Dr. Michael Barkasi
barkasi@yorku.ca

Course Times:

• Zoom lecture: Mondays and Wednesdays, 10:30-11:30am
• Discussion sections (one of): Monday 9:30-10:30am or Monday 11:30am-12:30pm or Wednesday 9:30-10:30am or Wednesday 11:30am-12:30pm

Are mental capacities like perception and language production just a matter of information processing? To what extent can we theorize about this cognitive information processing in abstraction from the brain? Is it more like the discrete symbol manipulation of a digital computer, or is there some other model that's better suited? What can recent, impressive artificial “neural” networks like AlphaZero teach us about human cognition? What can we learn about cognition from brain scanning tools like fMRI or direct neural interventions like TMS? Can this information processing framework explain consciousness? To what extent do nonhuman animals and artificial machines share our own cognitive information processing, and does that mean they have minds like ours? This course will explore these questions and more.

Technical requirements for taking the course:

Moodle and Zoom will be used in this course, through which students will interact with the course materials, the course instructor, as well as with one another.

• Zoom is hosted on servers in the U.S. This includes recordings done through Zoom.
• If you have privacy concerns about your data, provide only your first name or a nickname when you join a session.
• The system is configured in a way that all participants are automatically notified when a session is being recorded. In other words, a session cannot be recorded without you knowing about it.

Students have the option to participate in the live Zoom class time (Mondays and Wednesdays 10:30-11:30am) and their discussion section via webcam and microphone. Alternatively, students can watch the live Zoom class and participate in their discussion section without themselves turning on video or audio, while using the chat function to ask questions. If you miss a live Zoom class, recordings of the lecture portions of class time will be posted to Moodle. Q&A segments of class time, discussion sections, and any time containing student video, will not be recorded. No student is required to appear on video or speak over a microphone during the course, and no student will be recorded.

See: Technology requirements and FAQs for Moodle, Student Guide to Moodle, Zoom@YorkU Best Practices , Zoom@YorkU, User Reference Guide, Computing for Students Website, Student Guide to eLearning at York University

Cognitive Science: An Introduction to the Science of the Mind, 3rd Ed. (2020), by José Luis Bermúdez (ISBN: 9781108440349). There will be a few other articles we’ll read, which will be made available on Moodle.

• Weekly Quizzes (35% of total grade): A quiz will be given every Friday, except as noted on the schedule. The quizzes will be multiple-choice, 5-10 questions. They are open-book and unproctored. They will be available on Moodle all day Friday, but are timed (15-30 minutes, depending on the number of questions) and must be completed by the end of the day (by 11:59pm). No extensions will be given (lowest two quiz scores dropped).
• Final exam (35% of total grade): There will be a final exam given during a time scheduled during the exam period (Dec 9-23, time/date TBA). It will be held over a 3 hour window, given on Moodle, and consist of 5 short-essay questions. The final is open-book and unproctored.
• Papers (30% of total grade): Papers will be 1000-word max, and involve reading an assigned study, critically evaluating it, and writing up a response which demonstrates understanding and clearly communicates the issues identified in your evaluation. The lowest grade out of the three papers will be dropped. The paper assignments and grading rubric will be posted on Moodle. All papers will normally be submitted to Turnitin through the course website. Late papers will be accepted only at the discretion of your TA.

Students will be taught about the history of cognitive science and the debates surrounding the above questions. Students will learn the rudiments of information processing and representation, functionalism, classical vs neural network computation, predictive coding, neural imaging and neural interventions, and neural decoding. Special attention will be paid to philosophical aspects of these topics. Finally, students will learn how to critique an empirical study in cognitive science, especially by devising relevant alternative explanations for the results.

Virtual office hours: Office hours will be every Wednesday, 12:30-1:30pm, by Zoom. For individual appointments or alternative times, please do not hesitate to email me.

Times, locations, and course organization:

• This course depends on remote teaching and learning. There will be no in-person activities on campus.
• We will have a live, one-hour class time over Zoom during the scheduled course time (Mondays and Wednesdays, 10:30-11:30am).
• The Zoom class will be broken up into two thirty-minute blocks of 20 min of lecturing followed by 10 min of Q&A.
• Attendance to these live Zoom classes is encouraged, but not required. (Students are free to join and leave the live Zoom class at any times, as well.) The 20 minute lectures will be recorded and posted to Moodle.
• You will also be assigned to a discussion section which will meet once per week (also over Zoom), lead by a TA. Your TA will answer questions and guide you through discussion exercises meant to help you build understanding of the material. Section attendance is expected, even though it's not directly graded.
• A quiz will be given most Fridays (see schedule). The quiz will be available on Moodle all day, but is timed (15-30 minutes, depending on the number of questions) and must be completed by the end of the day (by 11:59pm).
• In addition to either attending the live Zoom classes or watching the recorded lectures, you are expected to read the assigned textbook chapter and/or articles listed for each week. These can be read before or after the live Zoom classes and, but should be read before the weekly quiz (as the quiz may cover material from the articles). It’s also strongly advised you read this material before your discussion section. You are not expected to fully comprehend everything you read; a goal of this course is to teach you to read complex research material, especially to read for the “gist”. For the articles (but not the textbook), a brief 1-page guide will be provided a week in advance, explaining background material, key terms, listing key pages and sections, and explaining what to look for.
• Students will write three short (1000-word) papers in which they critically evaluate an assigned study.
• There will be a final exam given during a time scheduled during the exam period (Dec 9-23). It will be held over a 3 hour window and will be taken over Moodle. Alternative arrangements and makeups will not be allowed, except as required by university policy.
• Quizzes and the final exam will not be proctored, so no special software outside of Moodle is required. Quizzes and the final exam will be open-book (see the “Course policies” section below for details).

Course policies

• Missed quizzes: No extensions or redos will be given for quizzes, no exceptions, including for technical difficulties.
• Final exam makeups: Alternative arrangements and makeups will not be allowed, except as required by university policy.
• “Open-book” policy: It is expected that students will complete quizzes and final exam on their own without help from any other person, using only their notes, the textbook, the articles covered in class, and other materials that have been provided over Moodle. For example, Google or other internet searching is not allowed, nor, once you have started the quiz or exam, are you allowed to ask a classmate or friend for help in any way. If you take a quiz or exam before a classmate, you cannot communicate to them the questions or anything that may give them an unfair advantage. “Open-book” means only that you are allowed to use your notes, the textbook, articles covered in class, and other materials provided over Moodle. When in doubt, ask me for clarification.
• Late papers: Late papers will be accepted at the discretion of your TA, if there are circumstances calling for an extension. Papers turned in late without reasonable mitigating circumstances will incur a 10% reduction in your score. It best that you contact your TA as soon as possible if you’re going to be late (preferably before the due date). The course instructor and TAs will coordinate to ensure consistency between TAs.
• Turnitin: To promote academic integrity in this course, students will be normally required to submit their written assignments to Turnitin (via the course Moodle) for a review of textual similarity and the detection of possible plagiarism. In so doing, students will allow their material to be included as source documents in the Turnitin.com reference database, where they will be used only for the purpose of detecting plagiarism. The terms that apply to the University’s use of the Turnitin service are described on the Turnitin.com website.
• Attendance: It is expected that you will attend the live Zoom classes and discussion section. Students who regularly miss class or their discussion section will not be directly penalized (via grade reductions), and the instructors and TAs will grade their submitted work fairly and without regard for their attendance. Nevertheless, students who regularly miss class are likely to find the graded work difficult and will lose the benefit of the discussion which happens during class and discussion section. Students who do regularly miss class or their discussion section should feel no need to explain their nonattendance to the course instructor or their TA. In sum, while attendance is important, it’s understood that some students will, for personal reasons, be unable to attend in real-time.
• Zoom sessions: When attending the live Zoom classes and discussion sections, you are not allowed to take any screenshots or recordings of any kind. This is to respect the privacy of your fellow students. Recordings of the lecture portions of class (which only involve the course instructor) and the associated slides will be made available on Moodle. You also do not have permission to reproduce any lecture recordings on any platforms or websites outside of Moodle.
• Academic honesty and integrity: In this course, we strive to maintain academic integrity to the highest extent possible. Please familiarize yourself with the meaning of academic integrity by completing SPARK’s Academic Integrity module at the beginning of the course. Breaches of academic integrity range from cheating to plagiarism (i.e., the improper crediting of another’s work, the representation of another’s ideas as your own, etc.). All instances of academic dishonesty in this course will be reported to the appropriate university authorities, and can be punishable according to the Senate Policy on Academic Honesty.
• Intellectual property: All course material (this syllabus, the textbook, power points, assignments, paper rubrics, etc), is the intellectual property of the course instructor, the textbook author, or the textbook publisher, and cannot be reproduced in any way without permission.
• Student conduct: All students are expected to treat their fellow students, TAs, and the instructor with respect and charity. Especially through mediums like Zoom and the course Moodle, no form of harassment, trolling, or disrespect will be tolerated.
• Further links: For more information on relevant university policies, please see: Student Rights & Responsibilities, Academic Accommodation for Students with Disabilities, and Important Course Information.

Special Accommodations: The course instructor is committed to fairly accommodating students with disabilities. Please contact me and Student Accessibility Services (https://accessibility.students.yorku.ca) as soon as possible, and we will all work together to find a fair accommodation.