johnson-laird.pdf Oaksford, M. & Chater, N. (2001). The probabilistic approach to human reasoning. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 5 (8): 349-357. PDF Version Week 2: Uncertain Reasoning Background Reading: "Chapter 14 Judgment and Decision Making" from Cognitive Psychology (3rd Edition) by D.L. Medin, B.H. Ross, and A.M. Markman. Assignment: Write a brief essay (2-5 pages) on the relationship between language and thought in the study of probabilistic reasoning; or, write a brief summary of each of the assigned articles for week 2. Due: Thursday (at the beginning of class). *Tuesday* Tversky, A. & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. Science 185: 1124-1131. PDF Hertwig, R, Benz, B., & Krauss, S. (2008). The conjunction fallacy and the many meanings of and. Cognition 108: 740-753. Meaning_of_AND.pdf *Thursday* Gigerenzer, G. & Hoffrage, U. (1995). How to improve Bayesian reasoning without instruction: Frequency formats. Psychological Review 102: 684-704. GG_How_1995.pdf Cosmides, L. & Tooby, J. (1996). Are humans good intuitive statisticians after all? Rethinking some conclusions from the literature on judgment under uncertainty. Cognition 58: 1-73. PDF Version Week 3: Categories & Concepts Background Reading: "Chapter 10 Concepts and Categories: Representation and Use" from Cognitive Psychology (3rd Edition) by D.L. Medin, B.H. Ross, and A.M. Markman. Assignment: Write a brief summary of your favorite article this week. Be sure to contrast it with at least one other of the assigned readings for week 3. Due: Thursday (at the beginning of class). *Tuesday* Tversky, A. (1977). Features of similarity. Psychological Review 84: 327-352. tversky-features.pdf Tenenbaum, J.B. & Griffiths, T.L. & Kemp, C. (2006). Theory-based Bayesian models of inductive learning and reasoning. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 10: 309-318. TenenbaumEtalTICS06.pdf *Thursday* Komatsu, L.K. (1992). Recent views of conceptual structure. Psychological Bulletin 112(3): 500-526. PDF Barsalou, L.W. (1987). The instability of graded structure: Implications for the nature of concepts. In U. Neisser (Ed.) Concepts and Conceptual Development: Ecological and Intellectual Factors in Categorization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 101-140. PDF Tyler, LK. & Moss, HE. (2001). Towards a distributed account of conceptual knowledge. Trends in Cognitive Science 5: 244- 252. tyler01.pdf Week 4: Representation & Mental Imagery Background Reading: "Chapter 7: Knowledge Representation: Images and Propositions" from Robert J. Sternberg's Cognitive Psychology (2nd Edition). *Numbered Assignment 2:* Write a BBS-style reply to Pylyshyn's target article ( HTML File ). These replies tend to be short (5-10 paragraphs) and concentrate on data from a particular area of research that either supports the article, or argues against it. Due: October 26 in Coulson's mailbox. (No essay/summary this week.) *Tuesday* Kirby, K. & Kosslyn, SM. (1990). Thinking visually. Mind and Language 5: 324-341. kirby-kosslyn.pdf Kosslyn, SM. (2005). Mental images in the brain. Cognitive Neurospsychology 22: 333-347. kosslyn05.pdf Pylyshyn, Z. (2002). Mental imagery: In search of a theory. Behavioral and Brain Science 25: 157-238 HTML Version *Thursday* O'Regan, J.K. & Noe, A. (2001). A sensorimotor account of vision and visual consciousness. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 24: 939-1031. [Note: only 939-971 required. We won't discuss the commentaries, though you might want to thumb through a few (if you're unfamiliar with this journal) to help do this week's assignment.] PDF Week 5: Knowledge & Comprehension Assignment: Write a brief essay (2-5 pages) on whether or not scripts and schemas are a useful concept in cognitive science; or, write a brief summary of each of the assigned articles for week 5. Due: Thursday (at the beginning of class). *Tuesday* Minsky, M. (1974). A framework for representing knowledge. This PDF supports on-screen viewing only: Viewable PDF Bransford, J.D. & Johnson, M.K. (1972). Contextual prerequisites for understanding: Some investigations of comprehension and recall. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 11: 717-726. PDF Schank, R.C. (1980). Language and memory. Cognitive Science 4: 243-284. PDF *Thursday* Winograd, T. & Flores, F. (1985). "Understanding Language" in Understanding Computers and Cognition. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing, Inc. pp. 107-124. Dreyfus, H.L. (1997[1979]). From micro-worlds to knowledge representation: AI at an impasse. In J. Haugeland (Ed.), Mind Design II. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 143-182. (for screen viewing only) PDF Week 6: Metaphor & Blending Assignment: Write a brief essay (2-5 pages) on the meaning of "Lakoff takes conceptual metaphor theory a bit too far,"; or, write a brief summary of each of the assigned articles for week 6. Due: Thursday (at the beginning of class). *Numbered Assignment 3:* Go to the public library or a bookstore and find a book for children aged under 5 years old. Find an example of metaphor and/or conceptual blending in either the text, the pictures, or both. Write a short (3-5 pp.) analysis of the example you find using concepts from conceptual metaphor theory and/or conceptual blending theory. Be sure to explain the mappings in detail, and, when relevant, point to other metaphorical expressions that make use of the same mappings. Feel free to comment on the adequacy of conceptual metaphor and conceptual blending theory in accounting for your example. Due: November 16 *Tuesday* Lakoff, G. (1993). The contemporary theory of metaphor. In A. Ortony (Ed.), Metaphor and Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 202-251. HTML Version Lakoff, G. & Kovecses, Z. (1987). The cognitive model of anger in American English. In N. Quinn & D. Holland (Eds.), Cultural Models in Language and Thought. Casasanto, D. (2009). When is a linguistic metaphor conceptual? In Evans, V. & Pourcel, S. (Eds.), New Directions in Cognitive Linguistics. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins, pp. 127-145. casasanto_Ling&ConceptMet.pdf *Thursday* Coulson, S. & Oakley, T. (2000). Blending Basics. Cognitive Linguistics 11-3/4 PDF Version Turner, M. & Fauconnier, G. (2003). Polysemy and Conceptual Blending. In Brigitte Nerlich, Vimala Herman, Zazie Todd, & David Clarke, (Eds.), POLYSEMY: FLEXIBLE PATTERNS OF MEANING IN MIND AND LANGUAGE. Berlin & New York,pp. 79-94. turner-polysemy.pdf (optional) Grady, J., Oakley, T. & Coulson, S. (1999). Conceptual Blending and Metaphor. In R. Gibbs (Ed.) Metaphor in Cognitive Linguistics. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Week 7: Analogy, Mental Models, & Problem Solving Background Reading: "Chapter 12 Problem Solving" from Cognitive Psychology (3rd Edition) by D.L. Medin, B.H. Ross, and A.M. Markman. *Numbered Assignment 4:* Design a task in which you can use protocol analysis to investigate people's mental model/s of some aspect of San Diego (or UCSD) geography. Collect a protocol from at least one volunteer and write a paper on their mental "map". You are encouraged to discuss the importance of analogy, metaphor, and/or conceptual blending. If geography doesn't excite you, pick a different topic, such as mental models of the toaster, the telephone, the world wide web, or whatever. Due: November 23 in Coulson's mailbox. Assignment: Write a brief essay (2-5 pages) either agreeing or disagreeing with the statement "Mental models are like maps,"; or, write a brief summary of each of the assigned articles for week 6. Due: Thursday (at the beginning of class). *Tuesday* Gentner, D. & Markman, A. (1997). Structure mapping in analogy and similarity. American Psychologist 52(1): 45-56. PDF Version Medin, D.L., Goldstone, R.L., & Gentner, D. Respects for Similarity. Psychological Review 100(2): 254-278. PDF Collins, A. & Gentner, D. (1987). How people construct mental models. In N. Quinn & D. Holland (Eds.), Cultural Models in Language and Thought. Cambridge: CUP, pp. 243-265. PDF *Thursday* Dunbar, K. and Blanchette, I. (2001). The in vivo/in vitro approach to cognition: The case of analogy. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 5: 334-339. PDF Version Zhang, J. & Norman, D.A. (1994). Representations in distributed cognitive tasks. Cognitive Science 18: 87-122. PDF Hutchins, E. (1997). Navigation. In Cognition in the Wild. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 49-116. Week 8: Planning and Action Assignment: Write a brief essay on the thematic connection (or lack thereof) between the readings for Monday and the readings for Wednesday; or write a brief summary of each of the readings for week 8. Due: Thursday at the beginning of class). *Tuesday* Suchman, Lucy. Chapter 3 "Plans," and Chapter 4 "Situated Actions". Plans and Situated Actions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 27-67. Vera, A.H. & Simon, H.A. (1993) Situated Action: A symbolic interpretation. Cognitive Science 17 (1): 7-48. PDF Greeno, J. & Moore, K. (1993). Situativity and symbols: Response to Vera & Simon. Cognitive Science 17 (1): 49-59. PDF *Thursday* Ballard, D.H., Hayhoe, M.M., Pook, P.K., Rao, R.P.N. (1997). Deictic codes for the embodiment of cognition. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 20: 723-767. PDF Version Jeannerod, M., Arbib, M.A., Rizzolatti, G. & Sakata, H. (1995). Grasping objects: the cortical mechanisms of visuomotor transformation. Trends in Neurosciences 18 (5): 314-320. PDF Version Week 9: Working Memory Background Reading: "Chapter 5 Memory: Remembering New Information" from Cognitive Psychology (3rd Edition) by D.L. Medin, B.H. Ross, and A.M. Markman. Assignment: Write a brief essay (2-5 pages) on one or more notable ways in which cognitive scientists' understanding of short-term or working memory has changed over the years; or, write a brief summary of each of the assigned articles for week 9. Due: Tuesday (at the beginning of class). *Tuesday* Miller, G. Miller, G. (1956). The magical number seven, plus or minus two The Psychological Review 63: 81-97. Baddeley, A. (1996). The fractionation of working memory. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA 93: 13468-13472. PDF Version Carpenter, P., Just, M.A., & Reichle, E.D. (2000). Working memory and executive function: Evidence from Neuroimaging. Current Opinion in Neurobiology 10: 195-199. PDF Version Fuster, J.M. (1997). Network memory. Trends in Neuroscience 20: 451-459. PDF Version Week 10: Memory, Perception, Conception Background Reading: "Chapter 6 Memory Systems and Knowledge" from Cognitive Psychology (3rd Edition) by D.L. Medin, B.H. Ross, and A.M. Markman. Assignment: Write a brief summary of your favorite article this week. Due: Thursday (at the beginning of class). *Tuesday* Glenberg, A. (1997). What memory is for. Brain and Behavioral Sciences 20(1): 1-55. PDF Version Goldstone, R.L. & Barsalou, L.W. (1998). Reuniting perception and conception. Cognition 65: 231-262. PDF Version *Thursday* Pecher, D. & Zwaan, R. (2005). Introduction to Grounding Cognition. In Pecher, D. & Zwaan, RA (Eds.), Grounding Cognition: The Role of Perception and Action in Memory, Language, and Thinking. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1-10. pecher-zwaan.pdf Barsalou, L. (2008). Grounded Cognition. Annual Review of Psychology 59: 617-645. Barsalou_2008.pdf *Final Presentation:* Prepare a 5-minute (you will be timed) presentation that addresses how we (as cognitive scientists) can achieve "a science of man adequate in power and commensurate with his complexity...." The quote comes from the Newell 20 questions article. Newell, A. (1973). You can't play 20 questions with nature and win: Projective comments on the papers of this symposium. In W.G. Chase (Ed.) Visual Information Processing. New York: Academic Press, pp. 283-308. Presentations will be given during finals week.

Week 1 * Week 2 * Week 3 * Week 4 * Week 5

Week 6 * Week 7 * Week 8 * Week 9 * Week 10

Course Information

· Time: Tuesdays & Thursdays 9:30-11 AM

· Location: CSB 003

· Instructor: Seana Coulson

· Office: CSB 161

· email: coulson@cogsci.ucsd.edu

· Home Page: http://www.cogsci.ucsd.edu/~coulson/

· Course Page: WebCT.ucsd.edu (use your AD login)
· Syllabus: http://www.cogsci.ucsd.edu/~coulson/203/

· Office Hours: Monday/Wednesday 3-4pm or by appointment

Course Description

"It is so obvious that knowing is for the sake of doing and that doing is rooted in valuing--but how? How in the name of all that is psychological should we put the mind, the heart, and the body together?" Miller, Galantner, & Pribram (1960)

In this survey course we will discuss how cognitive scientists have studied various sorts of intelligent behavior among humans. The plan is to read a few of the classic papers in cognitive science as well as covering more recent debates in higher cognition. Hopefully this will give us a sense of where we've come from, what we currently know, and what we might learn in the coming years.

Course Requirements

Reading and Essays Background reading is optional: it covers facts you presumably would learn in an undergraduate cognitive psychology course. If you haven't taken such a course, you will find these readings helpful. The other readings are required. Weekly writing assignments are intended to help you consolidate material in the readings. These essay topics are usually very open-ended, but hopefully will provide some structure. If you don't like the topic, you can always write a summary of the readings. Summaries can consist of either, a paragraph or so about each of the readings, or, an integrative piece about themes common to a number of them. Each of you has a unique set of knowledge and experiences to draw from, and I hope you will share some of this in your essays/summaries. Besides turning in a hard copy on Thursday morning, essays/summaries should be posted to the Discussion board on WebCT so that you can all see what each other are writing about.
Class Presentation/s Each student will present at least one article and lead discussion. If the article/enrollment ratio permits, everyone might get to do this multiple times! Remember, the ideal seminar is not a methodical, exhaustive presentation of the contents of an article. It is a novel synthesis of the fundamental issues, theoretical components, empirical evidence, and controversies evoked by the article. Your presentation should stimulate discussion, questions, and reflections on core issues.
Homework Assignments 4 numbered assignments (labelled in bold), described below. Length is up to you, but remember that brevity is a virtue and writing overly long papers is the 8th mortal sin.

Week 1: Deductive Reasoning

Background Reading: "Chapter 11 Reasoning" from Cognitive Psychology (3rd Edition) by D.L. Medin, B.H. Ross, and A.M. Markman.

Assignment: Write a brief essay (2-5 pages) on the issue of whether human reasoning is rational; or, write a brief summary of each of the assigned articles for week 1. Due: Thursday (at the beginning of class).

Numbered Assignment 1: Formulate a hypothesis about why people are subject to errors on the Wason Selection Task, and devise a simple task to test it (make up your own version of the WST). Give your task to at least 5 people to solve. Write a short APA style paper that describes the motivation for your task, your findings, and what (if any) implications your findings have for models of human reasoning. You must write your own paper. However, feel free to collaborate with others in the class to collect data. Due: October 12 in Coulson's mailbox.

Tuesday

Newell, A. & Simon, H.A. (1961). Computer simulation of human thought. Science 134: 2011-2017. PDF

Wason, P.C. & J. St. B. T. Evans. (1975). Dual processes in reasoning? Cognition 3:141-154. PDF

Thursday

Johnson-Laird, P.N. (1999). Deductive reasoning. Annual Review of Psychology 50: 109-135. johnson-laird.pdf

Oaksford, M. & Chater, N. (2001). The probabilistic approach to human reasoning. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 5 (8): 349-357. PDF Version

Week 2: Uncertain Reasoning

Background Reading: "Chapter 14 Judgment and Decision Making" from Cognitive Psychology (3rd Edition) by D.L. Medin, B.H. Ross, and A.M. Markman.

Assignment: Write a brief essay (2-5 pages) on the relationship between language and thought in the study of probabilistic reasoning; or, write a brief summary of each of the assigned articles for week 2. Due: Thursday (at the beginning of class).

Tuesday

Tversky, A. & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. Science 185: 1124-1131. PDF

Hertwig, R, Benz, B., & Krauss, S. (2008). The conjunction fallacy and the many meanings of and. Cognition 108: 740-753. Meaning_of_AND.pdf

Thursday

Gigerenzer, G. & Hoffrage, U. (1995). How to improve Bayesian reasoning without instruction: Frequency formats. Psychological Review 102: 684-704. GG_How_1995.pdf

Cosmides, L. & Tooby, J. (1996). Are humans good intuitive statisticians after all? Rethinking some conclusions from the literature on judgment under uncertainty. Cognition 58: 1-73. PDF Version

Week 3: Categories & Concepts

Background Reading: "Chapter 10 Concepts and Categories: Representation and Use" from Cognitive Psychology (3rd Edition) by D.L. Medin, B.H. Ross, and A.M. Markman.

Assignment: Write a brief summary of your favorite article this week. Be sure to contrast it with at least one other of the assigned readings for week 3. Due: Thursday (at the beginning of class).

Tuesday
Tversky, A. (1977). Features of similarity. Psychological Review 84: 327-352. tversky-features.pdf

Tenenbaum, J.B. & Griffiths, T.L. & Kemp, C. (2006). Theory-based Bayesian models of inductive learning and reasoning. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 10: 309-318. TenenbaumEtalTICS06.pdf

Thursday

Komatsu, L.K. (1992). Recent views of conceptual structure. Psychological Bulletin 112(3): 500-526. PDF

Barsalou, L.W. (1987). The instability of graded structure: Implications for the nature of concepts. In U. Neisser (Ed.) Concepts and Conceptual Development: Ecological and Intellectual Factors in Categorization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 101-140. PDF

Tyler, LK. & Moss, HE. (2001). Towards a distributed account of conceptual knowledge. Trends in Cognitive Science 5: 244- 252. tyler01.pdf

Week 4: Representation & Mental Imagery

Background Reading: "Chapter 7: Knowledge Representation: Images and Propositions" from Robert J. Sternberg's Cognitive Psychology (2nd Edition).

Numbered Assignment 2: Write a BBS-style reply to Pylyshyn's target article ( HTML File ). These replies tend to be short (5-10 paragraphs) and concentrate on data from a particular area of research that either supports the article, or argues against it. Due: October 26 in Coulson's mailbox. (No essay/summary this week.)

Tuesday

Kirby, K. & Kosslyn, SM. (1990). Thinking visually. Mind and Language 5: 324-341. kirby-kosslyn.pdf

Kosslyn, SM. (2005). Mental images in the brain. Cognitive Neurospsychology 22: 333-347. kosslyn05.pdf

Pylyshyn, Z. (2002). Mental imagery: In search of a theory. Behavioral and Brain Science 25: 157-238 HTML Version

Thursday
O'Regan, J.K. & Noe, A. (2001). A sensorimotor account of vision and visual consciousness. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 24: 939-1031. [Note: only 939-971 required. We won't discuss the commentaries, though you might want to thumb through a few (if you're unfamiliar with this journal) to help do this week's assignment.] PDF

Week 5: Knowledge & Comprehension

Assignment: Write a brief essay (2-5 pages) on whether or not scripts and schemas are a useful concept in cognitive science; or, write a brief summary of each of the assigned articles for week 5. Due: Thursday (at the beginning of class).

Tuesday
Minsky, M. (1974). A framework for representing knowledge. This PDF supports on-screen viewing only: Viewable PDF

Bransford, J.D. & Johnson, M.K. (1972). Contextual prerequisites for understanding: Some investigations of comprehension and recall. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 11: 717-726. PDF

Schank, R.C. (1980). Language and memory. Cognitive Science 4: 243-284. PDF

Thursday
Winograd, T. & Flores, F. (1985). "Understanding Language" in Understanding Computers and Cognition. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing, Inc. pp. 107-124.

Dreyfus, H.L. (1997[1979]). From micro-worlds to knowledge representation: AI at an impasse. In J. Haugeland (Ed.), Mind Design II. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 143-182. (for screen viewing only) PDF

Week 6: Metaphor & Blending

Assignment: Write a brief essay (2-5 pages) on the meaning of "Lakoff takes conceptual metaphor theory a bit too far,"; or, write a brief summary of each of the assigned articles for week 6. Due: Thursday (at the beginning of class).

Numbered Assignment 3: Go to the public library or a bookstore and find a book for children aged under 5 years old. Find an example of metaphor and/or conceptual blending in either the text, the pictures, or both. Write a short (3-5 pp.) analysis of the example you find using concepts from conceptual metaphor theory and/or conceptual blending theory. Be sure to explain the mappings in detail, and, when relevant, point to other metaphorical expressions that make use of the same mappings. Feel free to comment on the adequacy of conceptual metaphor and conceptual blending theory in accounting for your example. Due: November 16

Tuesday
Lakoff, G. (1993). The contemporary theory of metaphor. In A. Ortony (Ed.), Metaphor and Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 202-251. HTML Version

Lakoff, G. & Kovecses, Z. (1987). The cognitive model of anger in American English. In N. Quinn & D. Holland (Eds.), Cultural Models in Language and Thought.

Casasanto, D. (2009). When is a linguistic metaphor conceptual? In Evans, V. & Pourcel, S. (Eds.), New Directions in Cognitive Linguistics. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins, pp. 127-145. casasanto_Ling&ConceptMet.pdf

Thursday

Coulson, S. & Oakley, T. (2000). Blending Basics. Cognitive Linguistics 11-3/4 PDF Version

Turner, M. & Fauconnier, G. (2003). Polysemy and Conceptual Blending. In Brigitte Nerlich, Vimala Herman, Zazie Todd, & David Clarke, (Eds.), POLYSEMY: FLEXIBLE PATTERNS OF MEANING IN MIND AND LANGUAGE. Berlin & New York,pp. 79-94. turner-polysemy.pdf

(optional) Grady, J., Oakley, T. & Coulson, S. (1999). Conceptual Blending and Metaphor. In R. Gibbs (Ed.) Metaphor in Cognitive Linguistics. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Week 7: Analogy, Mental Models, & Problem Solving

Background Reading: "Chapter 12 Problem Solving" from Cognitive Psychology (3rd Edition) by D.L. Medin, B.H. Ross, and A.M. Markman.

Numbered Assignment 4: Design a task in which you can use protocol analysis to investigate people's mental model/s of some aspect of San Diego (or UCSD) geography. Collect a protocol from at least one volunteer and write a paper on their mental "map". You are encouraged to discuss the importance of analogy, metaphor, and/or conceptual blending. If geography doesn't excite you, pick a different topic, such as mental models of the toaster, the telephone, the world wide web, or whatever. Due: November 23 in Coulson's mailbox.

Assignment: Write a brief essay (2-5 pages) either agreeing or disagreeing with the statement "Mental models are like maps,"; or, write a brief summary of each of the assigned articles for week 6. Due: Thursday (at the beginning of class).

Tuesday
Gentner, D. & Markman, A. (1997). Structure mapping in analogy and similarity. American Psychologist 52(1): 45-56. PDF Version

Medin, D.L., Goldstone, R.L., & Gentner, D. Respects for Similarity. Psychological Review 100(2): 254-278. PDF

Collins, A. & Gentner, D. (1987). How people construct mental models. In N. Quinn & D. Holland (Eds.), Cultural Models in Language and Thought. Cambridge: CUP, pp. 243-265. PDF

Thursday

Dunbar, K. and Blanchette, I. (2001). The in vivo/in vitro approach to cognition: The case of analogy. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 5: 334-339. PDF Version

Zhang, J. & Norman, D.A. (1994). Representations in distributed cognitive tasks. Cognitive Science 18: 87-122. PDF

Hutchins, E. (1997). Navigation. In Cognition in the Wild. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 49-116.

Week 8: Planning and Action

Assignment: Write a brief essay on the thematic connection (or lack thereof) between the readings for Monday and the readings for Wednesday; or write a brief summary of each of the readings for week 8. Due: Thursday at the beginning of class).

Tuesday

Suchman, Lucy. Chapter 3 "Plans," and Chapter 4 "Situated Actions". Plans and Situated Actions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 27-67.

Vera, A.H. & Simon, H.A. (1993) Situated Action: A symbolic interpretation. Cognitive Science 17 (1): 7-48. PDF

Greeno, J. & Moore, K. (1993). Situativity and symbols: Response to Vera & Simon. Cognitive Science 17 (1): 49-59. PDF

Thursday

Ballard, D.H., Hayhoe, M.M., Pook, P.K., Rao, R.P.N. (1997). Deictic codes for the embodiment of cognition. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 20: 723-767. PDF Version

Jeannerod, M., Arbib, M.A., Rizzolatti, G. & Sakata, H. (1995). Grasping objects: the cortical mechanisms of visuomotor transformation. Trends in Neurosciences 18 (5): 314-320. PDF Version

Week 9: Working Memory

Background Reading: "Chapter 5 Memory: Remembering New Information" from Cognitive Psychology (3rd Edition) by D.L. Medin, B.H. Ross, and A.M. Markman.

Assignment: Write a brief essay (2-5 pages) on one or more notable ways in which cognitive scientists' understanding of short-term or working memory has changed over the years; or, write a brief summary of each of the assigned articles for week 9. Due: Tuesday (at the beginning of class).

Tuesday
Miller, G. Miller, G. (1956). The magical number seven, plus or minus two The Psychological Review 63: 81-97.

Baddeley, A. (1996). The fractionation of working memory. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA 93: 13468-13472. PDF Version

Carpenter, P., Just, M.A., & Reichle, E.D. (2000). Working memory and executive function: Evidence from Neuroimaging. Current Opinion in Neurobiology 10: 195-199. PDF Version

Fuster, J.M. (1997). Network memory. Trends in Neuroscience 20: 451-459. PDF Version

Week 10: Memory, Perception, Conception

Background Reading: "Chapter 6 Memory Systems and Knowledge" from Cognitive Psychology (3rd Edition) by D.L. Medin, B.H. Ross, and A.M. Markman.

Assignment: Write a brief summary of your favorite article this week. Due: Thursday (at the beginning of class).

Tuesday

Glenberg, A. (1997). What memory is for. Brain and Behavioral Sciences 20(1): 1-55. PDF Version

Goldstone, R.L. & Barsalou, L.W. (1998). Reuniting perception and conception. Cognition 65: 231-262. PDF Version

Thursday

Pecher, D. & Zwaan, R. (2005). Introduction to Grounding Cognition. In Pecher, D. & Zwaan, RA (Eds.), Grounding Cognition: The Role of Perception and Action in Memory, Language, and Thinking. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1-10. pecher-zwaan.pdf

Barsalou, L. (2008). Grounded Cognition. Annual Review of Psychology 59: 617-645. Barsalou_2008.pdf

Final Presentation: Prepare a 5-minute (you will be timed) presentation that addresses how we (as cognitive scientists) can achieve "a science of man adequate in power and commensurate with his complexity...." The quote comes from the Newell 20 questions article.

Newell, A. (1973). You can't play 20 questions with nature and win: Projective comments on the papers of this symposium. In W.G. Chase (Ed.) Visual Information Processing. New York: Academic Press, pp. 283-308.

Presentations will be given during finals week.