CSE 153: Cognitive Modeling Fall 2011

CSE 153: Cognitive Modeling

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO

The IA model dot dot dot commander data

Computer Science and Engineering 153: Cognitive Modeling
(Section ID: 727184)
Monday/Wednesday/Friday 2:00-3:00 PM Center 222

Professor Gary Cottrell

Fall 2011

Cognitive modeling is the construction of computational models that "do the same things people do," in terms of perception, categorization, memory, language, action, etc., and typically in a fashion that is plausibly carried out by the neural networks in our brains. The model must fit behavioral, neurophysiological, and/or neuropsychological data, with the goal of understanding how the brain works. We will use a software package that implements these models in a unified way.

Prerequisites:

Course participants are expected to have some background knowledge in computer science, cognitive science, psychology, or neuroscience. A basic understanding of the most fundamental concepts of vector calculus, linear algebra, and statistics will be very helpful at times.

This year, different from previous years, computer programming skills are required to be successful in this course, and the use of MatLab is encouraged. We will be doing a series of small exercises designed to prepare you for your final project.

In addition, there will be homework using the emergent software system. You could do your final project within this system, but in the past, we have found that it has a very steep learning curve when you try to actually do anything in it different from the carefully prepared exercises. This is not recommended.

Textbook:

The textbook is available as a wiki here: Computational Explorations in Cognitive Neuroscience

Evaluation

Your grade will be based on three components in the following proportions:

    Homework exercises using the emergent simulator: 20%
    Programming exercises: 30%
    Reading reactions: 10%
    Final project: 30%
    Class participation: 10%

Homework Exercises

The homework exercises, using the emergent simulator are interspersed throughout the text. I will assign a subset of these exercises shortly. When you have completed them, email them to gary@ucsd.edu (PLEASE put CSE 153: <your subject here> in the subject line) on the date due. Although you may work on these exercises with a partner (please let me know who your partner is on any writeup) you must write them up individually. We want to see that each person individually understands the material, so this should be evident in your writeup. It is best to write down results and first drafts of answers as you work through the exercises -- they can take a while to run and you don't want to have to run them repeatedly. Exercises turned in late will be penalized 5% for each day after the due date. The exercises kind of "lead you by the nose" through the different examples, and that can get annoying at times!

Programming exercises

In order to better understand what is going on in the simulations, I will assign programming exercises that are closely related to the simulations you will be running with emergent, but where you have to actually implement part of it in matlab (preferred) or a programming language of your choice. The nice thing about matlab is that it is easy to do underlying linear algebra things, there are many built-in functions, and it is easy to make graphs.

For more information on matlab at UCSD and tutorials, follow this link to Serge Belongie's page on MatLab

Downloading the Simulator

This simulator is available for download here.

The home page for the simulator is here:

And the exercises for the textbook (that you must write up!) are here:

Reading reactions

For each chapter, you will be asked to email a single paragraph about the topic you found most interesting in the chapter and why. These reading reactions are designed to ensure that you are keeping up on the reading and to inform us about your interests. Reading reactions should be emailed to gary@ucsd.edu prior to the class meeting when they are due. Please just send plain text emails, not attached documents, and PLEASE put: CSE 153: Reading Reaction Chapter <chapter number> in the subject line.

Class participation

Class participation is just that. I expect you to be actively engaged in class, and to ask questions when you don't follow something.

Final Project

FINAL PROJECT SCHEDULE AND GUIDELINES ARE HERE.

The final project is an opportunity for you to use simulations to examine some psychological phenomenon of interest to you. This project will require careful preparation and thought, so I strongly recommend that you begin thinking about this early. Do not be overly ambitious -- relatively clear and simple but thoughtful work is preferred to a complicated half-baked mess. Do not be misled by the relative simplicity of running the canned exercises in the book -- simulation projects take a long time to complete! Here are some guidelines for the final project.

Homework Due Dates will appear here!

Your FIRST homework is to email me a screen shot of emergent running on your laptop by Wednesday, September 28.

The readings and lectures for the first week are below.


*DATE*	Homework	*TITLE (click for abstract)*	*PAPER or Reading*
09/26/2011		Overview of the course and introduction using my own model. The bit of lecture on the Interactive activation model...	Dailey, Matthew N., Cottrell, Garrison W., Padgett, Curtis, and Ralph Adolphs (2002) EMPATH: A neural network that categorizes facial expressions. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 14(8):1158-1173. [pdf] Also useful to read, as it is my favorite cognitive modeling paper is: McClelland & Rumelhart (1980) An Interactive Activation Model of Context Effects in Letter Perception: Part 1: An Account of Basic Findings. Pscyhological Review 88(5):375-407. [pdf] This one is also not required, but this is where they cash out the predictions of the model, so it is definitely worth a read: Rumelhart & McClelland (1981) An Interactive Activation Model of Context Effects in Letter Perception: Part 2: The Contextual Enhancement Effect and Some Tests and Extensions of the Model. Pscyhological Review 89(1):60-94. [pdf]
09/28/2011	Screenshot of emergent reading reaction, chapter 1.	Continuation of previous lecture	CECN Chapter 1
09/30/2011	Start reading chapter 2, to where it says: Generating Outputs; Send me a reading reaction to this part...	Continuation of previous lecture...	CECN Chapter 2
10/3/2011	Finish reading chapter 2. Do the Neuron and detector simulation exercises in emergent. However, I don't expect you to turn these in. Instead, I expect you to do this first programming exercise.	ditto, with some demos in class of the simulations on the left. more slides...
10/5-7		Networks of neurons...	CECN Chapter 3
10/10	please send me a reading reaction to chapter 3 if you haven't already
10/12	inhibition project: Please send me answers to problems: 3.6 and 3.8. 3.7 is extra credit.	Learning!	CECN Chapter 4
10/14-10/19	reading reaction, chapter 4	backprop and XCAL
10/21	Second programming exercise due monday, 10/31	describe PA 2, demonstrate learning
10/24	reading reaction, chapter 5, please tell me which chapter you would like to see next!	brain areas	CECN Chapter 5
10/26	Read Chapter 6: Perception	Perception	CECN Chapter 6
10/28	No meeting - gary out of town
10/31	Keep reading chapter 6	Simulation of V1 learning
11/2	ditto	Simulation of object recognition
11/4	ditto	Simulation of perception of multiple objects
11/7	Simple attention project: Please send me the answers to problems 6.7-6.11 - these are pretty easy.	2PM: Discussion of Posner and Balints' syndrome results 6PM: Begin Language chapter: Brain areas, dyslexia	CECN Chapter 9
11/9	Please send me your reading reaction to chapter 6 if you haven't already.	Dyslexia

The instructor is Professor Gary Cottrell, whose office is CSE Building room 4130. Feel free to send email to arrange an appointment, or telephone (858) 534-6640.

Most recently updated on September 26th, 2011 by Gary Cottrell, gary@ucsd.edu