COGS 204 - Cognition and Computation

Institution:

Case Western Reserve University

Subject:

Description:

This course explores possible uses of computational technology in the study of cognition. (1) The human or animal mind-supporting brain is not in any technical sense "just" a computer, but it is relevant to stimulate various cognitive phenomena by computation in order to model their formal properties. From perception to conception, images schemas, categories, and meanings found in linguistic semantics and syntax, and from bodily motion to the processes of abstraction, intentional orientation, and spatial navigation, computational modeling can help us understand mental architecture, the interrelations between iconicity and symbolization in mental representations, and the constraints and indeterminacies at work in social cognitive networks (distributed cognition). (2) It also is relevant in this course to analyze the cognitive roles of actual computation as a social and communicational technology, mirroring certain of our mental routines on the screens we interact with and we program to manifest symbolic and iconic behaviors in ever-changing patterns of "Interface" communication, while the underlying systems control our social and technical environment. (3) Recent developments in Cognitive Robotics finally invite for an integration of semantic stimulation and the elaboration and implementation of language-based and motion-based competencies in mobile robots. Computation serves, in this perspective, the construction of a dynamic model of meaning linked to interaction (human-machine, machine-machine, and human to human).

Credits:

3.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.case.edu

Phone Number:

(216) 368-2000

Regional Accreditation:

North Central Association of Colleges and Schools

Calendar System:

Semester

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