COGSCI TEST #2

How does the Brain Develop? Specifically, what are the processes involved in it?

As the brain develops, its neurons undergo structural growth (proliferation), increase in myelination, and undergo synaptic pruning. It becomes more efficient through myelination and synaptic pruning.

What are Properties of Consciousness and

Awakeness - ability to be aware of surroundings Introspection - ability to be aware of own mental state in terms f giving verbla report of feelings that arise from experience. Self consciousness - ability to be aware of the uniqueness of one's own mental states. Verbal report- ability to describe mental states is a test and method used to study consciousness. Attention/ awareness - Cognitive resources devoted to something •

What is an example that shows how one person can have psychological but not phenomenal consciousness?

Blindsight: a condition in which an individual can sense change, but cannot provide verbal report of what he or she sees. He sees but does not feel what he sees. A PERSON WhO CAN SEE IN THAT HE CAN SENSE CHANGES IN HIS "VISION" BUT IS NOT CONSCIOUS OF HIS SEEING IN THAT HE CANNOT DESCRIBE WHAT HE IS SEEING.

When do people develop the ability to communicate their intentions to others?

Block-sorting Task 4- 10 years old. even if you have theory of mind, it is hard to communicate intentions.

Classical Dualism

Classical dualism originated with the French philosopher René Descartes (1596-1650). Descartes was a revolutionary philosopher for his time and introduced theories on many of the ideas that underlie cognitive science. He believed in a one-way causal link, with the mind controlling the body but not vice versa.

Noë on Enactive Cognition

Cognition does not happen apart from bodily interaction with environment. cognition is not only affected by body but does not happen unless body experiences the cognition. cognition is not only thought of, part of it is bodily interaction with the environment.

The Globe Theatre-

Cognitive processing distributed over the individual actor and the physical and social environments of the Globe • Minimalist manuscript parts with all unnecessary information redacted • Plots: sheets of paper comprising scene-by-scene outlines of entrances & exits, casting, sound & music cues • Maps: coded physical aspects of the theatre (e.g., passages, doors) and conventions of movement common at the time. • Social structures & protocols: allowed novices to be trained "on the job" by playing certain supportive roles.

Nativism Elements of support.

Domains to consider re: nativist position Number: simple math, motivation changes performance in conservation task - m&m counting - infants ahve a sense of quantity Physics: infant recognize impossible events ] pushing block down a ledge but the block does not fall and the baby sucks. Language: genetically predetermined - Genie (to an extent) - window of aquisition. Critical period hypothesis (and support for, objections to): biologically predetermined time by which a child must acquire language; Genie case supports idea; Objections: can't know if preexisting damage Deception in children (age of deception in relation to acquisition of theory of mind, support [good puppet/bad puppet study]): younger kids seem to deceive to shape other's actions, older kids to shape other's beliefs. the babies deceive to affect the mental states of others so that the bad puppet. Thus, providing evidence for theory of mind and deception.

4ES OF DISTRIBUTED COGNITION

ENVIRONMNT: EMBEDDED EXTENDED BODY: EMBODIED ENACTIVE

Idealism (Berkeley) and Materialism

Idealism (Berkeley) - the belief that the mind is nonphysical and spiritual. People who believe in this are called idealists or solipsists. Materialism - the belief that the mind is physical and can take on different forms. people who believe in this are materialists. Materialism is the belief that everything that exists is physical. The operations of the mind are seen here as simply the operations of the brain.

What is the mind-body problem?

The conflict between deciding whether or not the mind is a physical, material thing, or a soul or spirit. Some people think that the mind is merely a physical thing, where as some think that the mind and its feelings and desires are too complicated to be a mere physical thing.That perhaps, it is more of a soul .

COGNITION

LOOK AT EXAM 2 MATERIAL.

DISTRIBUTED COGNITION

LOOK AT EXAM 2 MATERIAL.

Philosophy and Cognition (Different Branches)??

Logic - evaluation of reasoning, truth of reasoning. Metaphysics- the nature of reality Epistemology - study of knowledge. What it is, how is it represented, where it comes from, and how it is acquired. What's the nature of mental representations? - What's behind conscious experiences (self, color, emotion, etc.)? - Do we really have free will? - What's the relationship between mind and body? Ethics - the study of human conduct and evaluating it. moral decision making.

Social Cognition

Look at Presentation!!!

myelination

MYELINATION INCREASES DURING INFANCY and it enables infant's neurons to process faster impulses.

Philosophy of Mind 2

Make a diagram of the different branches of philosophy on the mind and a table of the different approaches to Mind-Body problem.

Philosophy of Mind - Mind Body Problem

Make diagram on a board with all concepts in terms of mind-body problem for this!!!!

Experimental philosophy (basic premise)

Trolley and Footbridge dilemmas - how personal the decision is influences how we decide as evinced through longer or shorter RT. Trolley - exploiting an already-existent situation. Footbridge - throwing fat man requires more personal interaction and thus longer RT and brain activity in deciding ti appropriateness.

personal/immoral affect decision making?

YES: emo/onal areas of brain more ac/ve for moral-personal • YES: working memory areas less ac/ve for moral-personal • YES: takes longer to respond "appropriate" moral-personal

Theory of Mind

ability to keeping track of other people's mental states and distinguishing between them, and able to affect others mental states. Mandy Sally Ann Test - <5 - look in own box >5 - look in other box

Functionalism -

anything that functions liek a mind is a mind. AIs Something is a mind because it functions like one.

Functionalism

anything that functions liek a mind is a mind. Ais

Joint Attention

aware of other people's mental states (Mandy)

Decscartes

believes that self-introspection is realiable and that feelings that come from experience are not realiable for discovering truth. Thus, the only reliable way to find truth is thorugh my thoughts.

What about cases where we seem to be processing without conscious awareness?

blindsight - Cortical (vs. ocular) blindness but ability to detect stimuli above chance No conscious experience but some kind of awareness? Aware of stimuli but no feeling of it, in that unable to report the feeling. Conscious os stimuli but not able to verbally report it.

Chimpanzees have a little Theory of Mind????

chimps have joint attention. aware of other people's mental states.

DISTRIBUTED COGNITION

cognition as studied over the mind, body, and enviornment in terms of : cognition is distributed across mind, body and environment. ex: Chil with Broca's aphasia, he can comprehend speech but cannot produce speech. family helping him think and express himself.

Chimpanzee Cognitive development?????

description: experiment:

3. Explain how the case of "Chil" illustrates one or more facets of Distributed Cognition.

family, most natural environment, helps him with his thinking. other family members. other minds, body.

What ex. supports habituation paradigm

goal side and new-side- former elicits response form infant.

Haugeland

harder than it is: focuses both on the environment and the person ex: ants interact

what makes us view an action as intentional action.

immoral and had skill very intentional. Jon marksman. no skill, skill, immoral, moral.

Social development

infants - recognition of intention 9 months -1 yr - joint attention - awareness of others mental states infants can recognize intention. Ex: experiment showing that adults can focus another child's attention to an object through eye-gazing. 1 yr - recognition of communicative intention. 3-5 - Theory of mind recognition of intention - infancy

habituation paradigm

infants become numb to stimuli that they are exposed to repeatedly. however, when goals are changed, or when a person reaches for a new thing (goal-side), they respond differently and thus they are able to

dynamic interaction -

interactions with environment. dynamic interaction is part of cognition.

Parallelism -

mind and body are in sync but do not affect one another.

Dualism-

mind exists in spiritual realm. body exists in physical realm. the mind and body exist in world that have different properties the belief that the mind is both mental and physical.(plato) circles are imperfect in physical world

Materialism:

mind is physical. Reductive materialism - the mind is the brain. There are feelings and thoughts are real. Eliminative materialism - feelings and thoughts aren't real.

Genie

Nativist: She couldn't learn the language because she missed the window of acquisition. Empiricist: Well, we don't know what type of damage Genie could have been born with. Thus she might not be able to learn language because of something else.

Enactive cognition -

Noe - Theory that says that the process of thinking is done though dynamic interaction, bodily interactions with environment, not just simply in the mind or the body, but understanding and perception comes from interacting with the environment. perception is a physical interaction with the environment, not just inside the mind.

What experiment supported the Principle of Parity?

Otto & Inga thought experiment:

Principle of Parity

Otto and Inga, (extended cognitoin argument) though thy use different methods to think, the results are the same. Otto - using notebook (extended) Inga - uses memory(embodied) extended cognition works just as well as embodied cognition. different methods, same function and results.

Psychological Consciousness ex

Part of conscoisuness regarding the biology that enables us to take in different inputs and consolidate them into one coherent whole. One part of pscyhological consciouness is neural binding.

Piagetian Stages:

Piaget: an empiricist: believes that people learn by experience The Piaget stages of development is a model that describes the stages that infants go through to develop their intellectual abilities and skills all the way to adulthood.

pragmatic vs. epistemic action

Pragmatic v. Epistemic Actions: acting on the environment to not change mental task, or to change mental task. pragmatic : simply hcange the world, no specifi goa; affecting the nature of a mental task. putting book on a shelf just to put them there, does not affect mental task in any way. epistemic - manipulation of environment for a purpose of changing the mental task. adding stuff by putting them together. arranging books in alphabetical order to make the mental task of finding specific books easier. ex: how do people become proficient at tetris. epistemic - rotating block to make it easier to visual. pragmatic - rotating block just to rotate it

Phenomenal Consciousness ex?????

Qualitative property of consciousness. A person could know everything about bats (qualitative property) but have no idea what it is like to be a bat. Explain Zombie analogy????

recognizing intention

recognizing someone's intentions.

2. Describe the difference between reductive materialism and eliminative materialism. Be specific.

reductive - thoughts and feelings exist eliminative - thoughts do not exist, we just call it that because we don't know enough about neurobiological mechanisms behind cognition.

Simon

simpler than we think focuses more on the person. ex: ants interact with beach are more complex becaus the environment is complex. environment.

Otto & Inga thought experiment:

supports extended cognition to be as effective as embedded cognition by showing that extended model is used and works for thinking just as well as embedded. External environment is used and it works just as well as the internal environment. Otto- used paper to get to museum - usually used as an example of Inga- used internal memories to get to museum

Extended cognition

the enviornemnt, body, an things ouside fo the mind also are apart of cognition. suported by extended funcitonalism.

extended functionalism

the enviornment can serve as an extension of the thinking.

Qualia

the feeling of experience. someon's pain of 5 could be pain of 10 to you.

Idealism:

the idea that the body, mind, and reality as we know it are concepts of God's mind. Although it is logically consistent, this view cannot be tested and so is not considered scientific.

proliferation

the number of synapses increases as infants learn and form more synaptic connections

Solipsism

the only thing that i sure is that I have a mental state. but not sure of others have it.

Solipsism

the universe is a hallucination. the universe is only in one's mind. flaw: not experimentable.

extended functionalism

things outside of the body can be apart of someon's as cognition - cane can be used as the eyes nd thus are part of the proces of thikning.

Interactionim

thoughts affect and produce actions, flaw: hard to prove how mind(black box) affects the physical, visible actions

Locke

truth obtained by experience. introspection, or self-reasoning is not reliable.

REne Descartes on epistemology

REne Descartes- belived that eveyrthng must be tested to make sense, or rational., a beliefe konwn as rationalism. Rationalism, however, still believes that the ability to reason is innate. Thus, rationalism is the belief that we learn everythign from reasoning, but we are born with the power to reason. one such ability to reason is logical to udnestand that somehting canot be nonxistent and existent simultaneously. existence. Reasoning is the right method for learning about reality. Believed: mind is rational and cannot be replicated We should test reality by reason, not by feeling, or experience, which is Mind is rational, can't be duplicated in machines • Sense experience unreliable, reason reliable - Belief that mind is distinct from body • Mind-body relationship major topic, more on this shortly "I think, therefore I am." - Descartes

Different Types of Materialism

Reductive materialism - the mind is the brain. However, feelings and thoughts exist. Eliminative materialism - we simply call thoughts and feelings because we do not konw enough about the brain to explain what thoughts and feelings really are. When we know more, the idea of thoughts and feelings will be "eliminated"

Sample Questions/Prompts 1. What are the 4 theoretical positions within Distributed Cognition? Describe each position and explain how it contrasts with at least one other position.

Role of environment: 1. Embedded - thinking happens in the body, but the helps (aiding) -scaffold - specific elements in the environment used to aid them in thinking. bartenders arrange specific glasses. 2. Extended (andy clark or chalmer) - the environment is a part of our thinking does not only aid it. glasses are part of the thinking. expert carpenter - hammer becomes part of cognition. extended functionalism - our envirionment is part of our cognition. is extended to our environment when our environment helps us think. Role of Body 3. Embodied - environment affects cognition. action incompatibility affects reaction time in that our mental representations are affected by our body. 4. Enactive - environment is part of our cognition. cognition arises from interaction with environment.

Consciosuness is produced by Neural Binding

Same set of neurons fire at the same time in sync and these signals come together to produce a coherent whole consciousness. neural signals are bound together to form a coherent whole.

Monism

Says that the brain is either material or spiritual. That the material can produce the spiritual. That the mind and the body is in the same world. (Aristotle)

GENIE and Window of Acquisition:??????

Experiment supporting innate ability playing a roel in learning

synaptic pruning

1. gets rid of UNNECESSARY NEURONS that might entangle or interfere with other neural pathways and makes the neurons more (better) effective at functioning. 2. makes neurons more specialized, increasing quality and effectiveness, thus numbers of neurons decreases

Personal interaction affects decision making

1. longer RT 2. more brain activity in the areas of the brain involved in decision making 3.

The Mind Body Problem :

1: What is it? Physical or Spiritual?

Chimps have recognition of attention and cannot recognition of communicative intention

1st : awareness of other people's 2nd:

Embodied cognition

- body plays the largest role in perception and formation of mental imagery. body affects mental representations.

sensorimotor contingencies

- things that you know you can do with the environment, from interacting with the environment.

What are the 2 methos of intellectual development?

1. Assimilation: taking in similar experiences and assimilating your things (adding) to your existing schema. striped dog is a dog. ex: infant's existing sucking reflex learn that many things can be sucked as it sucks many things 2. Accommodation: (changing) schema to include new experience ex: dogs are not striped, those things are zebras

What are the 4 stages of Piagetion development? intellectual development

4 stages to explain how cognition develops: 1. Birth - 2: Sensorimotor infancy - beginning of intentional action, like crying to get food. 9 months: starts to understanding of object permanence ex: cover object up and infant thinks that it's GONE. 2- 7 Pre-operational 1. developed concept of object permanence will look for object that is hidden 2. learn to use language to do tasks. ex: talk themselves through task 3. egocentric thinking: trouble having open-mind 4. don't know what conservation, the idea that moving its object does not affect its properties: ex: of this type of conservation is that 8 oz of liquid in two different shaped glasses (one taller than the other) have the same amount of liquid. 7-11: concrete operational: 1. understand conservation of mass 2. children begin to form/understand more concrete categories e.g., dogs, birds, types of food, etc. by the age of 11, they are usually able to categorize 11 and up: Formal Operations: logical inference - if-then thinking think abstractly - deduction to support arguments or hypothesis

Do emotions affect our decision making significantly?

Footbridge - engages emotions (physical contact with man - more personal), whereas Trolley(flicking switch - not as personal) does not.

What is Consciousness? You can have an objective science for a subjective and objective problem

It is what makes us human. 1. Psychological Consciousness - objective - easy: biologically, how do we take in input and form a coherent whole from it 2. Phenomenal Consciousness - subjective - hard: why and how do we feel what we see or experience? Phenomenal Consciousness is harder to study because it is harder to empirically find out why and how people(based on unrealiable self-report) feel differently the way thy feel differently than it is to understand the how people biologically take in input and put it into a coherent, whole.(concrete, visible scientific data about the neurophysiology behind mehanism of conscoiuness)

Locke on epistemology

John Locke - experience, not rationale, is the method of learning about reality. did not believe in rationalism, but empiricism. Knowledge is acquired from experience. Knowledge of other more complex things are tied to knowledge of existing things.

Not everyone agrees that intellectual development is learned. Other think that infants are born with knowledge that helps them obtain other knowledge, or nativists. Who disagrees and what is his or her viewpoint?

KARMILOFF-SMITH is a nativist, learn using other innate knowledge. Innately have a sense of number. nativity view: some knowedge is innate

KARMILOFF-SMITH HAS ALTERNATE POINT OF VIEW.

nativity view: some knowedge is innate MOTIVATION enhance performance with toddlers: ex: M & M instead of checkers causes shows that not all experience is teacher, there is innate too.

Principle of Parity:

no disparity between RESULTS AND PERFORMANCE OF extended and embedded cognition

eliminative materialist

paul and patricia - feelings don't exist empirical approach to studying how cognition. and the only thing that is empirical is neurobiology. that feelings don't exist, only body does.

Epiphenomenalism

physical cause the mental, but not the other way ex: biological, physical brain operations affects the mind. flaw: A difficulty with this view is that it runs counter to our introspections, many of which place thoughts before actions