Lecture 02 |

● Agenda
○ What is Cogsci?
○ Central hypothesis in Cogsci
○ 2 main approaches in Cogsci
○ Topics covered in Chapter 1
● What is Cogsci?
○ The scientific interdisciplinary study of the mind
■ Takes in 6 academic disciplines
● Psych, neurosci, philosophy, compsci, linguistics, anthropology
■ Seeking to understand aspects making up mind
● Memory, ability to encode/retrieve info, language,
consciousness, recall past/focus on future/etc., human
intelligence, can perceive/interpret environment
● What makes us human
○ Uses scientific method and other methodologies
■ Forming hypothesis, gathering data, forming conclusion, going back,
revising, etc.
○ Encompasses multiple diverse disciplines
○ Levels of Cognitive Science (Concentrations)
● 2 Main Approaches
○ Central Hypothesis
■ CRUM
● Thinking can best be understood in terms of representational
structures in the mind and computational procedures that
operate on those structures (Thagard)
○ Based on the analogy that the mind is an information
processor → computer
○ There are mental representations in the mind and in
order for us to act out need computational procedures
that produce thinking/actions
● Hypothesis → thinking is performed by computations operating
on representations
● Our minds think in…
○ Concepts → schemas
○ Propositions → declarative knowledge
○ Rules → procedural knowledge
○ Analogies → reasoning, problem solving, decision
making
○ Images → visual imagery
○ **majority of our thoughts are in words
■ Concepts
● Basic structure in cognition
 ● Intertwined with categories
○ Concepts are formed through categorization
○ Concepts allow us to recognize members of a category
■ Propositions
● Statements about the world that can be illustrated with
sentences
○ Captures basic meaning of complex idea
○ Can specify all of possible relationships between
concepts (hence more representational power than
concepts)
● I.e. Mary has black hair
■ Rules
● Specify the relationships between propositions
○ I.e. if it is raining, then I will bring my umbrella
● Are if-then structures
● Rule-based cognitive systems: (models - simulation of how
brain works)
○ SOAR (Newell, 1990, 1993)
■ Production memory (form of rule-based memory)
● Working memory, Chunking - increase info
in working memory, etc.
■ First model
○ ACT-R (Andea rson, 1983, 1993)
■ Analogy
● 4 stages of analogical reasoning
○ Comprehension of target problem
○ Remembering a similar source problem for which a
solution is already known
○ Source and target are compared and mapped
○ Source problem is adapted to produce a solution to the
target problem
● Novel situations need not apply!
● **taking something we’re familiar with and mapping it to
something abstract
○ Target (i.e. love) → Source (i.e. journey, pizza)
■ Mapping target to aspect of source
○ Way to understand abstractness by using something
that’s concrete
■ Images
● Visual images complement verbal representations but don’t
replace them
● Computational procedures
○ Inspect, find zoom, rotate, transform
 ■ Neurological Plausibility
● Where represented in the brain?
○ Concepts → basal ganglia, prefrontal cortex
○ Propositions → Left hemisphere
○ Rules → Basal ganglia, prefrontal cortex
○ Analogy → Left prefrontal cortex
○ Images → Occipital lobe
● Topics covered in Chapter 1
○ Phrenology
■ Greek: “phren” (mind) + “logos” (science)
● Pseudoscience
■ Franz Gall
● Studying bumps/ridges of one’s skull to interpret one’s
characteristics and abilities
● 27 “brain organs”
● Localization is important
■ Led up to localization of function
● Brain has different areas where certain areas correlate to certain
functions
■ Neuroscience → brain is organ of the mind
○ Localization of Function
■ Breaks down for more complex functions like intelligence, etc. but
works for more simpler functions where there is localization
■ Wilder Penfield
● Used electrical probe to probe the sensory area of the brain
■ Karl Lashley
● Localization of memory (n-gram? Of the brain)
● Used electrical probes on rats
○ Learned that by removing parts of the cortices, memory
doesn’t really get affected
■ Case Study: Phineas Gage
● Rod pierced through brain & survived but had personality
change
● Dr. Edward H. Williams → first physician to attend to him
○ Introspection
■ “looking inwards”
Lecture 03 | Neuroscience Approach
● Phrenology - brain function correlates to location
● Intelligence is context dependent
● General consenus
○ 50/50 nature + nurture affecting intelligence
● Neuroscience Approach
○ Cognitive neuroscience
■ Studies structures and processes underlying cognitive funtion
○ Central nervous system - Made up of brain and spinal cord
■ Four lobes:
● Frontal - personality, rational thinking, executive functions
(plan, make future decisions)
● Back - Visual system
● Temporal - memory, information processing
● Top - bodily/spatial recognition
○ Neuron: a cell within CNS
■ Uses electrical impulses to communicate with each other, axon
potentials
■ Dendrites collect:
● EPSPs (positive)
● IPSPs (negative)
● Funnels them down to the axon
■ Excitatory
■ Inhibitory (GABA)
■ Axon hillock - calculator of the cell, calculates all of the EPSPs and
IPSPs
■ Myelin - rubbery covering of the axon
● Myelinated → faster speed (400 mph)
○ Reacting fast to touching hot stove
● Unmyelinated → slower (1-2 mph)
○ Slow adjustment to homeostasis
● Purpose? Energy-wise, super expensive; allows variability of the
messages
■ Synapse
● Space in which neuron A (axon terminal) can talk to neuron B
(dedrites)
○ Intracellular recording, extracellular recording
■ Using electrode to record → action potential
■ Potassium and sodium
■ Resting → ~-70mv
■ Excited → -55mv; initiation of action potential
● Sodium flushes into cell, makes more positive
● Potassium flushes out
 ■ All or nothing → once hits that number, will complete potential
■ No energy is lost as it travels down the axon
● Cerebellum
○ Fine motor movements
○ Certain types of neuron located in the cerebellum
● Localized vs. Distributed representations
○ How localized is a mental representation?
■ To cellular level? (grandmother cell)
● Particular cell vs. concept
○ How localized is localized?
○ How does the brain instantly translate varied and abstract visual images into a
single and consistently recognizable concept?
■ Can we find a grandmother cell in the brain that we can localize using
single-cell electrodes?
● Research - looked at hippocampus
○ Showed images and measured action potential, more
action potential/spikes, more it sensitive to image
● Concluded that there is a grandmother cell
○ Neurons that fired for Halle Berry didn’t fire with other
people
■ Problem
● Only showed celebrities, didn’t place electrodes in other regions
→ maybe part of another network
○ ** makes sense for concepts to be distributed throughout brain, so if there’s
damage to one part of the brain, won’t be completely affected?
● Neuroscience methods
○ Brain damage techniques:
■ Case study method
■ Lesion studies
● damaging/removing parts of the brain to reverse engineer their
function (directly)
○ Brain recording techniques
■ Recording electrical activity (with electrodes…?)
■ Single-cell recording
■ Multiple-unit recording
● Recording multiple units of cells
■ Non-evasive
● EEG (recording)
○ Measures gross electrical activity of the entire brain
○ An EEG recording in response to the presentation of a
stimulus is an event related potential (ERP)
○ Different brain waves that illustrate different stages
■ Can either stimulate or record
 ■ Brain imaging - structural imaging techniques
● Structural imaging techniques
○ CAT - brain anomalies, etc.
○ MRI
■ Soft tissue structure is measured by alignment of
protons within a powerful magnet
● Functional imaging - moment to moment
○ PET - invasive (requires injection of radioactive isotope)
■ Measures blood flow (not neural activity)
■ Poor temporal resolution
● Due to isotope
○ fMRI - highly sensitive to motion
■ Version that shows changes in brain activity over
time
■ Measures oxygenated blood
■ Compared to PET scans, better than temporal
resolution because of 1-4 second (vs. ~30 sec.)
○ Blood flow/oxygenated blood are precursors to neural activity
○ Both have good spatial resolution
■ Terminologies
● Temporal resolution
○ Accuracy with which one can measure when an event is
occuring
● Spatial resolution
○ Accuracy with which one can measure where an event is
occurring
● Invasiveness - where equipment is located internally/externally
● Electrical Stimulation
○ In this procedure neurons are electrically stimulated and the resulting
behavior studied
○ Can place electrodes deep within the brain
○ DBS - deep brain stimulation
■ Parkinson patients treatment
● Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation
○ Noninvasive method to excite neurons in the brain
■ Weak electric currents are induced in the tissue by rapidly changing
magnetic fields (electromagnetic induction)
○ Can disable certain neurons from reaching AP
● Graph
○ X - timing
○ Y- spatial resolution
○ single-cell/multi-cell recording has best resolution
■ But it’s highly invasive
 Lecture 04 | Neuroscience Approach
● Recap:
○ More wrinkles on brain → better because more surface area
■ Gyruses, etc.
○ Anatomy of synapse (exocytosis)
○ The Action Potential
■ Different chemical partners that influence overall membrane potential
and how they talk to neuron next to it
○ MEG “Squids”
■ Records magnetic fields produced by electrical currents to map brain
■ Poor spatial resolution, good temporal resolution
● Agenda
○ “Neglected step child” of CNS
○ Differences in Einstein’s Brain
○ Debunking Pop Psychology
○ Organization of Brain

“Neglected Step-Child” of CNS

● What is Crum?
○ Hypothesis:
■ Thinking is performed by computations operating on representations
● Hebbian Learning
○ Understand how neurons contributed to psychological processes such as
learning
○ When an axon of cell A is near enough to excite cell B and repeatedly or
persistently takes part in firing it, some growth process or metabolic change
takes place in one or both cells such that A’s efficiency, as well as one of the
cells firing B, is increased
■ When 2 neurons fire together, they eventually wire together (p. 101)
○ Question: how to maximize learning?
■ No shortcut, need persistent repetition (after which, neurons will form a
physical connection - even observable)
● Eric Kandel
○ Provided evidence for involvement of Hebbian learning mechanisms at
synapses in sea slugs (Aplysia californica)
■ Slugs have large neurons that can be studied under microscope
■ Studied classical conditioning, induced learning through electrical
probes and retracting gills
● Operant conditioning reinforces arbitrary behavior, classical
conditioning reinforces specific behavior
○ Discovered that physical connection was formed when learning happens
○ Helped support Hebb’s theory on learning
● Short term memory vs. Long term memory
 ● Glial Cells
○ “Glia” = glue
○ Initially just thought to hold the cell together like glue
○ Make up 90% of the brain
○ Types of Glial (within CNS)
■ Oligodendroglia
● Provide insulation (myelin) to neurons
● Make up about 76%
■ Astrocyte
● Star-shaped cells that provide physical and nutritional support
for neurons
○ “Motherly” cell of NS
● 17%
■ Microglia
● Digest parts of dead neurons so that cells can continue to talk
to each other (when cells stop talking to each other → cell
atrophy (death))
○ “Janitorial” cell of NS
● Without, results in neurodegenerative diseases such as
Parkinson’s and Alzheimer's
● 7%

Differences in Einstein’s Brain

● Found to contain more glial cells
● More connections in corpus callosum
○ Highway that bridges left and right hemisphere
○ Allows inter-hemispheric communication
● Large right parietal region of the brain
○ For spatial/numerical processing/imagination
○ Thought in images more so than language

Debunking Pop Psychology

● Use both sides of the brain
● Don’t just use 10% of the brain
○ I.e. Lucy
Organization of the Brain
● Left visual field → right side of the brain
● Right visual field → left hemisphere (processing language)
○ **visual field refers to the left/right side of each eyeball (not just entire left or
right eyeball)
● Roger Sperry’s Split-Brain Patients
○ Corpus callosotomy - removal of partially or all of the corpus callosum
 ■ Once removed, behaved the same, same personality but in a laboratory
setting, were able to pick out certain differences
■ Two hemispheres stop talking to one another
● Allowed us to understand that each hemisphere has own
functionality
○ Left vs. Right Hemispheric Functions
■ Left - language
● Analytic thought, logia, language, science/math
■ Right - spatial processing
● Holistic thought, intuition, creativity, art/music
○ Each hemisphere has own separate/private sensations/perceptions/
concepts/impulses, etc.
Body Maps
● Wilder Penfield
○ Mapped out homunculus in the brain,
■ Motor cortex
● Planning control, executing movements
■ Somatosensory cortex
● Touch, temperature, pain, proprioception (knowing where body is
in space)
○ Body maps → larger the body part, more sensitive it is
■ Experiences shape how our body maps are represented (i.e. phantom
limb sensations)
■ Body maps are in transition via neuroplasticity
○ Phantom Limb Sensations
■ “Pain can sometimes be a sensation of the mind”
■ Still feel pain even though lack limb because lack of neurofeedback to
the brain

Neural Correlates of Category Specific Knowledge (p. 149)

● Are there different parts of the brain that allows us to perceive/understand
categories?
● Naming effects of animals vs. tools
○ 16 healthy participants
■ Naming line drawings (animal vs. nonsense object)
● Wanted to tease apart where category specific part of the brain
is, rather than color/texture
■ Monitored by PET (not sensitive to motion)
■ Both sides activated + Broca’s
● Only Tools → left premotor area
○ Use tools, motor functions (thinking about using tools)
● Animal → only back side for visual processing
● Temporal - object recognition
● Summary
○ Distinct neural activation patterns evident in recognition of animals/tools
○ Agrees with prev. Lit. on nature of lesions associated with selective
impairments
○ Supports a distributed (vs. localized) neural network
 Lecture 05:
● According to CRUM, our minds think in…
○ Concepts - schemas
○ Propositions - declarative knowledge
○ Rules - procedural knowledge
○ Analogies - reasoning, problem-solving, decision making
○ Images - visual imagery
● Aphantasia
○ one does not possess a functioning mind's eye and cannot voluntarily
visualize imagery
● Agenda
○ Visual system
○ Key players
○ Cognitive disorders
○ In-class activity
Visual system
● David Marr
○ Model of vision
■ Contribution to vision science
○ Levels of analysis
■ Contribution to cognitive
○ How are we to think about cognitive systems?
○ Marr’s three levels
■ Computational theory
● The functional goal of the visual system is to determine the
shape of objects in the world
● What does the system do? Goal?
■ Representation and algorithm
● How does the system do what it does?
■ Hardware implementation
● How is the system realized?
● Neurons, somehow.
■ Marr’s model of vision
● See something in the world that is 3D but it’s projected to the
back of the retina as 2D
● Image → primal sketch (based on feature extractions, sketch?,
based on edges, etc.) → 2.5D sketch (textures, depth, shading)
→ 3D sketch (scene visualized in continuous 2D map)
● Visual has a critical period
○ Critical period → a period during someone's development in which a particular
skill or characteristic is believed to be most readily acquired.
○ Can use eyes as a window to the brain
■ Frontal-temporal dementia (personality/memory? affected)
 ● TDP-43 + progranulin → proteins that help scientists predict
whether someone will acquire this neurogenerative disorder later in
life
● Just by visiting optometrist
○ How we perceive the world might not always be reality
● Retinotopic Organization
○ Primary visual cortex = V1 region of the brain = striate cortex
○ What we see → thalamus → LGN (within thalamus)
○ Thalamus - relay station of the brain
■ All senses needs to go here before getting further processed
■ Contains LGN (lateral geneculate nucleus)
● Used to parse out image that you see
● Early stage parser
○ Staining on the LGN
● Three types of cells
● Six layers → where the cells are located
■ P-type ganglion cells (parvocellular)
● Detects shape
● Layers 4, 5, 6
■ M-type ganglion cells (magnocellular)
● Motion
● Layers 1-2
■ NonM-NonP ganglion cells (Koniocellular)
● Color
● In between each of the 6 layers of the LGN
● Hubel & Weisel (p. 106)
○ Discovered simple and complex cells in visual cortex
○ There are feature detectors that make up visual system
○ Simple Cells
■ Orientation detectors
○ Complex cells
■ Directional sensitivity
● Left to right (more sensitive to the cell moving in the opposite
direction), right to left
● Extrastriate Cortex
○ V2: cells are tuned to simple properties such as oriengation, spatial frequency,
and color
○ V3: dorsal vs. ventral V3
○ V4 is tuned for oriengation spatial frequency and color (like V1)
■ Tuned for object features of intermediate complexity, like simple
geometric shapes
○ V5 (mT)
 ■ Perception of motion, the integration of local motion signals into global
percepts and the guidance of some eye movements
■ Our ability to perceive motion
● Visual Pathways
○ Dorsal pathway (“where” information)
■ Akinetopsia
● Motion blindness
● Unable to perceive motion, see very little motion
○ Can’t see transition of motions moving from one place to
another
● Highly anxious
● Train brain to follow auditory processing than visual (listen)
■ Optic ataxia
● Deficit in visually guided reaching
● Uncoordinated way of doing things, lack of sequence in
executing
○ Primary visual cortex
○ Ventral pathway (“what” information)
■ If legion → results in cognitive disorders
● The ventral stream
○ Achromatopsia → color-blindness of the brain
■ World as black/white/grey
○ Prosopagnosia → face blindness
■ Can’t view someone’s face and associate them
with who they are
■ Temporal region of the brain → fusiform gyrus
(used for detecting faces)
■ Affects 2.5% of population
■ Use other ways to recognize people (i.e. hairstyles)
■ Faces are unique compared to other categories
● 90% of the story… Superior colliculus
○ Peripheral processing
○ Unconscious visual
● Our perceptions don’t reflect reality
● Sometimes things appear to move without actually moving