Introduction to Cognitive Science
LING/PHIL/PSYC 569
Spring 2007
PAS 304
TuTh
12:30-1:45
Instructor: Shaun Nichols
Office: Social Sciences 318c
Phone: 626-0616
Office Hours: Tuesday 2-4, and by appointment
Course website: http://dingo.sbs.arizona.edu/~snichols/courses/IntroCogSciS07.htm
Course description:
Cognitive
scientists investigate mental processes by recruiting methods and results from
a wide range of disciplines including psychology, neuroscience, linguistics,
philosophy, and computer science. This course will focus on several topics that
have been the subject of recent attention from a broad range of perspectives in
cognitive science including moral intuitions, religious cognition, object
cognition, the evolution of language, and the relationship between anger and
cooperation.
Guest lectures:
Since
work in cognitive science is robustly interdisciplinary, there will be several
guest lectures from experts in different areas of cognitive science.
Course evaluation:
Class participation (10%):
Students are expected to contribute to class
discussions.
Short assignments (25%):
Each participants will write several short
commentaries (about 4) on one of the required readings. The commentary should
be emailed to me the evening before the class in which that reading will be
discussed. Commentaries should be short (1-2 pages), and they will be used to
guide discussion. Late papers will not be accepted.
Research project (65%):
65% of the grade will be determined by the final
research project. The final research project can either be a theoretical paper
or an empirical project. All students must meet with me to discuss the nature
and topic of their research projects.
University boilerplate:
You need a good excuse, in advance, to miss an exam or
to hand in a paper late. All holidays or special events observed by organized
religions will be honored for those students who show affiliation with that
particular religion. Absences pre-approved by the UA Dean of Students (or
Dean's designee) will be honored.
I expect acceptable classroom behavior at all times. Disruptive or threatening
behavior may result in disciplinary procedures leading to severe penalties. See
the UA Policy on Threatening Behavior by Students, and documents referenced
therein.
Students with Disabilities
Students with physical, psychological, or learning disabilities who anticipate
needing accommodations in this course are encouraged to register with the
Tentative schedule of
readings
Linguistics, nativism, and evolution
Philosophical background:
Noam
Chomsky (1967). Recent contributions to the theory of innate ideas
Hilary
Putnam (1967). The 'innateness hypothesis' and the explanatory models in
linguistics
Linguistic nativism
Laurence & Margolis (2001). The
Poverty of the Stimulus Argument. British
Journal Phil. Sci. Sections 5.2- 7.3.
Scholz & Pullum (2006). Irrational Nativist
Exuberance. In Contemporary Debates in Cognitive
Science, ed. by Rob Stainton, pp. 59-80 (
Guest lecture by LouAnn Gerken
Mark Baker (2003). Linguistic
differences and language design. Trends in Cognitive Sciences,
7(8):349-353.
Mark Baker (forthcoming). The
creative aspect of language use and non-biological nativism. In Carruthers
et al. The Innate Mind, vol. 3
Evolutionary
accounts
Steven Pinker and Paul Bloom
(1990). Natural language and natural selection. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 13: 707-27.
Marc Hauser, Noam Chomsky, & William Fitch (2002).
The faculty of language: what is it, who has it, and how did it evolve? Science 298, 1569-1579.
Steven Pinker & Ray Jackendoff (2004). The faculty
of language: what's special about it? Cognition
97, 211-225
Moral intuitions
Philosophical background:
John Fischer & Mark Ravizza (1992). Ethics:
Problems and Principles, excerpts
Neuroimagining:
Joshua Greene, Sommerville, R. B.,
Nystrom, L., Darley, J., & Cohen, J. (2001). An fMRI investigation of
emotional engagement in moral judgment. Science,
293, 2105 - 2108.
Higher cognition:
Fiery Cushman, Liane Young & Marc Hauser (2006).
The Role of Reasoning and Intuition in Moral Judgments: Testing three
principles of harm. Psychological Science
17(12)
Shaun Nichols & Ron Mallon (2006). Moral dilemmas
and moral rules. Cognition.
Hauser et al. forthcoming. Reviving Rawls' Linguistic
Analogy
Philosophical implications:
Neil
Levy (2006). Cognitive Scientific Challenges to Morality. Philosophical Psychology.
Anger and Cooperation
Philosophical
background:
J.
L. Mackie 1982. Morality and the Retributive Emotions.
Evolution of anger:
Robert Frank (1998): Passions within Reason, ch. 3, p. 83 (Norton)
Neuroeconomics:
Alan
Sanfey et al. (2006). Neuroeconomics. TICS.
Guest
lecture by Alan Sanfey
Psychological
characteristics of anger:
Jonathan Haidt (2003). The Moral
Emotions. In R. J. Davidson, K. R. Scherer, & H. H. Goldsmith
(Eds.), Handbook of affective sciences.
Dan
Fessler (2006). The
Male Flash of Anger. In J. Barkow (ed.) Missing the
Revolution Darwinism for Social Scientists (OUP)
Dan Fessler & Kevin Haley (2003). The Strategy of
Affect. In P. Hammerstein (ed.) Genetic and Cultural Evolution of
Cooperation (MIT)
Punishment and cooperation:
Ernst Fehr & Urs Fischbacher (2004).Social
norms and human cooperation. Trends
in Cognitive Sciences.
Ernst Fehr & Simon Gachter (2002). Altruistic
Punishment in Humans. Nature
Objects and cognition
Philosophical background:
Sally Haslanger (2003).
Persistence through time. In M. Loux & D. Zimmerman (Eds.),
Development:
Karen Wynn (1992). Addition and
subtraction by human infants. Nature,
358, 749-750.
Fei Xu (1997). From
Lisa Feigenson & Justin Halberda (2004). Infants
chunk object arrays into sets of individuals. Cognition, 91, 173-190
Zsuzsa Kaldy & Alan Leslie (2005). A memory span
of one? Cognition, 97, 153-177.
Psychopathologies:
Robert Rafal (1997). Balint syndrome. In T. Feinberg
& M. Farah (Eds.), Behavioral neurology and neuropsychology (pp. 337
- 356).
Vision:
Brian Scholl (2001). Objects and
attention: The state of the art. Cognition,
80(1/2), 1 - 46.
Comparative evidence:
Jon Flombaum, Shannon Kundey, Laurie Santos, &
Brian Scholl (2004). Dynamic object individuation in rhesus macaques: A study
of the tunnel effect. Psychological
Science, 15, 795 - 800.
High-level cognition:
Lance Rips, Sergey Blok & George Newman (2006).
Tracing the identity of objects. Psychological
Review.
Blok, Newman & Rips (2005). Individuals
and their concepts. In Ahn et al. (eds.) Categorization inside and outside the lab.
M Rhemtulla & F. Xu (forthcoming). Sortal concepts and
causal continuity. Psychological
Review.
Cognitive science of religion
Agency Detection and Supernatural Belief
Stewart Guthrie (1993). Faces in the Clouds, pp.
21-28
Alison
Gopnik (1998). Explanation as Orgasm. Minds
& Machines.
Susan Johnson (2003). Detecting
Agents. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of
Jesse
Bering & Becky Parker (2006). Children’s attributions of intentions to an
invisible agent. Developmental Psychology,
42, 253-262.
Justin
Barrett (2004). Why Would Anyone Believe in God, 35-6
Pascal Boyer (2001). Religion Explained, pp. 142-160
Scott
Atran (2002). In Gods We Trust, pp. 51-71
Intuitive dualism
Jesse Bering & David Bjorklund
(2004). The
natural emergence of reasoning about the afterlife as a developmental
regularity Developmental Psychology,
40, 217-233.
Bering, Hernandez-Blasi & Bjorklund
(2005). The development of ‘afterlife’ beliefs in religiously and secularly
schooled children. British Journal of
Developmental Psychology, 23, 587-607.
[Jesse Bering (2002). Intuitive
conceptions of dead agents' minds: The natural foundations of afterlife beliefs
as phenomenological boundary. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 2, 263-308.]
Paul
Bloom (2004). Descartes' Baby, Chapter 7
Valerie Kuhlmeier, Paul Bloom & Karen Wynn (2004).
Do 5-month-old infants see humans as material objects? Cognition, 94,
95-103.