The course of Introduction to Cognitive Sciences is part of the program in Communication Studies (Bachelor’s degree course) and it is included among the complementary training activities. The course aims to provide students with a historical, conceptual and methodological introduction to cognitive science. This is the study of the mind through the synthesis of contributions coming from research fields such as philosophy, artificial intelligence, linguistics, neuroscience, psychology and social sciences.
After completing the course of Introduction to Cognitive Science the student should:
- know the diversity of viewpoints, the controversies and the areas of nascent consensus in the field of cognitive science;
- appreciate the contribution of each of the constituent disciplines;
- know multiple definitions of the foundational concepts of computation and representation and be able to discuss them from multiple points of view;
- have an overview of how perception, memory, language, motor control, and so forth come together to produce behavior.
teacher profile teaching materials
* lecture content
* materials provided by the lecturer
For those non attending:
* (selected chapters from) Bermúdez, J. L. (2022). Cognitive science: An introduction to the science of the mind, IV edition. Cambridge University Press.
Programme
The course will first provide a historical and conceptual overview of the research program known as “cognitive science,” presenting its ontological (what are the objects of cognitive science?) and epistemological (how can we acquire knowledge about cognition? ) while tracing three phases of its history: the “prehistory” (the birth of psychology and the emergence of behaviorism, up to the 1950s); the birth and blossoming of classical cognitive science (c. 1956-1990); and the vertical (toward the brain) and horizontal (toward the world; 1990 to the present) expansions.Core Documentation
For those attending:* lecture content
* materials provided by the lecturer
For those non attending:
* (selected chapters from) Bermúdez, J. L. (2022). Cognitive science: An introduction to the science of the mind, IV edition. Cambridge University Press.
Reference Bibliography
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cognitive-science/Attendance
Attendance is optional, but recommended.Type of evaluation
The final test will consist of a test with 20 multiple-choice questions, from which to choose 1 out of 4 options, and 2 open-ended questions.