Your essay should not have your name on it, just your student number.

Overview

Length: 7-8 pages (2000 words +/- 10%) Topic due date: Mar 16 Essay due date: Apr 8

Essays are due by midnight of the due date. All submissions should be emailed to the course email.

Essays will be evaluated on the basis of:

1. Research: Use resources beyond the textbook and class readings.
2. Writing: Write intelligibly.
3. Understanding: Demonstrate that you have mastered the relevant concepts
4. Argument: Make a compelling case for the answer or analysis you prefer, and consider alternative answers. Essays will be graded on the quality of the argument, not on the particular conclusion you reach.

Please use a 12pt font with 1½ inch margins and double space, and include a word count. The bibliiographic format does not matter, but make sure that you use a standard one and indicate all your sources, including web sites. This is a research essay so you should use 5 or more sources in addition to the readings. Include at least one reference to the readings. Use at least three 'professional' sources (professional sources are intended to be peer reviewed articles in journals or books, not from textbooks, handbooks, encyclopedia, or other reference sources). Ensure that several of your sources are recent (i.e., within the last 5 years).

Make sure you write an essay (i.e., structured like one).

As stated in the syllabus, for missing deadlines related to picking topics, you will receive a penalty of -1 mark (1% of the course final grade) per day for the related assignment. For missing deadlines for handing in essays, you will receive a penalty of -1 mark (1% of the course final grade) per day. Assignments will not be accepted after 1 week. In cases like serious illness or family emergency you must provide appropriate, official documentation to avoid late penalties.

The penalty for plagiarism (passing another person's work off as your own) is a course grade of F and referral to the Associate Dean.

See: How to avoid plagiarism

Essay Topics

Please email me with your selected topic number. Once too many people have selected a topic, it will be crossed off the list below. If you want to write on an alternate topic, email it to me with a brief description and I will let you know if it is appropriate.

1. Compare and contrast a connectionist and classical AI (i.e. symbolicist) model (not discussed in class) of a given phenomenon (e.g., analogy, vision, language parsing, memory, planning, etc.). Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each model. How does your analysis relate to the overall connectionist/symbolicist debate? (please email me with your chosen models for approval)
2. Examine in detail an application of mental logic to a cognitive phenomenon. Compare and contrast this with a competing 'non-logical' explanation of the same phenomenon.
3. Discuss the contemporary role of neuroscience in psychology. Describe the limitations and benefits to integrating the two in the context of a specific set of phenomena (e.g., language, reasoning, task learning, for other phenomena please email me for approval).
4. Pick a standard methodology in neuroscience. Describe its application, strengths and weaknesses in detail. Focus, in particular, in some ways that it is currently used that may be inappropriate.
5. Provide a comparison of at least two large-scale neural models of cognition. Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each. Evaluate the potential each has for continuing to scale. Provide specific suggestions for how each model should be improved.
6. Characterize, contrast and compare three different theories/methods of unsupervised learning. Describe the strengths and weaknesses of each, and how they might help us understand biological learning.
7. Choose a paper or book on concepts and examine it in the context of other theories of concepts we discussed in class. Compare, contrast, and evaluate the theory you have chosen.
8. Discuss arguments for and against using ‘representations’ to explain behavior. Which kind of explanation do you think is mostly likely to succeed and why?
9. There have been many recent advancements in understanding emotion in the brain. Discuss some of them and show how they relate to standard problems in Cognitive Science.
10. Examine evidence for and against imagery in a modality other than vision. How is the visual imagery debate like and unlike the debate in your chosen modality?
11. Compare and contrast (at least) two views of the role of semantics in providing cognitive explanations. Evaluate the different options and argue for what you take to be the most appropriate role for intentional explanations.
12. Choose a specific robotic platform and compare it to the kinds of approaches discussed in class. How do you think such a platform can most usefully inform our cognitive theories. What changes to the platform would make it more useful? (please email me with your chosen platform for approval).
13. Discuss the relationship between levels of explanation in cognitive science. Clearly identify the levels you have chosen to discuss. Choose a specific example not discussed in class in which to demonstrate your analysis of this relationship.
14. Discuss the relationship between cognitive science and artificial intelligence. Provide specific examples highlighting the similarities and differences between both approaches. Discuss the goals, methods, and example successes of each.