Computational Cognitive Sciences (ISR 0201)

October 2nd, 2023

(1500 to 1630 Hrs.)

Lecture 01.
“Why What & How
of CCS”

Anees ul Husnain
Image Source:https://www.iitk.ac.in/new/department-of-cognitive-science
Department of Computer Systems Engineering
Faculty of Engineering, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur
Today’s Outline
• Background
• Why is computational Cognitive
Sciences (CCS) has been coined?
• What does CCS mean?
• How this can be achieved?

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Background
“Human learning and reasoning is
founded on multiple knowledge
representations with different kinds of
structures…
…such as trees, chains, dominance
hierarchies, neighborhood graphs, and
directed networks…
…to explain how people’s domain
knowledge can support a wide range of
learning and reasoning…
Image by Prof. Joshua Tenenbaum
…and how these knowledge structures
may themselves be learned from
experience!” Ref. https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/9-66j-
But do we really know how we think? computational-cognitive-science-fall-2004/

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What is Cognitive Science?
Offers multi-faceted
explanations of individual
and social behavior.
To understand and
develop methods:
For effective learning:
To Contribute to the
development of true
artificial intelligence!
Ref.https://www.iitk.ac.in/new/departme
Ref. https://gureckislab.org/assets/images/cogsci/flower.svg nt-of-cognitive-science
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Why we need Cognitive Science? OR What’s
wrong with AI? OR Machine Learning
Artificial Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines or software, as opposed
to the intelligence of humans or animals. It is also the field of study in
intelligence?
computer science that develops and studies intelligent machines.
(Ref.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence)

Machine Machine learning involves the creation of algorithms that

Learning? allow computers to learn from example and past experience rather
than reading preprogrammed information.[1][2] e.g. an algorithm to
learn how to recognize an “A” it’s never seen before rather writing it.
Cognitive Cognitive computing uses machine learning rather than explicitly
Computing? programmed algorithms (algorithms with a pre-defined and pre-
programed sets of rules). The ultimate goal of cognitive computing is
to build fully cognitive Artificial Intelligence.
(Ref. https://factmyth.com/factoids/cognitive-ai-is-a-computer-program-that-can-think-and-learn/)
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What is Cognitive AI? And why Need it?
…but do we really know how we think?
Cognitive Artificial Intelligence (AI) is
any computer program that
can think, learn, and generally
mimic human cognition.
Cognitive computing is the process of
understanding and building cognitive
computer systems, including AI.
(Ref. https://factmyth.com/factoids/cognitive-ai-is-a-
computer-program-that-can-think-and-learn/)

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How?
…How the computers learn?
Traditional coding: a specific algorithm into a machine and it uses “if/then” commands
(“if this then do this”). We show a machine every type of apple, and then when it sees a
picture of an apple, it can tell you it’s an apple. This can create machines that “seem” to
think (weak AI)

Machine learning: a general algorithm that gives the machine a foundation for
recognizing programs and programming itself. We program an algorithm that allows a
machine to understand what an apple is by looking at examples. It doesn’t have to see
every type of apple to know an apple is an apple. This can create machines that can
actually think (strong AI).
(Ref. https://factmyth.com/factoids/cognitive-ai-is-a-computer-program-that-can-think-and-learn/)

Is it really enough as compared to human cognitive abilities?

Computational Cognitive Sciences (ISR 0201) - Anees ul Husnain, Faculty of Engineering,
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How?
Is it really enough as compared to human cognitive abilities?

The most important of them all is Cognitive

Science, the study of how the human mind
works and mental processes, drawing various
principles from psychology, linguistics, and
neuroscience. Artificial Intelligence is nothing
but an attempt to create cognitive beings,
mapping out to understand all the cognition,
human or otherwise.
(ref. https://bwdisrupt.businessworld.in/article/Mind-or-
Machines-Cognitive-Science-Changing-Artificial-Intelligence/26-
12-2017-135740/ )

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How? (Marr’s three levels)
Marr (1982) famously argued that

any information processing system can

be analyzed at three levels, that of

(1) the computational problem the

system is solving;
(2) the algorithm the system uses to
solve that problem; and
(3) how that algorithm is implemented in
the “physical hardware” of the
system. (ref.
https://cocosci.princeton.edu/papers/krafftCogsci.
pdf )
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How?

Toward a
computational
framework for
cognitive biology:
Unifying approaches
from cognitive
neuroscience and
comparative
cognition
by. W. Tecumseh
Fitch

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 But do we really know how we think?
Thank you!
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