The cognitive science undergraduate committee is submitting the following proposal for a new undergraduate degree to the undergraduate curriculum committee of the College of Arts and Sciences. The central plank of our proposal is to develop a stand-alone major in cognitive science. If the proposal is accepted, students would be able to obtain a Bachelor of Arts degree in cognitive science without being required to major in a second college department, as they are currently. The proposal involves the creation of four new courses and the adaptation of courses currently taught in other departments. We are seeking approval of both the specific proposed courses, and also for the new degree requirements associated with the stand-alone bachelor of arts degree.

Recently, funds from the Presidential Strategic Directions Initiatives were awarded to Professors Richard Shiffrin and Jon Barwise on behalf of a new university program in "The Cognitive and Information Sciences." A major component of this program was the development an undergraduate degree in this field. The following proposal represents our attempt to implement their proposal. Ideally, we would like to start offering the new, stand-alone degree in the Fall of 1997. Funds from the awarded SDI proposal provide us with the teaching resources necessary to begin the new major degree.

The new degree differs from the existing cognitive science degree in several respects. First, students will be able to obtain the bachelor of arts degree without majoring in a second department. Second, the courses required for the new degree are significantly different. Four new courses are being proposed. These courses will be required of all of our new majors, teaching our students the fundamental tools required for the cognitive and information sciences. Third, the degree requirements are different from previous requirements. In addition to the required core courses, students will pursue specialized tracks involving about three courses on a specific theme. For the time being, these tracks can be pursued using courses currently existing in the COAS curriculum.

Justification for Proposed Degree

Offering a stand-alone degree in cognitive science should open cognitive science to a much larger group of students. There is ample evidence for opportunities in business, government, and adademia for graduates of such a program, with every sign that these opportunities are increasing rapidly. Current programs of a somewhat similar character are proving successful at other sites around the world. The program we propose promises to place us in a position of world leadership in an exciting and growing field.

Attractiveness of program to students. In 1993, the National Science Foundation convened a task force to evaluate the prospects of undergraduate programs in cognitive science. The task force's report predicted a substantial period of growth (from 1994 to 2009) followed by a sustained level of activity. Although there are only a handful of stand-alone cognitive science programs, these programs attracted between 1-2% of their university's students according to the NSF report. This estimate is conservative in that cognitive science has become better established since 1993, and Indiana University has considerable local excellence in cognitive science.

The proposed program in Cognitive and Information Sciences has the potential for attracting a significant number of out-of-state students. If we act quickly to create an undergraduate degree program, then we will be one of very few major universities (including Brown, Stanford, Yale, University of California at San Diego, and perhaps three others), and the only major midwestern university, that have such a program. This could be a major tool for recruiting talented, science-oriented students to Indiana University. Cognitive science is appealing to students because it deals with both theoretically provocative topics (e.g. the nature of mind, artificial intelligence, and complex and dynamical systems) and useful applications (e.g. human-computer interaction, information systems, advertising and marketing, and design).

New career opportunities in Cognitive and Information Sciences. A degree in Cognitive and Information Sciences is attractive to a wide range of employers. Such a degree prepares students admirably well for many of the fields that are targeted as the major growth fields of the twenty-first century: telecommunications, information processing, medical analysis, data representation and retrieval, education, and multimedia. In the most recent "CareerWise" newsletter from the Arts and Sciences Placement Office, of the 120 scheduled On-campus recruiters, 21 were categorized under "Information Systems," and another 24 recruiters fell into Computer Design, Computer Science, Scientific Research, Software Development, and Technology Consulting categories. As such, fully 37% of the recruiters are in fields related to the training that our students will acquire. Students with our proposed degree will be attractive because of the combination of technical, scientific skills and writing ability required by our program. Our students will have acquired facility with computer programming, statistical analysis, logic, experimental methods, and basic quantitative tools such as linear algebra and calculus. In addition, they will have developed the ability to think and write clearly and deeply about theoretical issues related to language, philosophy, and psychology. As the world is enveloped by the "information age," cognitive scientists will be uniquely positioned to deal with this information.

Cognitive and Information Sciences, and the College of Arts and Sciences. The proposed program would fit well within the current ecology of departments and programs within the College of Arts and Sciences at Indiana University. First, the degree in Cognitive and Information Sciences combines education in the sciences and humanities in an integrated, harmonious manner. Students are exposed to a liberal arts education while simultaneously acquiring a strong grounding in sciences and formal methods.

Second, the degree is inherently interdisciplinary, and thus builds bridges between departments, and exposes students to new approaches. Many of the motivations for creating a TOPICS curriculum also apply toward the creation of a cognitive science degree. Both efforts attempt to expose students to multiple perspectives on particular topic areas, such that learning is organized around problems rather than traditional disciplines.

Third, there are many indications that the time is ripe for a repartitioning of traditional disciplines. Philosophers' theories of the nature of mind inform, and are informed by, empirical results from psychology. Computer scientists interested in developing machines that recognize photographs have much in common with psychologists exploring human object recognition. Linguists studying the grammatical structures of language have much in common with the developers of new computer programming languages. Dissatisfaction with the current departmental structures is evidenced by the large number of students who wish to study logic but not existentialism, cognition but not abnormal psychology, and artificial intelligence but not compilers. The breadth of these students' interests is often greater, not narrower, than their peers who pursue majors in traditional departments. These students simply realize that to pursue their interests, they will have to "slice the intellectual pie" in a new, original way.

Fourth, a strong Cognitive and Information Sciences program at Indiana University would enhance the general level of education, even for those students who do not pursue degrees in the field. Cognitive and Information Sciences provide non-science majors with an appealing introduction to scientific methodologies. Core issues of cognitive science, such as "Could a computer ever think like a person?" and "What does it mean to be conscious?" have direct appeal to students. However, once "bitten by the Cognitive and Information Sciences bug," the students will come to realize that the answers to these intrinsically motivating questions will depend upon logic, science, and mathematics. Thus, courses in our program will introduce students to formal intellectual disciplines; students will hopefully be inherently motivated to pursue difficult formal methods if they can see the direct relevance of these methods to broader issues.

Justification for changing current program. Although the undergraduate cognitive science program has established a strong presence during its brief existence (after the first year of operation, there were 25 double-majors and minors in the program), there are a number of reasons for moving to a sole degree program. Many students who would otherwise pursue cognitive science majors cannot, because of the restriction that cognitive science major degrees be accompanied by a major in a second home department. There are many students who, because of time and financial constraints, are unable to complete the coursework required for a double major.

In addition, the current program's emphasis is different from the existing cognitive science program. The field that we call "The Cognitive and Information Sciences" will cover topics not always associated closely with cognitive science: logic, human-computer interaction, philosophy of computation, and education and training.

In what follows, the proposed College of Arts and Sciences Bulletin description for our new Cognitive Science program is presented. The detailed requirements and curriculum are described herein. The Introduction would replace the current introduction, the degree requirements for the major would supplement the current description. The requirements for other degrees, course descriptions, and listing of cross-listed courses would not be changed.

Introduction

Cognitive Science explores the nature of intelligent systems. The core of cognitive science is the pursuit of formal theories of mind and information. The field is inherently interdisciplinary, with contributions from computer science, psychology, philosophy, neuroscience, linguistics, biology, anthropology, and other fields. Both natural intelligence in humans and artificial intelligence in computers will explicitly be within the domain of inquiry. The field deals with aspects of complex cognition, computational models of thought processes, knowledge representation, and the emergent behavior of large-scale interacting systems. Goals of Cognitive and Information Sciences include a better understanding of the mind, of teaching and learning, of mental abilities, and of the development of intelligent devices that can augment human capabilities in constructive ways.

Students may pursue a major in cognitive science leading to the B.A. degree. The skills acquired in the B.A. program are applicable in many careers associated with information: psychology, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, telecommunication, information processing, medical analysis, data representation and retrieval, education, scientific research, and multimedia. The program is structured to give students fundamental skills that have wide applicability: technical and expository writing, mathematical analysis, experimental techniques, and computer programming.

Students interested in a cognitive science degree are encouraged to attend the weekly cognitive science colloquium series. The program also has research internship opportunities, and a free technical reports series that showcases local research.

Major in Cognitive Science

The philosophy behind our program is to give students a solid grounding in the formal tools that they will need to understand and create research in cognitive science, and also to foster depth in particular areas. There are three basic requirements that a student must fulfill. First, they must demonstrate mastery of formal skills in four areas by taking a fixed set of required courses. Second, they must specialize in a particular aspect of cognitive science by completing a sequence of three courses within a particular area. Third, they must demonstrate breadth of knowledge across the areas of cognitive science through their coursework.

Requirements

In addition to completing the degree requirements of the College of Arts and Sciences, students must complete the following:

1. The following four core courses: Q240, Q250, Q260, Q270

2. Three courses in one of the following concentrations: Language, neuroscience, Foundations of Philosophy, Cognition, Computation, or logic. In addition to these pre-approved concentrations, other specialized concentrations may be designed by individual students and submitted for approval to the undergraduate cognitive science committee. All concentrations will involve a sequence of at least three courses, at least two of which are 200-level or above, and at least one of which is 300-level or above. The following courses are pre-approved for the six concentrations:

Cognition: (Psychology) P101, P106, P211, P325, P329, P335, P350, P405, P424, P435, P438, P439, P450, P451

Computation: (Computer Science) C211, C212, C241, C311, C335, C341, C343, B351

Language: (Linguistics) L303, L306, L307, L310, L325, L430, L431, L490. (Psychology) P438

Logic: (Philosophy) P250, P251, P252, P253, P350, P351

Neuroscience: (Psychology) P101, P106, P211, P326, P407, P408, P409, P410, P411, P423, P426, P431, (Cognitive Science) Q301

Foundations of Philosophy: (Philosophy) P310, P312, P320, P360, P366

3. At least one courses from three of four designated departments: Psychology, Philosophy, Computer Science, and Linguistics.

Examples

For each of the six concentrations, a sample set of courses is presented that will provide students with the required coursework for their major, not including other COAS requirements

Cognition: Q240, Q250, Q260, Q270, P101, P102, P211, P335, C211, L303 = 35 hours

Computation: Q240, Q250, Q260, Q270, C211, C212, C335, P101, P250 = 34 hours

Language: Q240, Q250, Q260, Q270, L303, L306, L307, C211, P101 = 32 hours

Logic: Q240, Q250, Q260, Q270, P250, P251, P252, P101, C211 = 32 hours

Neuroscience: Q240, Q250, Q260, Q270, L111, P101, P211, P326, C211, L303 = 35 hours

Foundations of Philosophy: Q240, Q250, Q260, Q270, P105, P310, P312, P360, P101, C211 = 35 hours

Course Descriptions of New Courses

Q240 Philosophical Foundations of the Cognitive and Information Sciences. This course provides the philosophical foundations of the newly emerging interdisciplinary field of cognitive and information sciences, where philosophers, psychologists, logicians, computer scientists, neuro-scientists and linguists collaborate to understand some fundamental issues: what is the relation of mind to brain, is the brain a digital or an analog processor, what modules do cognitive processes consist of, how is information acquired and used, what is it to know a language, what does it mean for a system to represent information, how can one reason with limited information from different sources, what does it mean to execute a program, and can a computer be intelligent or conscious? The computational tools employed in lab sections are software packages that give students hands-on experience with different systems to model aspects of cognition. The course will also emphasize reasoning and writing, rigorous analysis into the heart of issues, clear exposition and expression, consideration of various sides of an issue, and organized presentation of information to readers.

Q250 Mathematics and Logic for the Cognitive and Information Sciences. R: Mastery of two years of high school algebra or the equivalent. Students will be trained in the mathematical and logical tools of greatest use for the Cognitive and Information Sciences, such as finite mathematics, computability theory, linear algebra, probability, statistics, formal semantics and dynamical systems. It will be designed to take advantage of the ways in which computer can help the expression and development of these skills.

Q260 Computation in the Cognitive and Information Sciences R: Mastery of two years of high school algebra or the equivalent, and working knowledge of a programming language. Students will become skilled users of computers and computer programs of various sorts. They will learn to program computers to carry out tasks and run simulations. The nature and theory of computation, and the relation between computation and intelligence, will be explored. Students will be given several programming exercises throughout the course. Students will develop computer simulations as models of brain functioning, cognition, language, and higher order reasoning. Particular computational techniques may include: neural networks, genetic algorithms, search systems, and proof systems.

Q270 Experiments and Models in Cognition. R: Mastery of two years of high school algebra or the equivalent. This course will develop the tools by which mind and intelligence are studied, and the nature of scientific procedures when data derive from complex, chaotic, and dynamical systems in a noisy environment. Students will learn techniques for experimentally discovering principles of human behavior, and methods for developing mathematical and computational models of human behavior. The content of the course will focus on cognitive processes such as attention, perception, memory, problem solving, judgment, decision making, and consciousness. Formal bridges between neural structures and cognition will be explored. The course will cover the methods by which cognitive neuroscience can provide evidence that bears on cognition. Experimental laboratories will cover the design and execution of simple psychological experiments, the statistical treatment of results, literature searches, and the preparation of scholarly reports. Modelling exercises will include fitting models to a set of experimental data, comparing multiple models' ability to account for the same data, and building new models to overcome shortcomings of existing models. Specific modeling approaches that will be considered include: neural networks, random walk models, holographic models, self-organizing systems, dynamical and chaotic equations, and structural analysis.

We would like each of these four courses to satisfy the COAS NMMC (Mathematical Sciences and Cognition) requirement.