Cognition-Chapter 1

Cognition-Chapter 1

1. Thinkers

   • Descartes
     • Mental representations are ideas that take form
   • Hobbes
     • Mental processes are calculations
   • Turing
     • Invented the machine: finite states+ finite rules= infinite capacity

2. Knowledge

   • Implicit
     • Innate
       • Whatever enables you to perform cognitive tasks, mostly unlearned
   • Explicit
     • The one that we acquire and are conscious of
       • By experience
         • Semantic
           • Common of the world, concepts
         • Episodic
           • Own view, personal experience

3. Levels of analysis

   • Computational
     • Mechanism of information processing
     • Isolate components
     • INPUT
   • Representations and algorithms
     • Representing something external
     • System manipulates representations
     • SET OF RULES
   • Implementation
     • Where and how processes are realized
     • The brain
   • Marr

4. Science of human nature- study in lab

   • Brain
     • Can study neurons but won't tell us how mental representations fit
     • Organ of the mind
     • Formal device that manipulates code
   • Mind
     • Mental representations that we can't see
     • Works like a turning machine

5. Behaviour

   • Dictated by our knowledge
     • Set of rules encoded in the brain

6. The study of mental representations, and processes involved in the acquisition, storage, retrieval and use of knowledge

   • Mental representations
     • Things in the mind that stand for things in the world
     • Computations (MTP)
   • Processes
     • Operations over representations

7. Disciplines

   • Behaviourists
     • What's observable+ physical laws
   • Cognitivist
     • What's observable+ physical laws + rules (non observable)
       • We need to understand how the brain works but it's not enough