Introduction to cognitive science

This course is part of the programme
Doctoral study programme Cognitive Science of Language

Objectives and competences

• Overview of the field of cognitive science, its aims, scope, methods, main questions, main developments, and possible directions for individual research.
Competences:
• Ability to recognize interesting research topics in the field of cognitive science
• Students obtain skills for searching, reading and critical analysis of the scientific litereature in cognitive science

Prerequisites

Not required

Content

• Levels of explanation in cognitive science
• Theory of computation
• Language as a window to the mind
• The Integration challenge
• Models of mental architecture
• Information-processing models of the mind
• Information processing in neural nets
• Symbolic models
• The challenge of consciousness

Intended learning outcomes

• Knowledge of the basic topics in cognitive science
• Knowledge of the cognitive science framework for the study of human
language

Readings

  • Baddeley, Alan D. 1999. Essentials of human memory, chapter 2 and 3. Cognitive psychology. Hove, UK: Psychology Press. E-version
  • Bermudez, Jose L. 2010. Cognitive Science: An introduction to the Science of the Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Catalogue E-version
  • Patrick Colm H. 2011. The Cambridge encyclopedia of the language sciences. , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Catalogue E-version
  • Larson, Richard K. and Kimiko Ryokai. 2010. Grammar as science. In Grammar as science, chapter Part II, pages 37-77. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. E-version
  • Longuet-Higgins, H. C. 1987. Mental processes: studies in cognitive science, volume 1 of Explorations in cognitive science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. E-version
  • Marr, David. 1982. Vision: a computational investigation into the human representation and processing of visual information. San Francisco, CA: W.H. Freeman. E-version
  • Osherson, Daniel N., Lila R. Gleitman and Mark Liberman (eds). 1995. An Invitation to cognitive science. Vol. 1: Language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. E-version
  • Osherson, Daniel N. and Edward E. Smith. 1995. An invitation to cognitive science. Vol. 3: Thinking. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. E-version
  • Osherson, Daniel. N., Don Scarborough and Saul Sternberg (eds.) 1998. An invitation to cognitive science. Vol. 4: Methods, Models and Conceptual Issues. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Assessment

• Active participation at lectures (10%) • 1 or 2 homework assignments (20%) • Final paper (70%)

Lecturer's references

Associate professor of Linguistics at the University of Nova Gorica.

Bibliography:

  1. PAVLIČ, Matic, STEPANOV, Arthur. 2023 (in print). Number mismatch effect and processing cataphora in a pro-drop language: The case of Slovenian. In: Formal Description of Slavic Languages 14. Berlin: Language Science Press.
  2. STEPANOV, Arthur, KODRIČ, Karmen Brina, STATEVA, Penka. 2020. The role of working memory in children's ability for prosodic discrimination. PloS One 15 (3), 1-16, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0229857.
  3. STEPANOV, Arthur, ANDREETTA, Sara, STATEVA, Penka, ZAWISZEWSKI, Adam, LAKA, Itziar. 2020. Anomaly detection in processing of complex syntax by early L2 learners. Second Language Research 36(3): 371-397.
  4. STEPANOV, Arthur, PAVLIČ, Matic, STATEVA, Penka, REBOUL, Anne. 2018. Children's early bilingualism and musical training influence prosodic discrimination of sentences in an unknown language. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. 143(1): el1-el7. DOI: 10.1121/1.5019700.
  5. STEPANOV, Arthur, STATEVA, Penka. Cross-linguistic evidence for memory storage costs in filler-gap dependencies with wh-adjuncts. Frontiers in Psychology. Sep. 2015, vol. 6. http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01301.