Lecture 1. What is Cognition

Question 1

What is cognitive capacities?

Answer 1

The ability to perceive and act on their environments in adaptive ways.

Cognitive capacities entail aquiring and processing information about our environments (learning and reference), storing this information (representation in memory) in a form that enables it to inform our future behaviour (planning, problem solving, reasoning and decision making)

Question 2

What is cognitive neuroscience?

Answer 2

The study of neural mechanisms that underline cognitive capacities

Question 3

What is cognitive psychology?

Answer 3

The study of cognitive states and processes and how they explain human behaviour and mental experience

Question 4

What is the Turing test?

Answer 4

A human interrogator attempts to distinguish between the responses by a computer and a human based on questions alone.

Question 5

When defining cognition, what is a decent definition of information?

Answer 5

Detectable changes in stimuli that enable us to catergorise the entities and events that we encounter and to also infer the relationships between them

Question 6

When defining cognition, how is a conceptual structure developed?

Answer 6

Through attention

Question 7

How do we recognise objects and events?

Answer 7

Through our conceptual structure

Question 8

How do we know how to respond to objects and events?

Answer 8

Through knowledge based on past experiences with similar objects or events.

Question 9

There are 2 elements to cognition, what are they?

The first is a ____, the second is a ____.

Answer 9

1. The act of knowing - a process. Cognition as something that humans do
2. That which is known - a product, such as mental representations of what we perceive, reason, know, metal images etc

Question 10

What do cognitive agents do?

There are 5 points here and they are to do with different interpretations and actions that can be performed

Answer 10

1. sense and act on the environment
2. construct mental models to represent the causal structure of their environment
3. adapt their mental models in response to feedback from their behaviour
4. use mental models to guide future behaviour
5. form inferences to make sense of experience

Question 11

A major element of cognition is that it involves a variety of mental processes such as -

• perception
• attention
• planning
• decision making
• reasoning
• problem solving
• imagining
• planning
• executing actions

What do these mental processes involve the generation of?

Answer 11

Mental representations

Question 12

Mental representations form the basis for sensing, acting and thinking and are physically implemented via neural computations.
What are the mental representations?

Answer 12

Sensorimotor - sense of embodiment, movement, sensory experiences
Mental images - visuo spatial representations, auditory memories, olfactory cues
Symbolic representations: logical, linguistic, semantic, narrative, schemas, frames

Question 13

Mental representations are:
Sensorimotor
Mental imagery
Symbolic representations

True/False?

Answer 13

True!

Question 14

Ulrich Neisser (1976) developed a 3+3 model of cognition (star of david representation) that represented a perceptual cycle.
In it, he included influences:
-Actual World
-Cognitive map of the world and its possibilities
-Locomotion and action

How were these described?

Answer 14

Actual World: Our actual and present environment modifies our Schema of the present environment which then directs our perceptual exploration which then samples from our actual present environment and the cycle continues

Question 15

What is the classical computational theory of cognition?
Hint: thought processes reflect the mental manipulation of ____ according to _____ _____ for combining those symbols

The _____ _____ are the ‘program’ of the mind expressed in “mentalese” the language of thought

Answer 15

Thought processes reflect mental manipulation of symbols according syntactic rules for combining those symbols

Question 16

In terms of classical computational theory of cognition, words and numerals are examples of what?

Answer 16

symbols.

i. e.
- concepts
- properties and relationships etc
- 1,2,3

Question 17

Under the classical computational view, the mind is a __1.__ following device, analogous to a __2.__ __3.__

The __4.__ is the software and the __5.__ is the hardware. Thoughts are based on symbolic representations of things and/or events that are combined and manipulated according to a set of rules (syntax)

Natural __6.__ translate this abstract inner mental into a publically expressible format

Cognition is conceived of as a flow of information through information processing devices that encode, store and retrieve symbolic representations of knowledge

Answer 17

1. Rule
2. Digital
3. Computer
4. Mind
5. Brain
6. language

Question 18

Classical computational theory of cognition contains propositional representations, these are symbolic codes to express the meaning of concepts. What do propositions consist of?

Answer 18

Predicates and arguments (semantic elements)

Question 19

What does a predicate represent? What does a argument represent?

Answer 19

A predicate represents the relationship or the property of the element.
An argument represents the subject and object of the sentence.

Question 20

What are the form of propositions? i.e. what comes first predicates or arguments etc

Answer 20

PREDICATE (argument, argument, argument)

Question 21

Can the same proposition represent different surface forms?

Can propositions be combined?

Answer 21

Yes i.e.
Gave (agent,object, recipient)
john gave mary the book
the book was given to mary by john

And yes, propositions can be combined to make more complex relationships

Question 22

Who came up with the semantic network model of organisation of conceptual knowledge in the semantic memory system?

Answer 22

Collins and Quilian came up with the semantic network model

Question 23

Mental rotation is a form of what kind of representation?

Symbolic or analogue?

why?

Answer 23

Analogue?

because it was measured that the further rotated it was, the longer it took to identity the two images indicating that our mental manipulation of the object was analogue

Question 24

So are all of our cognitive processes analogue?

Answer 24

No. some are abstract symbols and some are analogue (and analogous to what they represent)

Question 25

Classical cognition saw us as performing a sequence of logical operations performed on discrete symbols.
HOWEVER real time cognition is not really like this. Spivey and Dale demonstrated what to support that we are constantly tracking and changing our processing?

With this, we argue that cognition is best analysed as a continuously dynamic biological process, not as a staccato series of abstract computer like symbols

Answer 25

Continuous online experimental measures such as mouse and eye tracking.

With these measures it was possible to see that mental activity is being conducted in between those seemingly discrete thoughts

Question 26

What are some other challenges to classical cognition?
Hint: It came out of MIT by professor Rodney Brooks

Another hint, these can be coupled with dynamic cognition

Answer 26

Situated and embodied cognition.
A principle aim of a situated agent is to take action appropriate to its circumstances and goals and cognition is merely one resource among many in service of this object.

Embodied cognition is the theory that many features of cognition, whether human or otherwise, are shaped by aspects of the entire body of the organism.

The traditional cognition approach assumes that perception and motor systems are merely peripheral input and output devices.[33] However, embodied cognition posits that the mind and body interact ‘on the fly’ as a single entity.

Question 27

Leonardo attempted to represent that cognition was also based on social interactions and emotions. This cognitive insight shows that it is easy to imagine many other species managing goals, perceiving and categorizing the environment, generating simple inferences about what will happen next and so on. Understanding that this was complex, what did Brooks look to do with his mobots?

Answer 27

Simplify the process and understand how the simple processes are formed and built upon from basic abilities

Question 28

What is the strongest criticism against classical cognition?

Hint: Do we know symbols from birth?

Answer 28

Symbol grounding. Abstract conceptual knowledge must be grounded in our perceptions and interactions with the world and knowledge built upon

Cognition must be grounded in developmental, bodily and social interactions

The dynamic, embodied, situated approach to cognition provides some solutions to this

Question 29

Just like symbolic language has its foundation iconic and indexical language, what does symbolic representatiion have its foundation in?

Answer 29

Similar to language structure, symbolic representations are grounded in sensorimotor representations and mental imagery (visual spatial) representations

Question 30

Is classical cognition compatible with dynamic, embodied and situational cognition?

Answer 30

It can be! we can posses semantic networks that have their grounding in more basic dynamic, embodied and situated experiences