Syllabus for 830: 472 Cognition and Computation

Fall, 2005

 Click here for a PDF version of this syllabus  

 

 Text:

Pratt, Ian Artificial Intelligence. London: Macmillan Press, 1994.

 Place:

Room 203, ARC, Busch Campus

 Time:

Monday & Thursday 2nd Period (10:20 - 11:40 A.M.)

 Instructor:

Prof. Charles Schmidt

 Office:

Room 135A, Psychology Bldg, Busch Campus

 Phone:

732 445-2874

 Email:

cfs@rci.rutgers.edu

 Course URL:

http://www-rci.rutgers.edu/~cfs

 Office Hours:

Monday, 12:00 - 1:00 PM or by appointment


Course Outline

 Part I: Basic Ideas

 I.1. Introduction to Computation & Cognition
Some Historical Background
Chess:Person versus Machine
Defining, Designing and Studying Intelligent Machines
Levels Hypothesis
  Reading:

Chapter 1. What is Artificial Intelligence?
Chess Match Articles


Minsky, M. L. Why People Think Computers Can't. AI Magazine, 1982, 4, 3-15
Skim Appendix (Introduction to Logic)
Website


  Quiz


 I.2. Formal Models of Computation

The Intuitive Idea -- Stating and Following Rules
Church-Turing Thesis
Chomsky/Machine Hierarchy
Some Results
  Reading: Website

  Quiz


 I.3. Artificial Intelligence and the Design of Intelligent Systems

A Little Bit of Logic to get us going
Physical Symbol System Hypothesis
Representation and Semantics
General Models of Search
Knowledge & Search
Computational Limits and Rationality
  Reading: Review Appendix (Introduction to Logic)
Chapter 2. Search and Planning.
Website


EXAM 1 covering Lecture and Readings of Part I.1-3.



 I.4. Human Cognition as Computation

Cognitive (Functional) Architecture
Requirements
Production System Architecture
Problem Spaces
Protocol Analyses
  Reading: Website

  Quiz


 Part II. Research Topics: The Computational Approach Exemplified

II.1. Problem-Solving and Learning

Induction vs. "Biased" Learning
Simple "Concepts"
Tower of Hanoi Examples
Baseball
Exploratory Learning
 Reading: Chapter 9. Induction.
Website

  Quiz


 II.2 Planning

Problem Reduction Approach to Planning
Linear and Non-linear Planning
Plan Execution and Plan Monitoring
Learning in the Context of Planning
 Reading: Chapter 2. Search and Planning. (Review)
Website

  Quiz


 II.3. Knowledge Representation, Commonsense Knowledge, and Inference

Epistemological Adequacy and Heuristic Adequacy
Logic and Commonsense Knowledge
Models of "Semantics"
The Problem of Non-monotonicity
Frames, etc.
 Reading: Chapter 3. Logic and Inference
Skim Chapter 4. Closed World Assumptions
Chapter 5. Defeasible Inference
Chapter 6. Reason Maintenance
Chapter 7. Memory Organization
Chapter 8. Probabilistic Inference
All in Pratt, Ian Artificial Intelligence.London: Macmillan Press, 1994.
Website


EXAM II (Final - Dec 21 8-11 AM) focusing on Lecture and Readings of I.4 and II. 1-3

Homework, Grading, Etc.

     Part I of the course is designed to provide an overview of the general ideas and Part II looks at specific areas of research in more detail. The reading for the course will consist of the assignments from the text, handouts or articles posted on the website and the materials on the website specifically developed for this course. Part of the purpose of developing and posting materials on the website is to:

  • give you the chance to look over the material to be covered in class ahead of time so that you might have more of an opportunity to pose questions and make observations in class;
  • to minimize the need for you to take notes in class; and
  • to minimize the necessity of presenting and explaining every detail in lecture.

     You will notice that we will rely heavily on the use of examples to present the major ideas in the field. There are two reasons for this. At times the ideas are well worked out in the field and could be presented in a completely general way. However, without the technical background this is often a painful and difficult way to first come to grips with the ideas. At other times, the ideas have not been completely worked out and examples must play a major role in the presentation of the ideas. Where examples are presented it is generally advised that you attempt to fully understand these examples.

     If at all possible, I suggest that you at least skim the material on the website prior to the class in which the material will be presented. If there are aspects that you do not understand but you are reluctant to ask about it in class, then you might want to let me know about this via Email (cfs@rci.rutgers.edu) prior to the class in which the material will be presented. I will make it a point to read this directory prior to class.

(You may also turn your homework assignments in as an attachment to an email to this account.)

Extra Credit

     If you wish to do an extra credit project for the course, then this project should be approved no later than the first week in April and turned in to the instructor no later than the last day of class. Some possible extra credit projects include:

  • creating content related to the course that could potentially be included in the course website. This might involve creating examples or experiments related to the course material, extending either the depth with which a topic is covered, or adding additional related topics.
  • creating additional tools for use of the website.
  • participating in some research on problem solving. In this case, you would analyze and discuss your own data in relation to various ideas about human problem solving.
  • ...

Course Grade

     Your course grade will be determined by your performance on the quizzes, homework assignments, exams and to the degree that I can evaluate it, your class participation and performance. Quizzes will be short and consist of true/false and/or multiple choice questions. Exams will also consist of true/false and/or multiple choice and short answer questions and will include problems to be solved. The homework assignments will be evaluated as either good, satisfactory or unsatisfactory. Assignments handed in after their review in class will be evaluated as satisfactory or unsatisfactory. Any extra credit work will also be considered when assigning the final course grade.


Printing the pages on this site

     If for some reason you decide that you wish to print one or more of these pages then be sure that the print setup is in Landscape mode. Note, however, that these HTML pages have not been constrained to have any particular vertical limit. Consequently, a page may print on to several pages and the page breaks may occur at arbitrary points. If at all possible, I recommend making every effort to use these pages on line rather than printing since they were developed under the assumption that this would be the primary mode of use. Using them on line will allow you to view the animations, JavaScript related features as well as view the most recent updates of the pages.

 Click here to access a Bibliography of other texts and books that may be useful to you.

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© Charles F. Schmidt