Syllabus

Course Meeting Times

Lectures: 3 sessions / week, 2 hours / session

Description

Each module of the course involves a series of overview lectures by a leading researcher in the field, complemented by recitation opportunities on primary research papers for students. By offering a thorough introduction to the current status of the discipline while emphasizing critical thinking, 9.012 aims to prepare students for an exciting and rapid beginning to their contributions as cognitive scientists.

Prerequisite: 9.011, The Brain and Cognitive Sciences I

Course Requirements

Midterm exam

Final exam

Two class presentations, based on the following topics:

  • Foundations of Cognitive Science
  • Computational Vision
  • Cognitive Neuroscience of Object Recognition
  • Information Processing and Capacity Limits
  • Working Memory & Attention
  • Similarity, Analogy, Categorization, Language, and Thought
  • How to Distinguish Processing from Competence Models of Language Development