SE367: Introduction to Cognitive Science

Week 1

1. Churchland, Paul M.; Matter and Consciousness: A Contemporary Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind
   MIT Press (Bradford book), 1988, 184 pages
   ( Mind-body problem, ch.2; from http://cognet.mit.edu) [PDF]
2. Ned Block, Comparing the Major Theories of Consciousness, ch.77 from
   Gazzaniga, Michael S.; [extremely truncated]
   The Cognitive Neurosciences IV (fourth ed.)
   Massachusetts Institute of Technolology, 2009, 1294 pages
   (excerpted from Cognet) [PDF]
3. Kahneman, Daniel; Thinking, Fast and Slow
   Penguin Books, Limited, 2011, 499 pages
   (excerpts from intro, ch. 1 and ch.3) [PDF]
4. Murphy, Kevin P.; Chapter 1
   Machine Learning: A Probabilistic Perspective
   Mit Press, 2012, 1067 pages [PDF]

Week 2-3

1. Phineas Gage and Frontal Lobe Lobotomy -
   extract from "The Last Hippie", in Oliver Sacks, An anthropologist on
   Mars, Knopf, 1995, 327 pages
   [PDF]
2. Box on Frontal Lobotomy - from Bears and Connors, Neuroscience [PDF]
3. Rodolfo Llinas, Interview with Roger Bingham on The science Network: Transcript
   Can also watch the video here
   
   [NOTE: You can skip the autobiographical parts;
   transcript - focus on p.2-5 (cells, brains as predictors),
   8-11 (Free will / TMS), 13-16 (nanowires)]
   Video: 6:00 to 20:00min : cells - multicellularity;
   37 - 41min : transcranial magnetic stimulation - free will
   54 min: stimulate the brain by nanowires - passed through
   vascular cavities - can have profound effects]
4. Joshua B. Tenenbaum and Vin de Silva and John C. Langford,
   A global geometric framework for nonlinear dimensionality reduction,
   Science, 2000 [PDF]

Reading Set for Language Segment

Please find it on the local webpage on this link

OPTIONAL

• 1. p. 13 to 17 (excerpt from chapt 2)
  Chomsky, Noam;
  Syntactic structures
  Mouton, 1957
  [chomsky-1957_syntactic-structures-p-13-17.pdf] [PDF]
• chapt 1 from
  Tomasello, Michael;
  Constructing a Language: A Usage-based Theory of Language Acquisition
  Harvard University Press, 2005
  tomasello-Michael-2005_constructing-a-language-ch1
  [An articulation of the difficulties with the generative grammar (nativist)
  view of language acquisition. ]
  [PDF]

Exercise

Take a printout of the 600px image: Image
Every time you read of a brain area, try to mark it on the image.

Optional (Supplementary Material)