Syllabus

These materials are from the Spring 2002 version of the class.

The links below are online references for additional resources in the fields of perception, attention, working memory, recognition and recall, language, computation, and other issues in cognitive science. These range from professional societies that maintain links to areas that any reader can explore in the field of cognition. Many of the linked sites provide resources for further study, as well as downloadable resources that can be used for classroom teaching.

Cognition

The Cognitive Science Society has the latest news and information on conferences, funding, and employment, along with a host of related conferences.

The Cognitive Neuroscience Society is committed to the development of mind and brain research aimed at investigating the psychological, computational, and neuroscientific bases of cognition.

The American Psychological Society promotes, protects, and advances the interests of scientifically oriented psychology in research, application, teaching, and the improvement of human welfare.

The Organization for Human Brain Mapping provides an educational forum for the exchange of up-to-the-minute and ground breaking research across modalities exploring Human Brain Mapping.

The Psychonomic Society promotes the communication of scientific research in psychology and allied sciences.

The Federation of Behavioral, Psychological and Cognitive Sciences (PDF) is a coalition of Member Organizations, university departments of psychology, schools of education, research centers, regional psychological associations, and science divisions of the American Psychological Association (APA).

The American Society of Neuroimaging is an international, professional organization representing neurologists, neurosurgeons, neuroradiologists and other neuroscientists who are dedicated to the advancement of techniques used to evaluate the nervous system.

Linguistics

The American Association for Applied Linguistics is a professional organization of scholars who are interested in and actively contribute to the multi-disciplinary field of applied linguistics.

The American Philological Association is the principal learned society for Classical Studies of ancient Greek and Roman languages, literatures, and civilizations.

The Association for Computational Linguistics is the international scientific and professional society for people working on problems involving natural language and computation.

The Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing supports the application of computing in the study of language and literature.

The Association for Machine Translation in the Americas is dedicated to anyone interested in the translation of languages using computers in some way.

The International Speech Communication Association covers all the aspects of Speech Communication, including Acoustics, Phonetics, Phonology, Linguistics, Natural Language Processing, Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Science, Signal Processing, Pattern Recognition, etc.

The Epigraphic Society is concerned with the discovery and decipherment of ancient inscriptions.

The Linguistic Society of America serves its members through scholarly meetings, publications, and special activities designed to advance the discipline.

The Philological Society is devoted to the scholarly study of language and languages.

Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction is an international social science professional organization of scholars interested in qualitative, especially interactionist, research.

Neuroscience

The Society for Neuroscience addresses the study of brain development, sensation and perception, learning and memory, movement, sleep, stress, aging and neurological and psychiatric disorders. It also includes the molecules, cells and genes responsible for nervous system functioning.

The American Epilepsy Society is committed to the support and enhancement of the study, acquisition, dissemination, and application of medical knowledge concerning epilepsy in all of its phases: biological, clinical and social.

The National Institute on Aging leads a broad scientific effort to understand the nature of aging and to extend the healthy, active years of life.

Online References

The Human Brain is an online virtual hospital site that provides a stunning array of images of the human central nervous system from infants to adult. On January 1, 2006 Virtual Hospital / Virtual Children's Hospital ceased operations after serving over 80 million users, due to a lack of funding. Virtual Hospital / Virtual Children's Hospital content remains available online at the link above.

The Whole Brain atlas is a site that is hosted by the Harvard medical school which displays pictures from MRI to fMRI in various disease states.

Computation

Intelligence basically means the ability to perform well on new data after learning a model on the basis of given data. The NATO Advanced Study Institute on Learning Theory and Practice conference promotes the understanding of problems of learning and generalization.

The FoCM Workshop on Learning Theory supports and promotes research on foundations of computational mathematics. It fosters interaction among mathematics, computer science and other areas of computational science through its conferences, workshops and publications.

Humanoids IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots

MICCAI98 is an international conference on medical image computing and computer-assisted intervention.

This page presents various course policies and information, followed by a calendar.

Course Meeting Times

Lectures: 1 session / week, 3 hours / session

The History of Media and Technology Course Group

As a course group, History of Media and Technology addresses the mutually influential histories of communications media and technological development, focusing on the shift from analog to digital cultures that began mid-century and continues to the present. The approach the series takes to the study of media and technology is a multifaceted one that includes theoretical and philosophical works, histories canonical and minority, literature and art, as well as hands-on production issues toward the advancement of student projects and research papers. Each course in the series reflects a particular thematic in the history of media and technology.

Course Description

Sound, the Minority Report: Radical Music of the Past 100 Years looks at the history of avant-garde and electronic music from the early twentieth century to the present. The class is organized as a theory and production seminar for which students may either produce audio/multimedia projects or a research paper. It engages music scholarship, cultural criticism, studio production, and multi-media development, such as recent software, sound design for film and games, and sound installation. Sound as a media tool for communication and sound as a form of artistic expression are subjects under discussion. The artists' work reviewed in the course includes selections from audio innovators such as the Italian Futurists, Edgard Varèse, John Cage, King Tubby, Brian Eno, Steve Reich, Afrika Bambaataa, Kraftwerk, Merzbow, Aphex Twin, Rza, Björk, and others.

Course Requirements

Class attendance and participation are required. Assigned reading must be done in time for the class for which is it assigned. Primary readings are mandatory. All written assignments are to be typed.

Assignments

The assignments are progressive and will be presented in class as they develop.

• Audio Recording
• DJ Mix / Podcast
• Sound Collage
• Software Project or Soundtrack Project Draft
• Remixes of Software Project or Soundtrack Project
• Radio Mix
• Final Projects

Note: Students will present work throughout the semester.

Final Media Project

The Final Media Project is either:

1. A 5-page project description (co-authored) + bibliography, or
2. A 20 page research paper.

The project shall be presented at the end of the course based on the research interests and technical design of a Working Group. Groups may contain between 2-3 people. Permission is required from instructor for larger groups. A minimum of 2 meetings outside of the class is required of the Working Groups.

Grading

Plagiarism

The use of another's intellectual work without acknowledgement is a serious offense. It is the policy of the Literature Faculty that students who plagiarize will receive an F in the subject, and that the instructor will forward the case to the Committee on Discipline. Full acknowledgement for all information obtained from sources outside the classroom must be clearly stated in all written work submitted. All ideas, arguments, and direct phrasings taken from someone else's work must be identified and properly footnoted. Quotations from other sources must be clearly marked as distinct from the student's own work. For further guidance on the proper forms of attribution consult the style guides available in the Writing and Communication Center. You may visit their Web site.

Calendar