FUNDAMENTALS OF COGNITIVE SCIENCES
The course allows students to acquire in-depth skills about history and interdisciplinary manifestations of cognitive sciences (psychology, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, linguistics, philosophy, anthropology).
The course will favor the development of critical skills in the evaluation of theories related to the functioning of the mind and brain, simulation models (classical artificial intelligence, neural networks, dynamical systems) and their practical applications (human factors, etc.).
The course will cover the past and present of the cognitive sciences, isolating the key events that led to their genesis and which have allowed their consolidation.
The content of the course is interdisciplinary and will require a good mastery of topics of cognitive psychology, neuroscience and computer science.
The historical vision of the discipline will be accompanied by a series of in-depth modules on contemporary research topics such as the evolution of cognition, the design of intelligent systems and human-machine interfaces.
History of Psychology: from Aristotle to Wundt;
Birth and development of Psychophysics;
Structuralism, functionalism, behaviorism and cognitivism;
The precursors of cognitive sciences: cybernetics, calculators, artificial neural networks, artificial intelligence and linguistics.
Chomsky's contribution to the study of mind functioning;
Modularity and interactive models.
- Handouts provided by the teacher.
Lectures and group reports on scientific articles.
Written test. Optional oral test (only if the written test is sufficient).