 One important question in cognitive science is: How can the human mind occur in the physical

universe?
  look at Allan Newel
 The answer must have the details

 Deep, scientific question.

07

 Pidgins and creole are important for the exam

 What is the relationship between language and thought, the mind?

 What is a representation?

P. whatever we can talk about, we can represent.

We can represet things we cannot talk about. You can see the difference, however, you might not have
the words to express all of them.

 One of the main problems with machine translation is that they do not translate from language A to
(though/meaning), and then to language B.
 Language translation programs translate directly from language to language, that means LA to LB

Two alternatives theories in the study of semantics.

The main stream study of semantics is based on logic and truth conditions.

/In literary studies the concept of truth is questioned. Because they apparently don’t accept the idea of
declarative sentences, or meaning that is independent of language.

Language is not neutral, so there are no neutral or denotative meaning of sentences, words.

Propositions are “people-independent”

Truth-conditional Semantics. Language is about states of affairs in the world. Regardless of how people
actually represent the words in their minds, language is objective in the sense that it does not depends
on the way it is represented.
Postructuralist will reject this theory or way of understanding language.

Is language a good key to the form of thought???

Thoughts have a different syntax, so the rules that allows us to combine meaning is no the same
syntactical rules in language.

There seem to be an interface, between syntax and semantics, that translate.

Thought is independent of language and take place in the absence of language.

How can an abstract proposition cause an action? Causation by content???

08

In cognitive science they talk about representations and computations

A representation has a Vehicle and Content

 Vehicle
 Content

Causation by content

 One coin is facing the real world, (physical), and the other is facing the content/semantics.

Potential problem with LoT: it pushes the mind-problem one step back.

A game is a formal system.

Important> what does it mean to say that “syntax tracks semantics”

A history of smart machines (Lecture 13 in Audio course on philosophy of mind)

09

The finite part is crucial, that is why they are called finite state machines
A Slide: Facts of physical life

 There is no way to make two chips with the same timing.

To maintain discipline, there is this other type called Synchronous Discipline

10
Turing Machines is synonymous with the mathematical notion of computation

Turing-Church Thesis, every machine that can be build can be a Turing machine.

Von Neumman:

 Turing machine
 The type or memory of the machine is infinite, but only a finite part is used at a time
 Functional equivalent

11

Compter science comes from logic.

They wanted to vanish the notions of intuitions, and wanted to develop a procedure

Effective procedure

Class of functions that can be computed on a Turing Machine.

Problem of other minds

 What justifies the almost universal belief that othes have minds very like my own?
 The pressure to have a response to this problem tends to counteract the Cartesian tendency to
subjectivism.
 See the Private-language argument in Lecture 4.
 It also is

Write the responses to the Rights of Robots?

Is the same justified ?

Can robots suffer?

What is intelligence?

 People have this desire or refusal to accept that robots are afraid to lose their uniqueness. Old this
are psychological explanations that can be used in the same way, so one can say that people that
claim that robots are intelligent don’t want to accept their uniqueness. Or that they have a desire to
break a boundary of the forbidden, and so on.

Is the weak AI actually Stringer? There is a different between simulation and duplication, computers
mainly simulate intelligence but they don’t have the causal powers of how to produce.

This is a matter of ontological mode of existence.

13 Functionalism

Functionalism is the dominant view on the

For functionalism what matters is what it does and not what it is made of.

If our minds are functionalist defined, there is this possibility of immortality.

Newell & Simon (1976)

Laws of Qualitative structure is similar to Marr-s computational level

Problem solving and Search: Definition of a problem

 A problem is.
 The problem is the mismatch between the current state and the goal state.
 How do you solve the problem? Operators, moves,

Branching factor> has to to with the number of possibilities. It says that on average how many nodes
come out of a single node. If the branching factor is 1, then it is linear,
COMbinatorial Explotion: tic tac toe has a small number of possibilities, it has a small combinatorial
factor, that every single move can be calculated.

TTT has a small branching factor

Heuristic Search,

GPS, general Problem Solver

Searching business,

Phsycical Simbols Hypothesis,

14 Neuroanatomy

This lecture is about systems and pathways, similar to geography, identifying the big parts.

The lecture is based in an anatomical division.

Most/all structures are present in all animals, but in different proportions.

Brain evolution: the brain or nervous system started as a long tube, like the spinal cords

Hierarchical functional Organization

QUESTION: the human brain is unique so many of the studies we can do in animals, do not necessarily
translate into humans. So in order to understand it we would have to experiment in humans, which is
very problematic due to all the ethical aspects.

Now,

The Thalamus

It used to be thought as some sort of relay.

Thalamus has more than 50 nuclei, only five are sensory, but the rest are different.
An important part is the

Someone said that it functions as the 7th cortical area.

In new animals, whenever they come up with a new part with the brain, it hooks to the rest of
everything through the Thalamus, so every other part of the Brain connects

There seems to be a relationship between the unity of consciousness and the Thalamus.

General anesthesia always shuts down the Thalamus.

Terminology

There are a lot of problems with brain terminology. Because historically the anatomist have drawn the
line or divided the different parts using different criteria. In the brain there are no lear or define
boundaries. That is why some divisions are anatomical or functional, or typological based on te type of
cell, and more.

Neuropsyhocoloy, it is the branch that correlates deficits of behavior to damage to brain regions.

Decortication is the removal of the neocortex, leaving the basal ganglia and the brainstem intact, and
also leaving the thalamus.

Diencephalic dogs cannot take care of themselves.

Decorticate dogs or rats do live in an seemingly adequate way

One major

Thre major players> thalamus, basal ganglia (straitum is a collective name for several important basal
ganglia)

One major principle of organization is that the higher parts of the brain have to be closely
interconnected with the central area of the brain, like the thalamus, and stratum…

Myelin

Interconnection and white matter

Engineers have found that it is very problematic to connect different computer parts without interfering
with functions. \

The thalamus is functionally integrated with the other six sections or layers of the cortex.

Layer is an input layer so that means that if there is a neuron

Cells in layer five have axons that make contact with neurons in layer IV in some other part of the brain,
that the body of that neuron has to be in that layer.

In lobes or sensory crtex. In sesory cortex parts, the layer IV will be more prominent, for example the
occipital cortex.

Brodmann Areas.

Neuromodulation

Inside the brain stem has special nuclei that projects neuromodulator or meurochemicals to the rest of
the brain.

Voxel, is analogous to pixel, a voxel is little brick sized, in three dimensional images.

15 Neurophysiology

Longer cells are excitatory

Shorter terms are

Glial cells are neurons best friends. The term come from latin and it means omething like glue.

Myelin s present in vertebrates only.

Myelin plasticity in adult brains. People think neurons do not divide, they become as stem cells, but
when they turn into neurons they lose the ability to do mitosis, that means that there is a gene that
activates that produces that.

When a child is born they have

Every time a neuron dies , they do not replicate.

You can synthesize new brain cells, and then they can migrate into the brain and become neurons.
Neurons can be generate outside the brain

The membrane potential is the difference between the inside and the outside.

When a cell is at rest

We say that the membrane is polarized. Polarized means the voltage inside negative. Depolirize means
to bring the voltage insice closer to zero.

Eletrical voltage is analogous to hydraulic pressure.

Voltage, electricity is similar to fluids.

In the brain what is pumped in and out is ions

Takes sodium out and brings potassium in. For every 2 k, 3 Na is brought in. That means there is a
deficiency and that is why the restenting membrane potential arises and makes it negative.

The brain cannot store energy locally.

Msucles can store energy locally.

What we see in an fmri is the methamolic activity of the brain.

Both excitatory and inhibitory synapses

Two types of forces interact in the neuros.

Defusion is a pseudoforce in physics,

There is more potaisum K inside,

Gates

Ion channels are the gates in brains. Transistors is the name for computers.

50 spikes per second is the healthy rate for neurons. 200 is probably the fastest they can go. Like when

The neuron cannot receive the spike selectively, it broadcast to everybody that is listening

Nodes of Ranvier.

Myelin is the white, that is why we call it white matter.

Is there a piece of your nervous system that can be seen from the outside.

16

GABA is the main inhibitory neurotransmitter.

Ca = Calcium

Potassium = K

Sodium = Na

Synaptic Cleft =

The more active the sender the more neurotransmitters are released.
The Neurotransmitter does it work a t the synaptic cleft and then gets reabsorbed, recycle, and
repackage,

EPSP

IPSP

WATCH transmission animation (Slide 9)

There is a different between neurotransmitter and neuromodulations

Trasnmitter are caused to cause post synaptic potential.

If it does directly change the membrane, if it affects what another transmitter, it is a modulator.
Modulators do not act by themselves, they affect the behavior of other transmitters.

Graded EPSPs and OPSPs

Every neuron listens to about 1000 other neuros, and transmits to another 1000.

GABA works for especial channels, and has to do with chloride

Inhibitory makes the current or the voltage more negative.

Exhitatory makes the volt more positive.

Elctronic circuits corresponded to the networks of neurons.

Learning

Relatively long-lasting changes occur in behavioral potential as a result of experience.

 Process of change; Memory

 Learning is the process of making that memory.
 Learning means to change our behavior,
 Potential change,

Synaptic Plasticity: the strength and/or number of synaptic connections change as a result of
experience.
Hippocampus

EC – entrorinal cortex

Dental gyrus

17.
Moravecs Paradox,

Brain-Style Computation

In artificial Intelligence, there used to be two theoretical bodies competing for the best type of

Maybe computing in the same way that the brain works it is a more fruitful enterprise.

If the brain is a computer, what kind of computer it is? And what kind of information processing

Levels.

There is little data about the intermediate area in the brain.

Models are useful to fill in those gaps where we do not have enough data or cannot collected it.

Computational Neuroscience or Theoretical neuroscience develops models.

Models are important. Ask about how to build models and what would I need to learn to be able to
implement a modelling approach to the humanities.

Problem of representation

 Representation
 It was important in Semantics.
 Languages are a form of representation
 Philosophers talks about derivative representation
 The word representation is used a lot in cognitive science
 The main problem> they have NOT quite articulate how (by virtue of what) mental
representations represent
 What is representation?
 It is a relation between two things. (Some theories point to three)
 One things stands in for (or represents, means, denotes, refers to, or carries information
about)
 Examples>
 Symbolic representation: “Alex Petrov”
 Analog representation
 Representation (vehicle/content) = Sign (signified/signified)
 Information
 It has a lot of uses or meanings.
 Shannon’s theory of information measure information (or information bearing capacities)
 Information is uncountable. So it is a mass noun, or uncountable.
 Shannon information does get to the meaning, only measures the “amount” of the content.
 For information theory noise is bad, but for evolution it is the mechanism by which natural
selection produces the changes.


18 Pattern associator

There are networks that are not organized as a chain of layers.

X1 is the firing rate of a unit.

X is the number of spikes

W. tells how much postsynaptic neurons

There is a test on test to calculate NETINPUT

Netinput is the weighted sum of all the input.

Total input = netinputtonically

Activation is a function of the netinput =

Nonlinear model Neurons

Time is always equal 2

Look at the slide

a) The more
b) Asd
c) For low input the activity does not change too much. But there is a gradual increase, and a sudden
increase in the spike activatino
d) Binary, once the threshold is crossed, then max activation. This is the mondel that we will be using.

data

Interdisciplinary Methodology

Constraints. We bring constraints to the theory, that are biologicall

Behavioral, constraints, can collect data about how well people can remember
Computational constraints, it has to do with mathematical computations, so we can know how long the
whole procedure

Distributed representations

How to talk about behavior in the network?

Behavior includes stimulus and responses.

Distributed representations are preferred

Input-output mapping

In mathematics they are called functions.

The two pieces that are important

Pattern Assciator Network

There are other learning systems that are nt neural network

What is a neural network, what type of thing, or system is it???

Definition of Weight Matrix

19 Hebbian learning

When you have multiplication it is not a linear mathematical problem

The learning rule gives you a recipe for calculating the changes in the weight.

In practice, you have your own value of the

Hebbian learning is the intersection of activation. When the input and out??? Intersect.

The Hebbian matrix describes the changes in the weights.

Interference. It does not occur with orthogonal, but it does with linear, algebra

Delta w, is where the arrow occurs, that changes the weights.

NMBD

The main idea in Hebbian learning is the coincident discoveries. At the intersections of the horinzontal
and vertical yellow columms. You need to be able to detect coincidence.

AMPA receptors. Open up when glutamate are present in the outside.

20 Questions before the exam

What is a Binary threshold of activation? L18 - Slide 12

“Assuming a binary threshold activation function with a threshold θ=2, will the receiving neuron be
activated by this net input?

Yes, because netinput = 2 ≥ θ”

What is a cascade transformation?

NMDA receptor is embedded in the membrane

What is the job of AMPA receptors?

Change unrelated task, Detecting coinci

What is the job of NMDA.

Ca governs learning. It enters the cell when the NMDA receptor

Mentla States are apatterns of activatin.

Mental processes, making logical inferences, getting scared, making associations, all of those are
transformations of those patterns.

The weight will produced some output given certain input patterns.

Local vs distributed representation

Orthogonal Patterns

Patterns are vector in this multidimensional space. There are many dmensions, thousands of them.

Localist patterns are always orthogonal,

Memory traces as changes in the weights

The presence of Calcium is the memory trace on the synapse. The brain lies down traces of the
experience. So traces are changes in the weight, which is

Every memory of this kind is distributed over many different connectinos.

In Theory, all the experience that you have lived through leave traces.

Distributed representatios is a many to many connnectinos.

Distributed memory is a many to many synaptic connections.

Reconstructive memory or Retrieval

Auto/associator Network

Number of input has to be the same as the number of outputs.

Take the case of learning English. When a non native speaker of English provided a different (noisy)
input, and you get a clean image on the other side.

Inputs and outputs can talk to each other and their neightborgs within the same layer.

Recurrent network.

What is a race condition?

Pattern Completion

Content-Addressable Memory

This is a concept from computational

Index

Two Conceptions of Memory

Remembering is a n active process of reconstruction

22 Error Correct
Perceptron conversion theorem, if you have some input/output mapping task and if you train the
netwoek using the delta rule… if you train long enough the network will stop changing when everything
balances out.
Example, when you have a leaking bucket when the amount of water leaking and the amount out water
being poured are equals, so they achieve a state of equilibrium

The learning rule discover the best possible weight, but sometimes that weight is not enough, so there is
enough.

There are certain mappings in which it is simple not possible, another book was published about the
Linear inseparable problem, which are relative simple problems and functions that cannot be done in
single networks.

Even the minimal error is not zero and the network canot get better than that. The most famous
example is the XOR problem, there is not enough time but look it up on the book.

Certain networks are too simple for

Sociologist of Science: the idea out there was that these networks do not work, so there were very

There is no point of having multilayer networks if the operations are all linear functions, because they
would be equivalent.

So by having a nonlinear function you justify the use on multilayer networks.

Borel measurable:

The hidden

Delta learning rule does not work for multiayer networks because the teacher signal is available.

The hidden network does not have access to the teaching signal, which only communicates with the
output layers.

The problem with the hidden layers is that they generate the blame assignment,

One of the main problems in cognitive science is the problem of backpropagation in networks.

23. Amnesia

Hippocampus is very important for episodic memory

MTL / Medial Temporal Lobe

Patient Zero is HM, henry Molaison

Amnesia, means memory disorder.

Retrograde vs. Anterograde Amnesia.

24 Working Memory

LongTerm memory, there are different categorizations methods

Declarative v. nondeclarative

Haberlant, Memory

Look at the information channel concept in information theory of Shannon.

You can only transfer certain amount of information at a time through a channel. This has to do with
the ontology of film and documentary. Because all representation, when judging it this effects has to be
taken into account.

Information

Representation

Modal Model

Rehearsal is important because otherwise the items fade away as a function of time.

Cognitive control is a different name for central executive.

The important thing is information flow and not boxes or store

There is a difference between phonological and visual memory

25 Active Maintenance

Active maintenance means that the activity of the neuron persist after the stimulus that originated the
activity

Propagation delays are important

Read about the Material Substrate of Working Memory

Once you put it on fire, the stimulus keeps going on, so there needs to be a way to turn it off. There is a
need for a clear signal, a way to reset the whole. There is evidence that there is another neuron, not the
one recorded that tells the neuron firing to stop, so it goes back to its baseline level.

There is a break that shuts downs everybody.

There is division of labor in the model.

Sensory, motor, and PFC neuron

The controller does not care about the identity of the … it cares about the timing.

Sequential registers maintain an internal state.

WE = write enable line,

If you want to write something you set it to 1,

27.

Each level has a reaction time that is approx. 10 slower than the lower level.

Deliberate act is the most important level for this lecture.

This is the minimum unit of cognition you can become aware of. The fastest thing you can do is
reaction time task. React and press a buttom in front of you. When you have young, motivated patients
they get very fast reaction times.

The fastest uhman reaction time is close to 200 milliseconds.

Unit tasks are like moving a mouse a click

Every level can be treated as operationally complete level

- ***Fr example, you should be able to come up with some vocablulary, like difficult of the task,
knoeledge that is needed and other constraints, that you should not have to worieed about
neurons, or terms in lower levels. You you need to develop vocabulary that is limited to the level
where you are operating.
- It is also nice to have a story how a lower level relates to a higher level. The patterns associator
is an example, how to identify objects and words.
- Hebbian learning was reduced to LTP and LTD, and that was reduced to NMDA and calcium and
others chemicals.
- This is not complete reduction, but it is important to have some idea about how to move from
one level to another level.
- Another example, pertains to the molecular level.

Horizontal integration
 - You need a common language so can talk about all the domains in a unified way. Cognitive
architecture is like a blue print of a building.

Cognitive Architecture

- Is about how all the parts fit together.

- It is more about a programming language. Because there is a theory about how you are
supposed to write your model.

Leabra

- Not all the parts of the brain are the same. There is a division of labor.
- Posterior cortex is everything the prefrontal cortex, including the motor cortex in the frontal
cortex.
- Posterior cortex can do generalization.
- Posterior cortex and Neocortex in oreilly are interchangeable terms.
- HM did no forget about what happened before the surgery.
- An architecture takes into account that there are many parts and it is an attempt to put all the
parts together.

Richard Samuels, expert on the modularity of the mind.

The illusion that shows a person to grow and shrink in a room. Your verbal, declarative knowledge about
the room and about how the illusion work does not penetrate or affect your vision, you will see the
person growing and shrinking and cannot control it.

The common model of cognition or The Standard Model of the Mind

- Perception builds this representations and puts them in Working Memory, and from then they
can be stored in Long-termed memory.

Brooks, he writes about intelligence without representation.

In 1972 Shakey was using logical representatinos, and mathematical, search in problem spaces, GOFAI.

All of the contemporary robots use probabilistics models.

As you move, you represent your current position in the world. The

Dead reckoning isa problem where robots need to find out where they are, what is their location in the
world.

The Robots use baysean probabilistics models to update their i

SLAM, simultaneous Localitzation and Mapping is used to navigate and update location.

Descartes: The main idea, most of the action is inside your head. You build this representation of the
world. Descartes started by doubting everything around him. Solipsm because everything might be
inside my mind.

Fodor, Methodological Solipsis, there is an external world, but because we use what is in our mind to
understand the outer world, we need to care only about that. Because the world is not presented in our
mind, it is Represented.

Critique: it is very hard to maintain a model that is an actual true representation of the world out there.

The famous Frame Problem: Daniel Dennett.

The laws of physics can take of any kind of unexpected consequences, without the need of any
representation and processes, simulations or calculations.

You don-t need a lot of neurons to be an insect.

There are many different cycles., and ways to get from perception to actions without passing through
cognition, or the central executive unit.

Basal Ganglia, each of the areas is analogous to the rivers in the illustration of the basal ganglia. Lower
levels usually have precedence. Sometimes different levels conflict with each other,

29 Consciousness

Mental quality, what it is like, what it feels like,

In the google car it is all dark inside,

Flavor of chocolate, orgasm and smell of coffee.

Access consciousness is functional. But Phenomenal consciousness cannot be accounted by

functionalism.

Consciousness is not one thing, but a whole array of things. And this distinction helps account for the
particular portion of the phenomenon that we want to explain, which could easily be treated as a
different phenomenon altogether.