Cognitive science is a broad discipline, because human and non-human cognition and intelligence is complicated. Cognitive neuroscience is a sub-discipline that tries to understand the brain by taking it apart and peering inside. We draw from anatomy, physiology and neuroscience, but also from cognitive psychology, since only through links with behavior can we assign a function to a structure.

This particular course emphasizes applications of cognitive neuroscience techniques and findings to your own PhD programs. How can cognitive neuroscience help you in your research and degree programs? In service to these applications, many of the projects in Q551 will involve case-based or problem-based modules that will ask you to apply neuroscience findings to a particular problem.

The course will also include a final paper that gives you the chance to describe one application of cognitive neuroscience to a topic that interests you. This will usually take the form of a research proposal or literature summary/integration.

Resources:

Textbook and readings:

(1) Gazzaniga, M.S., Ivry, R.B., and Mangun, G.R. (2002)  2nd edition
Cognitive Neuroscience: The Biology of the Mind.   New York: W.W. Norton.

(2) Assigned readings are announced each week.  Generally, pdf files or some other electronic file will be posted on the webpage.  You should print these papers yourself and bring them to class with you.

General Resources

Unit 1

• Week 1 Lecture Notes
• Week 1a Lecture Notes
• Week 2 Lecture Notes
• Optional Paper: A Theory of Cerebral Cortex Robert Hecht-Nielsen
• Optional Paper: Spatial Memory Moscovitch et al.
• Optional Paper: Working Memory O'Reilly et al.
• Optional Paper: Serial Position Brown et al.
• Week 3 Lecture Notes
• Digital Anatomist Brain Atlas
• Week 4 Lecture Notes
• Mechanics of MRI scanning (right-click and choose 'save target as'. 6 meg)
• Mapping Visual Cortex with fMRI (right-click and choose 'save target as'. 6.6 meg)
• Topics for Quiz on Sept 27th (Microsoft Word)

Unit 2

• Week 5 Lecture Notes
• Week 6 Lecture Notes in powerpoint (pdf format is here)
• Phenomenology Assignment Announcement
• The Face Machine (right-click, select save target as, and save it to the desktop)
• Phenomenology Assignment
• Tong Article
• Riesenhuber & Poggio Object Recognition Models (print out and bring to class on Thursday)
• Week 7 slides (auditory sildes are in Week 6 pdf file above) ppt format
• Koch and Poggio comment on Rao and Ballard (pdf)
• Rao and Ballard (optional)
• Riesenhuber & Poggio In-class assignment
• Attention Slides (PPT) (PDF)
• Tong paper with binocular rivalry and faces/houses
• Day 2 Attention Slides (PPT) (PDF)
• Bichot Serial/Parallel
• Wolfe Summary
• Neural Correlates of Consciousness in Humans
• Multistable Percepts
• Neural Correlates of Consciousness
• Blake NCC TICs article
• Change Blindess applets

Unit 3

• Week 10 Slides (pdf)
• Hinton Connectionism Summary
• McClelland, McNaughton & O'Reilly (1995)
• Rugg Nature article
• Week 11 Slides (pdf)
• Week 12 Slides (pdf)
• Delta Learning in Excel (xls)
• Face Machine (review for an example of shared structure)

Unit 4

• Week 12b slides (pdf)
• Young and Yamane (pdf)
• Population Vector Assignment
• Links to Phenomenology Papers
• Week 13 slides (pdf)
• Hinton and Shallice (pdf)
• Hinton and Shallice Psych Review (pdf, optional)
• Introduction to LSA (pdf)
• LSA site
• LSA Psych Review Paper (html, optional)
• O'Reilly- LSA and Neural Networks (pdf)
• Info on conditional PCA (link, optional)
• LSA in class assignment (word)

Unit 5

• Development Slides (pdf)
• Mind and Brain Chapter 2 (pdf)
• Development and Plasticity Slides (pdf)
• Mirror Neurons (optional, pdf)
• Cortical Plasticity (optional, pdf)
• Donald- Evolution of Culture and Cognition (prep for Tuesday, pdf)
• Development of Visual Cortex (week 15, pdf)

Final Project

• Final Paper description (MS Word)