Weill Medical College of Cornell University · Courses
COGST
90 courses with the subject COGST, each shown exactly as we captured it from the college's catalog, with every element we hold. Where the wording looks broken, that is our reading of the catalog, not the college's text.
COGST 1101Introduction to Cognitive Science3
This course provides an introduction to the science of the mind. Everyone knows what it's like to think and perceive, but this subjective experience provides little insight into how minds emerge from physical entities like brains. To address this issue, cognitive science integrates work from at least five disciplines: Psychology, Neuroscience, Computer Science, Linguistics, and Philosophy. This course introduces students to the insights these disciplines offer into the workings of the mind by exploring visual perception, attention, memory, learning, problem solving, language, and consciousness.
This section is highly recommended for students who are interested in learning about the topics covered in the main course through writing and discussion.
Overview of the science of language, especially its theoretical underpinnings, methods, and major findings. Areas covered include: the relation between sound and meaning in human languages, social variation in language, language change over time, universals of language, and the mental representation of linguistic knowledge. Students are introduced to a wide variety of language phenomena, drawn not only from languages resembling English, but also from many that appear to be quite unlike English, such as those native to the Americas, Africa, Asia, Australia, and the South Pacific.
This course provides a broad overview of design applied various disciplines, scales, and problem contexts, and how design can offer an alternative, and often more human-centered perspective towards solving the problems around us. With a focus on designing with a human-centered mindset in this age of technology, we will examine topics on the role of design in wearable computing, virtual and tangible interfaces, robotics to biology. We will also apply the lens of design to issues on sustainability, healthy environments, diversity and inclusion, and designing for social good. Each week, through case studies and familiar examples, DEA 1110 explores how designing is part of every discipline.
COGST 1112Change-making: Designing Healthy and Hospitable Environments3
Designing Human-Centered, Healthy and Hospitable Environments is a three-week course examining design innovations and some impacts on management/operations in hospitality, communication, business, healthcare, and senior housing. During this course students will learn how design impacts organizations and every aspect of daily life. Using case studies, familiar examples, and interactions with a variety of leaders from design, healthcare and hospitality fields, students will engage with design thinking and explore new career pathways.
This course is for anyone who listens to music or plays music and wonders what's happening in your brain that makes you feel the way you do. Starting with the music each of you knows and loves-the soundtrack to your life-we'll tackle questions like: what is the relationship between speech and music? Do animals have music, too? How does the brain process aspects of music, including rhythm, melody, harmony, and form? Why does some music trigger an emotional response? What does it mean to say that music is an embodied behavioral act? What is the relationship between music and memory? Through lectures, discussions, experiments, compositions, recording technologies, student presentations/performances and writing assignments we'll explore how/why you've chosen the particular tunes on the soundtrack of your life, and how your brain processes musical thoughts and experiences. (MUSIC-HC)
COGST 1500Introduction to Environmental Psychology3
Environmental Psychology is an interdisciplinary field concerned with how the physical environment and human behavior interrelate. Most of the course focuses on how residential environments and urban and natural settings affect human health and well-being. Students also examine how human attitudes and behaviors affect environmental quality. Issues of environmental justice and culture are included throughout. Hands-on projects plus exams.
COGST 1501Introduction to Environmental Psychology - Writing in the Major1
Environmental Psychology examines how the physical environment and human behavior interrelate. We focus on how the physical environment affects human health and well-being as well as how human attitudes and behaviors affect environmental quality. The 1501 section examines topics in more depth and provides writing and presentation skills while taking DEA 1500 concurrently.
This course provides a non-programming introduction to the key ideas of Artificial Intelligence (AI), intended for students without significant technical background in computing. Students will leave with an understanding of the core technical ideas that power modern AI, in such areas as machine learning and neural networks, computer vision, natural processing, game AI, and robotics, as well as our evolving appreciation of the societal implications of work in this area.
Basic perceptual concepts and phenomena are discussed with emphasis on stimulus variables and sensory mechanisms. All sensory modalities are considered, vision is discussed in detail.
A comprehensive introduction to current thinking and research in developmental psychology that approaches topics from both psychobiological and cognitive perspectives. We will use a comparative approach to assess principles of development change. The course focuses on the development of perception, action, cognition, language, and social understanding in infancy and early childhood.
The most significant problems that humans face - climate change, sectarian violence, political polarization, the spread of misinformation, etc. - are problems that we've made for ourselves. In this lecture course, we will probe the depths of human stupidity by exploring research on the nature of human reasoning, decision-making, beliefs, and more.
Provides an introduction to the psychology of language. The purpose of the course is to introduce students to the scientific study of psycholinguistic phenomena. Covers a broad range of topics from psycholinguistics, including the origin of language, the different components of language (phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics), processes involved in reading, computational modeling of language processes, the acquisition of language (both under normal and special circumstances), and the brain bases of language.
COGST 2200The Human Brain and Mind: An Introduction to Cognitive Neuroscience3
At the turn of the 21st century the age of Embodied Cognition dawned: a reconsideration of relationships between body, brain, and mind. Researchers in philosophy, psychology, linguistics, and cognitive neuroscience challenged the 20th-century dogma that the mind is like a digital computer, and can be studied independently of the body, brain, and world. Researchers turned their attention to the role that bodily experience plays in thinking and learning, and the roles neural systems for perception and action play in cognition. This course views the field of Cognitive Neuroscience through the lens of Embodied Cognition research, and evaluates the extent to which embodiment may be passing fad, a useful shift in perspective, or a revolutionary new way of building theories about brain and mind.
Introduction to psychology from a biological perspective, which focuses on brain mechanisms of behavior. Topics include the structure and function of the nervous system, physiological approaches to understanding behavior, hormones and behavior, biological bases of sensation and perception, learning and memory, cognition, emotion, and communication.
This course will provide you with an overview of how children's cognition develops. We will investigate how cognition develops from many different perspectives. The main perspectives will be biological, genetic-epistemological, socio-cultural, and information-processing ones. This course also will help you to understand how cognition influences other areas of development, including intelligence, development of the self, language, and social development. Finally, different populations will be considered to better understand the roles not only of nature and nurture, but also of how the two interact to influence development.
This course will survey a number of famous paradoxes about the nature of time, identity, logic, science, belief, decision, and value. Some of these paradoxes have widely accepted answers, but many do not. Paradoxes include (but are not limited to) Zeno's paradoxes, the sorites paradox, the liar paradox, paradoxes of probability, the doomsday and simulation arguments, Newcomb's puzzle, and the trolley problem. These paradoxes will be used as a stepping stone to deeper philosophical questions. Some of the questions we'll tackle include: Is time real? What is a person? Is infinity coherent? How is science possible? What is knowledge? What is it to be rational? What should we do? Does God exist? And finally, why is death bad?
Covers sentential languages, the truth-functional connectives, and their logic; first-order languages, the quantifiers every and some, and their logic.
There is no getting away from the brain. Everything a person does, creates, thinks, feels, believes, and experiences (including making sense of course descriptions!) depends on it. But, how? How could a three pound mass of cells and the body in which it exists see, decide, or remember, let alone navigate a busy city, play soccer, or write poetry? This course will provide students with the foundational concepts and tools they will need to begin to address these questions, providing insight into how modern cognitive neuroscientists understand the brain, how it works, and how the mind emerges from all of this. Students will learn core principles of modern human cognitive neuroscience (e.g., brain structure versus function, connectivity, reuse) and their application to cognition (e.g., action, perception, attention, memory, emotion, language, cognitive control, and consciousness). Topics in neuroanatomy, human neuroscience methods, and neurological conditions will also be covered.
This course is an introduction to the moral mind from philosophical and psychological perspectives. Many traditional philosophical problems about morality are being illuminated by current work in cognitive science. In this course, we will look at several of these problems. In each case, we will begin with a presentation of the philosophical problems, and we will proceed to examine recent empirical work on the topic. A wide range of topics will be covered, including moral judgment, agency, the self, and punishment.
Throughout history, metaphors drawn from technology of the time have been proposed to understand how the mind works. While Locke likened the newborn's mind to a blank slate, Freud compared the mind to hydraulic and electro-magnetic systems. More recently, many have endorsed Turing's proposal that the mind is a computer. Why is this idea attractive and what exactly is a computer? Is it at all plausible that the cells of your brain are computing? Could a computer ever really have a mind, beliefs, emotions and conscious experiences? What are these mysterious things anyway? Could a machine ever count as a person and make choices based on its own free will? Is it really so clear that we have this kind of free will?
COGST 2801Game Theory: For Economics, Politics, Knowledge and Rationality3
The course is an introduction to game theory, for students from different disciplinary backgrounds and interests. Game theory, as a discipline, is barely one hundred years old. From its origins in the analysis of parlor games, it has now become part of real life, including diplomacy and corporate strategy. Its rapid rise to prominence, with implications for various disciplines, from economics and computer science, to politics, philosophy and evolutionary biology has few parallels. This course is designed as a primer for students who have no background in game theory but have an interest in deductive reasoning.
This course will expose students to a wide range of commonly used methods in neuroscience research (theory behind the method, common applications of the method, how data are collected and analyzed using the method, strengths and weaknesses of the method, etc.). The goal for students is that by the end of the course, they will be able to read and critically evaluate primary literature from many areas of neuroscience and to understand how the methods used in the study helped the researchers come to their conclusions. This course will explore methods including (but not necessarily limited to): microscopy, methods to visualize neuronal structure and function, electrophysiology, methods to measure neural activity, methods to measure and manipulate expression of genes/mRNA/protein, machine learning methods for behavioral analysis, and whole brain imaging methods in humans and non-human animals.
Morality seems to be a universal feature of humananity. People across time, place and culture have a strong sense that certain things are right or wrong, that some people are good and some are evil. Where does this moral sense come from? Why do some people disagree so strongly about what is right and wrong? How did evolution shape this moral sense? How does it develop? Are there any universal aspects of moral psychology? The goals of this course are to offer an introduction to the psychological science behind what humans know as morality.
This course states and motivates the observation that cognition is fundamentally a computational process and explores the implications of this idea. Students are introduced to a variety of conceptual tools for thinking about cognitive information processing, including statistical learning from experience and the use of patterns distilled from past experience in guiding future actions. They learn to apply these tools to gain understanding of perception, memory, motor control, language, action planning, problem solving, decision making, reasoning, intelligence, and creativity.Applications of the newly acquired computational cognitive science concepts and tools to ecological issues - in particular, the accelerating climate catastrophe - are discussed in this course on a regular basis.
In this course, we will explore how language interacts with power: how does language reflect, shape, threaten and reinforce power relations in human society? From childhood through old age, language is an ever-present source of symbolic power. We use it to develop and express our identities, to position ourselves in hierarchies, and to establish group membership and exclusion throughout life. Language shapes ourselves, our families, our social lives, and our institutions. Understanding how people use language can provide a window into hidden aspects of both individuals and the social world.
This course will survey ethical problems that arise in business and other organizational contexts, and develop theoretical resources to help address them.
As it is with much of scientific discovery, a poet, William Wordsworth, best explained development with a simple phrase: The Child is father of the Man (person). In this course, we explore how our adult selves come to be through the lens of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience. You will learn about current perspectives and controversies, the latest understanding of the development of multiple physiological systems (e.g., vision, perception, language, etc.) as interactions between molecular mechanisms, experience, and neural plasticity. Weekly short reaction papers, class exercises, and midterm and final projects, will all be geared towards developing a personal appreciation for the subject as well as an understanding of the issues in developmental cognitive neuroscience as a field.
This course is designed to provide an introduction to experimental research on the neural basis of behavior and cognition in animals. Topics will include basic neuroanatomy and neurophysiology, neural and hormonal control of behavior, and learning and memory. Students will gain extensive hands on experience with a variety of laboratory techniques, and animal species, and behaviors.
This course will focus on the complex interactions between neurochemicals and their receptors (pharmacodynamics) that drive human behavior. It will provide an overview of the principles of neurotransmission of chemicals as well as how alterations in their normal function can manifest in pathological behavior/mind processes.
COGST 3300Introduction to Computational Neuroscience4
Covers the basic ideas and techniques involved in computational neuroscience. Surveys diverse topics, including neural dynamics of small networks of cells, neural coding, learning in neural networks and in brain structures, memory models of the hippocampus, sensory coding, and others.
COGST 3302Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology4
This course is an introduction to both phonetics (the study of the physical properties of the sounds of human language) and phonology (the organization and patterning of those sounds). The first part of the course focuses on the main areas of phonetics: articulation, acoustics, and perception. Students acquire basic skills, such as production and perception of speech sounds, transcription using the International Phonetic Alphabet, and instrumental analysis of speech. In the second part of the course students are introduced to key concepts in phonology, including rules, representations, and analysis of sound patterns. Throughout the course aspects of the sound systems of a wide range of world languages are studied.
A mathematical study of the formal languages of standard first-order propositional and predicate logic, including their syntax, semantics, and deductive systems. The basic apparatus of model theory will be presented. Various formal results will be established, most importantly soundness and completeness.
Concepts are properties of individuals that approximately correspond to word meanings. They play a role in Linguistics, Cognitive Science, Philosophy, and Artificial Intelligence. The course looks at phenomena and accounts of concepts from these different perspectives. Looks at problems in the semantic analysis of natural languages, critically examining work in linguistics and philosophy on particular topics of current interest. Topics vary. Not taught every year.
COGST 3420Human Perception: Application to Computer Graphics, Art, and Visual Display3
Our present technology allows us to transmit and display information through a variety of media. To make the most of these media channels, it is important to consider the limitations and abilities of the human observer. The course considers a number of applied aspects of human perception with an emphasis on the display of visual information. Topics include three-dimensional display systems, color theory, spatial and temporal limitations of the visual systems, attempts at subliminal communication, and visual effects in film and television.
If humanistic research consists of finding consensus positions, articulating simple expressions, summarizing texts, standardizing identities, or doing passable translations, then this it: we arrived at the place where artificial intelligence is able to accomplish these missions to a convincing degree. However, we erred if we ever thought such tasks would constitute the humanities. Combining theory and practice, this interdisciplinary class aims to show what AI can generate, and capture… and what the humanities can create, and think. A critique of AI is essential, but it needs to be both scientifically sound and scholarly robust. Our course will look at key issues about language, cognition, textuality, or creativity, while taking advantage of ongoing research and editorial projects hosted by the Humanities Lab.
COGST 3530Risk and Opportunity Factors in Childhood and Adolescence3
This advanced active-learning class will focus on theories and empirical findings concerning risky decision making in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. The material will be scholarly and intellectually challenging. We will engage active-learning strategies such as problem-based learning, case studies, group projects, and extended discussions. The course draws on multiple disciplines, such as psychology, economics, neuroscience, and information sciences (e.g., AI). If your main interest is in positive psychology, youth development applications, or social factors such as poverty, there are other excellent courses in Human Development focusing on those topics. Class sessions will consist of lectures covering the theoretical background, key topics and discussion designed to deepen understanding and explore possible real-life applications in law, medicine, and public health.
Is Homo sapiens the only species capable of producing visual art? Nonhuman great apes, especially, seem to be able to draw, paint, and enjoy such works. Our prehistoric ancestors are responsible for the adornment of the Lascaux, Altamira, or Chauvet caves. Our next of kin in the distant past (including Neanderthals) also displayed symbolic activity involving visual (re)presentation. Avant-garde or Aboriginal practices, “outsider art” concurrently challenge how we define the visual realm. Thus, the purpose of this interdisciplinary class is to revisit the contemporary debate on the dawn of art by bringing together research in paleoanthropology and primatology at the interface of aesthetics, cognitive science, and speculative theory. The course could also allow students to participate in related research projects undertaken in the Humanities Lab.
Seminar on the essential features and qualities of culture and how it impacts human endeavors. Because understanding culture necessarily requires interaction across multiple areas of study, this interdisciplinary seminar will be based on discussions of recent research at the interface of cognitive science and the humanities. Topics may include: animal cultures, the evolution of language, the symbolic revolution, knowledge acquisitions, play, rituals and the arts.
The course covers basic concepts and recent findings on the psychology of misinformation. In this class, we will ask questions such as: Why do people fall for fake news? What leads people to share misinformation online? What can be done to undermine the spread and influence of misinformation? The course will draw on concepts from across psychology, including social, cognitive, developmental, neuroscience, and clinical. Furthermore, although our focus will be on the underlying psychological processes, the course materials will intersect with other disciplines, including journalism, communication, computer science, political science, and others.
COGST 4230Navigation, Memory, and Context: What Does the Hippocampus Do?3
Although the hippocampus has been the subject of intense scrutiny for nearly 50 years, there remains considerable disagreement about functional contributions the hippocampus makes to learning and memory process. This course will examine the diverse functions attributed to the hippocampus with an eye toward integrating the differing viewpoints in the literature. After a brief historical overview, students will discuss cutting-edge literature on the hippocampal role in spatial navigation, learning, and memory, and context processing.
COGST 4250Translational Research on Decision Making3
Translational Research on Decision Making is a 4000-level course focusing on basic foundations in translational research on decision making across the lifespan. The course will introduce students to the latest research and theory in this area and provide opportunities for hands-on applications of their learning in fields such as law, medicine, public health, behavioral economics, and policy. This course will cover such topics as human subjects protection, working with populations across the lifespan (e.g., children; adolescents; adults), database development, working with external partners and stakeholders (e.g., schools; hospitals), and basic concepts and techniques in decision making. Students in this course will participate in weekly class meetings together and in small groups focused on specific concepts, skills, and findings. During class meetings, we discuss research readings, critique research designs, learn about scientific methods, interpret empirical findings, and discuss alternative designs. Students work closely with each other but also work independently. Students will be provided with opportunities for hands-on application in real-world fields. Students attend a weekly class meeting, read pertinent papers from the primary literature, write reaction reports, integrate material across readings, and work cooperatively to understand and critique concepts, methods, analyses, and findings in the scientific literature.
COGST 4265Translational Research on Memory and Neuroscience3
Translational Research in Memory and Neuroscience is a 4000-level course that is intended to provide students with background in the latest theoretical ideas, empirical findings, and research methods in both the behavioral and neuroscience sides of the contemporary science of human memory. This will prepare students to understand and eventually conduct both supervised and independent research on these topics by studying and writing about the work in recent research articles and by learning some of the design, programming, and analysis tools that are required to conduct such work. Students will receive in-depth exposure to behavioral and neuroscience research on memory through a course that that focuses on mainstream, theory-driven experimentation with normal adult populations and that also focuses on developmental investigations with child, healthy elderly, and neurologically impaired populations. Students will learn about that research together with other students. During weekly class meetings, students will receive instruction and discuss research readings. They will also make formal class presentations, in which they interpret the results in those readings. To demonstrate their understanding, students will write weekly reaction responses about their readings. Weekly readings will come from the primary peer-reviewed scientific literature.
Seminar surveying a cross-section of modern theories, methods, and research pertaining to the origin and evolution of language. Considers evidence from psychology, the cognitive neurosciences, theoretical biology, comparative psychology, and computational modeling of evolutionary processes. Topics for discussion may include: What is special about language? What can we learn from comparative perspectives on neurobiology and behavior? Can apes really learn language? Did language come about through natural selection or cultural evolution?
A seminar series examining current and classical ideas in human sciences and the humanities. Themes vary from semester to semester.Topic: Changes by semester. For the recent and upcoming topics, see the instructor's web page: https://shimon-edelman.github.io
COGST 4331Event Cognition: How Minds, Brains and Bodies Experience Events3
People experience and remember complex and dynamic environments as events. This seminar draws on work from cognitive neuroscience to characterize how people shape experience into events, and how these processes support adaptive behavior. The course will start with discussions of historical and modern perspectives about the relationships between minds, bodies, and experience. We will then cover topics ranging from the perception of motion and causality to social learning and interaction. The primary goals are for you to be able to (1) read and evaluate research in psychology, cognitive science, and neuroscience, and (2) describe and understand the implications of this research for how minds and bodies are adapted to everyday situations.
Offered to students who are currently conducting research or planning to do research in the near future on one of the three topics-memory, self, or emotion. The course examines current data and theories concerning the topics from a variety of perspectives and at multiple levels of analysis, particularly focusing on the interconnections among these fields of inquiry. The scale of observation is viewed as occurring within the person (brain mechanisms, including genetics), at the level of the person (content-goals, beliefs, desires, etc.), and between persons (relationships and group interaction-including culture).
This course will cover the psychology of imagination, possibility, and fiction looking across multiple disciplines including cognitive science, philosophy, neuroscience, and more.
COGST 4420The Psychology and Ethics of Technology3
New technologies are changing our world at a rapid pace. In many cases, the society does not fully understand the impact of technology and is not prepared for the speed of the change that is occurring. This course will explore a few of these new technologies and investigate their effects on the users and on the society at large. The topics that will be explored include face recognition, virtual reality, violence in media, general AI, and the technological singularity. We will look at the ways in which these technologies affect our lives, with a focus on education, entertainment, employment, politics, and the future of humanity.
What is the relationship between what words mean and how they are used? What is part of the grammar and what is a result of general reasoning? Pragmatics is often thought of as the study of how meaning depends on the context of utterance. However, it can be difficult to draw a line between pragmatics and semantics. In this course, we will investigate various topics that walk this line, including varieties of linguistic inference (including entailment and implicature), the pragmatics and compositional semantics of presupposition, anaphora and dynamic semantics, the semantics and pragmatics of focus, indexicals, and speech acts.
This course on the climate crisis acquaints students with the psychological factors underlying ecocide and anthropogenic climate change and the possible avenues for its mitigation, with a particular focus on climate justice and Indigenous knowledges and ways of relating to nature. In parallel with reading and discussing primary literature on these topics, students work on research projects, complementing theory with practice and placing it in the local geopolitical context.
COGST 4477Experimental Methods in Language Sciences4
The class offers an introduction to the experimental methods and data analysis techniques commonly used in linguistics. Topics covered in the course will include basics of experimental design and statistical inference for hypothesis testing, as well as practical training on a variety of experimental paradigms used in syntax and semantics/pragmatics.
This course will give an opportunity to learn how to communicate concepts and knowledge from the psychological sciences. We will examine the challenges associated with science communications, including ways to engage the perspectives of diverse audiences, and evaluation of the effects of the interaction on the audience's knowledge and attitudes. Most of our activities will focus on the development of exhibits for the Sciencenter of Ithaca. We will develop exhibit prototypes, evaluate the public's engagement and learning from them, and use the feedback to refine our prototypes. The goal will be to effectively convey current understanding of psychological processes to the general public, with an emphasis on engaging young children.
An investigation of central topics in the philosophy of art, with an emphasis on issues about the mind. Readings will be drawn from philosophy and psychology.
COGST 4620Research Seminar: Brain Activity and Cognition3
To gain knowledge in empirical research and its role within the broader field of cognitive neuroscience, students will attend a weekly seminar, read and critically evaluate primary research articles, and engage in scholarly activities that support the development of research and analytical skills. We will focus on selected readings examining the neural bases of attention, learning, and emotion. An overarching goal of this seminar is to develop students' ability to critically analyze contemporary theories and empirical findings concerning brain function and cognition. Within a single semester, we will examine and critique foundational and contemporary research related to attention, learning, and emotion. Emphasis will be placed on interpreting primary research articles, evaluating methodological approaches, synthesizing findings across studies, and considering future directions for inquiry. Through seminar discussions, written assignments, and independent scholarly work, students will develop the skills necessary to engage with and contribute to research in cognitive neuroscience. Attendance and active participation in seminar discussions are expected.
This course will explore how perception works and what perception does, with an emphasis on issues in the theory of knowledge, philosophy of art, and social philosophy.
What can contemporary cognitive science teach us about the factors that shaped art, science, and philosophy in antiquity? In this course we will study both ancient and modern theories of mind and learn how to apply modern analytical and empirical methods to deepen our understanding of the ancient world. Featured topics include cognitive linguistics, mental representations, and distributed and social cognition.
COGST 4700Undergraduate Research in Cognitive Science1-4
Experience in planning, conducting, and reporting independent laboratory, field, and/or library research in an interdisciplinary area relevant to Cognitive Science.
Provides a research workshop in which undergraduate students who are engaged in research in a particular area relevant to cognitive science can meet across disciplines to learn and practice the essentials of research using interdisciplinary approaches. In this workshop, students critique and discuss the existing literature in a field of inquiry, individual students present their research designs, methods, and results from their independent research studies, debate the interpretation of their research results, and participate in the generation of new research hypotheses and designs, in a peer group of other undergraduate students involved in related research.
COGST 4720Current Research in Emotion, Cognition, and Brain3
The course will cover advanced topics in research on the emotions from central neural and peripheral physiological perspectives, with an emphasis with how emotions shape different aspects of cognition and behavior.
An investigation of varying topics in the philosophy of language including reference, meaning, the relationship between language and thought, communication, modality, logic and pragmatics.
This course constitutes an introduction to natural language processing (NLP), the goal of which is to enable computers to use human languages as input, output, or both. NLP is at the heart of many of today's most exciting technological achievements, including machine translation, question answering and automatic conversational assistants. The course will introduce core problems and methodologies in NLP, including machine learning, problem design, and evaluation methods.This class satisfies the practicum/project requirement for CS majors. As a consequence, expect each of the roughly four connected programming assignments to take tens of hours, although this time is distributed over multiple weeks; to require writing code to massage raw-ish data into different formats and other accessory functions as well as to implement core algorithms; and to necessitate much independent examination of documentation.
Any moral and religious systems tell us to keep a “pure heart,” and that immoral acts “pollute” our souls. We dislike dirty plays and dirty players in sports, and we keep our children away from dirty movies. We are also motivated to maintain purity in the less metaphorical sense—most cultures have norms about keeping bodies and living spaces clean. We even have an emotion—disgust—that seems especially attuned to certain kinds of dirtiness (such as bodily fluids and rotten food). The concept of purity, then, appears to be a deep aspect of human psychology—from the basic motivation to maintain physical purity, to the metaphors of purity and cleanliness that feature heavily in morality and religion across cultures. In this course we will look at the psychology of purity by reading widely on the topic, including historical, religious, anthropological, and psychological topics that center on purity in both the physical and moral/spiritual sense. Our aim will be to understand how this basic notion of pure/impure or clean/dirty has come to shape our psychology and our culture.
COGST 4842Theories & Practices of Meaning: Literature, Semantics, AI3
What is the “meaning of meaning,” exactly? Are signification, significance, sense, and meaning one and the same? Is “semantics” a sub-branch of linguistics, or what GPT “does,” or a path to poetry? This transdisciplinary research seminar will put to the test vastly different theories—and practices—of meaning, ranging from the display of signification in the verbal arts to the task of philosophical definition, from the technology of the dictionary to that of computerized word embedding, from the interplay between cognition and communication to the scholarly art of reading. Our scope will be broad and comparative, across disciplines, languages, historical periods, and genres. The course could also allow students to participate in related research projects undertaken in the Humanities Lab.
Research methods are the tools that allow psychologists to test the validity of hypotheses. This course provides a survey of the methods used by scientists in personality and social psychology as well as related behavioral sciences to empirically test hypotheses. Specifically, this course will discuss the following topics: (1) philosophy of science; (2) research designs and methods; (3) data collection, analysis, and validity; (4) report writing; and (5) recurrent and emerging trends and issues in the field of research methods and quantitative analysis. The final project consists of writing a research proposal and giving a short oral presentation.
Moral Psychology in Action is an applied psychology course for students who want to make a difference in the world through ethical leadership and positive contributions in organizations, and who are drawn to scholarly work on psychology, ethics, and morality. The course is experiential and takes place mostly outside the classroom through students' individualized partnerships in community organizations, businesses, and institutions. Learning outcomes include enhanced critical reflection, intercultural competence, ethical practice, and the practice of applied moral psychology research methods.
COGST 6020Research in Risk and Rational Decision Making3
This hands-on laboratory course will develop research skills in the context of risk and rational decision making in human development from multiple disciplinary perspectives and with respect to different kinds of decision-making under risk and uncertainty. Topics will depend on student interests but may include decisions about war, terrorism, cancer control and prevention (e.g., screening tests), personal behaviors that involve risk (e.g., HIV prevention), and other public health risks (e.g., vaccinations), law enforcement (e.g., use of a weapon), and legal decision making (e.g., jury deliberations). Students will read the research literature, discuss the latest empirical findings and scientific theories of risk and rationality, and engage in group work and peer review to hone their skills. Students will then design research projects and engage in research activities as well as read additional references tailored to their interests.
This course will expose students to a wide range of commonly used methods in neuroscience research (theory behind the method, common applications of the method, how data are collected and analyzed using the method, strengths and weaknesses of the method, etc.). The goal for students is that by the end of the course, they will be able to read and critically evaluate primary literature from many areas of neuroscience and to understand how the methods used in the study helped the researchers come to their conclusions. This course will explore methods including (but not necessarily limited to): microscopy, methods to visualize neuronal structure and function, electrophysiology, methods to neural activity, methods to measure and manipulate expression of genes/mRNA/protein, machine learning methods for behavioral analysis, and whole brain imaging methods in humans and non-human animals.
This seminar surveys the study of how the mind/brain works, drawing primarily from six disciplines: philosophy, psychology, developmental science, neuroscience, linguistics, and computer science. It consists of lectures and discussions of readings by Cornell cognitive science faculty.
This course states and motivates the observation that cognition is fundamentally a computational process and explores the implications of this idea. Students are introduced to a variety of conceptual tools for thinking about cognitive information processing, including statistical learning from experience and the use of patterns distilled from past experience in guiding future actions. They learn to apply these tools to gain understanding of perception, memory, motor control, language, action planning, problem solving, decision making, reasoning, intelligence, and creativity.Applications of the newly acquired computational cognitive science concepts and tools to ecological issues - in particular, the accelerating climate catastrophe - are discussed in this course on a regular basis.
A seminar series examining current and classical ideas in human sciences and the humanities. Themes vary from semester to semester.Topic: Changes by semester. For the recent and upcoming topics, see the instructor's web page: https://shimon-edelman.github.io
Concepts are properties of individuals that approximately correspond to word meanings. They play a role in Linguistics, Cognitive Science, Philosophy, and Artificial Intelligence. The course looks at phenomena and accounts of concepts from these different perspectives. Looks at problems in the semantic analysis of natural languages, critically examining work in linguistics and philosophy on particular topics of current interest. Topics vary. Not taught every year.
COGST 6420Human Perception: Applications to Computer Graphics, Art, and Visual Display3
Our present technology allows us to transmit and display information through a variety of media. To make the most of these media channels, it is important to consider the limitations and abilities of the human observer. The course considers a number of applied aspects of human perception with an emphasis on the display of visual information. Topics include three-dimensional display systems, color theory, spatial and temporal limitations of the visual systems, attempts at subliminal communication, and visual effects in film and television.
What is the relationship between what words mean and how they are used? What is part of the grammar and what is a result of general reasoning? Pragmatics is often thought of as the study of how meaning depends on the context of utterance. However, it can be difficult to draw a line between pragmatics and semantics. In this course, we will investigate various topics that walk this line, including varieties of linguistic inference including entailment, presupposition, and implicature), anaphora, indexicals, and speech acts.
COGST 6477Experimental Methods in Language Sciences4
The class offers an introduction to the experimental methods and data analysis techniques commonly used in linguistics. Topics covered in the course will include basics of experimental design and statistical inference for hypothesis testing, as well as practical training on a variety of experimental paradigms used in syntax and semantics/pragmatics.
An investigation of central topics in the philosophy of art, with an emphasis on issues about the mind. Readings will be drawn from philosophy and psychology.
This course will explore how perception works and what perception does, with an emphasis on issues in the theory of knowledge, philosophy of art, and social philosophy.
An investigation of varying topics in the philosophy of language including reference, meaning, the relationship between language and thought, communication, modality, logic and pragmatics.
COGST 6842Theories & Practices of Meaning: Literature, Semantics, AI3
What is the “meaning of meaning,” exactly? Are signification, significance, sense, and meaning one and the same? Is “semantics” a sub-branch of linguistics, or what GPT “does,” or a path to poetry? This transdisciplinary research seminar will put to the test vastly different theories—and practices—of meaning, ranging from the display of signification in the verbal arts to the task of philosophical definition, from the technology of the dictionary to that of computerized word embedding, from the interplay between cognition and communication to the scholarly art of reading. Our scope will be broad and comparative, across disciplines, languages, historical periods, and genres. The course could also allow students to participate in related research projects undertaken in the Humanities Lab.
Research methods are the tools that allow psychologists to test the validity of hypotheses. This course provides a survey of the methods used by scientists in personality and social psychology as well as related behavioral sciences to empirically test hypotheses. Specifically, this course will discuss the following topics: (1) philosophy of science; (2) research designs and methods; (3) data collection, analysis, and validity; (4) report writing; and (5) recurrent and emerging trends and issues in the field of research methods and quantitative analysis. The final project consists of writing a research proposal and giving a short oral presentation.
One of four introductory courses in cognition and perception. A comprehensive introduction to current thinking and research in developmental psychology that approaches problems from both psychobiological and cognitive perspectives. We will use a comparative approach to assess principles of development change. The course focuses on the development of perception, action, cognition, language, and social understanding in infancy and early childhood.
