Fall 2007 Office Hours - Tues., Thurs. 11:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m., ---  Bio/Psych #236. 
Office Phone: x-7657 (leave voice mail here), HCI Lab phone: x-7656.

I have an open door policy.  Feel free to drop in at other times.  If my door is open, I am available to chat. If it is closed, I am either gone or working on a project with a deadline.  Leave a message on my white board or with the departmental administrative assistant.

Day & Date

Topic 

T Sep. 4

Introduction - Name Games!

Peruse the World Memory Championship Website. They just completed the 2007 competition in Bahrain on September 2nd!!

Th Sep. 6

Alpha and Omega of Memory Research

Hermann Ebbinghaus (1885) Über das Gedchtnis: Untersuchungen zur experimentellen Psychologie. English Translation (Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology)

Everyone reads chapters 1-3, other chapters will be assigned to different groups who will each prepare a written summary of the findings before class. During class you will discuss the chapter in your group and give an oral presentation to the whole class.

Chapter 5. Rapidity of Learning Series of Syllables as a Function of Their Length
Chapter 6. Retention as a Function of the Number of Repetitions
Chapter 7. Retention and Obliviscence as a Function of the Time
Chapter 8. Retention as a Function of Repeated Learning
Chapter 9. Retention as a Function of the Order of Succession of the Members of the Series

REACTION PAPER

For chapters 1 - 3, your reaction paper should highlight how he defined memory and it's measurement and what experimental procedures and operational definitions he used to make the study of memory possible from an empirical, scientific standpoint.

For Chapters 5 - 9, each person should individually answer the following questions and then discuss them during class to prepare a succinct summary to the rest of the class.

(1) What new phenomena is studied in this chapter.

(2) what new concepts are defined

(3) choose 1 table of figures and write an explanation of what it reveals

(4) general conclusions and/or "laws" of memory does Ebbinghaus derive from this chapter?

 

Morris (2005) Strategies for Learning Proper Names: Expanding Retrieval Practice, Meaning and Imagery.

REACTION PAPER

This paper presents us with 3 experiments - In layman's terms, describe the name memorization techniques used in these studies. How do they differ in their operational definitions across the experiments. Briefly describe the reasons behind conducting the 2nd and 3rd experiments, why didn't they just stop at 1! Finally, if you were going to tell your mother the best method to help her memorize the names of people on her upcoming National Convention of ????? what would you recommend that she do based on this study?

 

M Sep. 10

Lab #1 Mnemonic Techniques

Presidents and Name Mnemonics, Coglab 2.0 Exp. Link Word

Lab Write up is found on the class moodle site. It is due (submitted on the moodle by 3:00 p.m. Monday, Sept. 17th.

Animaniacs teach the US presidents with music and mnemonics (found by Laura G.)

Goll (2006) Mnemonic Strategies: Creating Schemata For Learning Enhancement

Beaton (1995) Retention of foreign vocabulary learned using the keyword method: a ten year follow-up (new paper, available on webdisk in new papers folder)

T Sep. 11

Beaton (2005) Facilitation of receptive and productive foreign vocabulary learning using the keyword method: The role of image quality.

Linkword Languagescommercial site derived from research on mnemonics and language learning.

Reaction Paper (bring this one in as a printed copy)

Read the Beaton (2005) paper and pay special attention to Appendix 1. what features do you find that distinguish between the "good keyword" versus the "poor keyword" images? Try to come up with a short (5 - 9) list of differences along with recommendations about how to generate effective keyword images. after doing this, check out two languages of the free online demo's at the Linkword Languages website (notice who designed these courses!). Comment on the quality of the keyword images of the demo's using your criteria derived from the research paper (with several illustrative examples). Does Gruneberg practice what he preaches?

Moe (2005) Stressing the Efficacy of the Loci Method: Oral Presentation and the Subject-generation of the Loci Pathway with Expository Passages

Kondo (2004) Changes in brain activation associated with use of a memory strategy: a functional MRI study.

REACTION PAPER (submit this one before class on the moodle site.)

Tuesday reading Moe (2005) & Kondo (2004) Focused Question, submit before class on Moodle site.

(1) Ok, so these 2 papers study the mnemonic technique called "The Method of Loci" using very different methodologies. Compare and contrast the research methodology of the papers and what new information they give about the mechanisms underlying the most successful use of this mnemonic device.

(2) Use the Terminology of the Moe Paper to describe the task used and the 2 recall conditions in Kondo (2004). Incorporate the concepts of Oral vs written modality, rehearsal vs. method of loci, experimenter vs subject-generated pathways, expository vs. descriptive vs. narrative passages. Did Kondo use the "optimal" combination of stimuli and task characteristics in their study?

(3)Take the plunge and suggest a thought experiment that uses combines ideas from both papers to really highlight the differences in brain activation using fMRI recording of people doing Rehearsal vs. Method of Loci Memorization. What results would you expect?

Th Sep. 13

Hunt (1995) The subtlety of distinctiveness: What von Restorff really did

Kishiyama (2004) The von Restorff Effect in Amnesia: The Contribution of the Hippocampal System to Novelty-Related Memory Enhancements

REACTION PAPER (Bring printout to class for discussion)

Free write on these two articles, comparing and contrasting the methodologies and conclusions. As part of your paper, provide 3 different examples of how the memorial distinctiveness that vonRestorff elcudated has real life practical application.

M Sep. 17

Lab #2 Serial Memory Lab

Coglab 2.0 Experiments - von Restorff Effect.

Lab write up is found on the class moodle site. It is due (submitted on the moodle by 3:00 p.m. Monday, Sept. 24th.

T Sep. 18

Read the classic paper by George Miller entitled: The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information. This paper, written in 1956, helped launch the information processing paradigm in psychology and his 7+/- 2 chunks in STM is certainly the most widely cited "number" in memory research. I am asking you to read the original. This is very dense reading. To help us understand it better I am assigning each of you one of the sections to summarize (in writing) and present orally in class. Be sure to define any terms that need it and to explain any graphs that are in your section. You may need to do a bit of outside research to fully understand the material, try to put it into your own words. You will have 15ish minutes at the beginning of class to ask Erik questions and discuss the material before presenting it to the class. The section assignments are given below.

Information measurement (Erik)
Absolute judgments of unidimensional stimuli (Group 1)
Absolute judgments of multidimensional stimuli (Group 2)
Subitizing (Group 3)
The span of immediate memory (Group 4),
Recoding (Group 5)

 

Baddeley 1994 The Magical number seven: Still magic after all these years? I suggest you read this one first.

Th Sep. 20

Mahadevan (2002) Radical Behaviorism and Exceptional Memory Phenomena

Maguire (2002) Routes to remembering: the brains behind superior memory

Exceptional Memory Film Fest!

Autistic man is a "Living Camera"

Bob Gray, Card Memorizing Skill and more on Ripley's Believe it or not!

4 year old girl is a political "Wonk!"

Einstein's Brain Glial Cells Rock!

Real Rain Man Kim Peak

Brain Man Daniel Tammet learns Icelandic in a week!

M Sep. 24

Lab #3 Working Memory Capacity

Coglab 2.0 Experiments - Memory Span, Operation Span

T Sep. 25

Blink Book - Intro, Chapters 1 & 2 (along with research reports for these chapters)

Th Sep. 27

Blink Book - Chapters 3 & 4 (and research reports)

M Oct. 1

No lab today, check your e-mail and/or Moodle page for Blink Peer rating assignment

T Oct. 2

Blink Book - Chapters 5 & 6 & Conclusion (and research reports)

Th Oct. 4

Nosek (2007) NOT THE ONE ON THE CD

The Implicit Association Test at age 7: A methodological and conceptual review

REACTION PAPER (Bring printout to class for discussion)

Give me the "goods". Among other things, this review paper discusses the psychometric properties of the IAT, namely it's Validity and Reliability. Your job is to summarize and put in your own words the various types of validity and reliability that the test has been shown to have with supporting evidence.

For class discussion, also pay attention to the applicability of the IAT. What has it been used to study and what are legitimate future uses for the test according to the authors. We will also talk about the limitations and criticisms concerning the IAT, but for your reaction paper, keep it focussed on the "good" qualities.

M Oct. 8

Lab #4 Implicit Attitude Tests

Greenwald (1998) Measuring Individual Differences in Implicit Cognition: The Implicit Association Test

Before class travel to Project Implicit's demonstration site and try out several IAT's. Come to class with an idea of a topic area to study and some candidate stimuli to use. We will spend time in class developing several IAT studies that we will implement and conduct throughout this week.

As part of the lab we will be accessing opl.apa.org during class and running through the Race IAT. We will also be coming up with some exp. designs using the IAT.

Don't view these links ahead of class. 1 2 3

T Oct. 9

Dunn (2006) The somatic marker hypothesis: A critical evaluation

Maia (2004) A reexamination of the evidence for the somatic marker hypothesis: What participants really know in the Iowa gambling task

Bechara (2005) The Iowa Gambling Task and the somatic marker hypothesis: some questions and answers

No Reaction Paper this time. Come ready to show that you understand what the Somatic Marker Theory is and what the big controversy is in the back and forth between Maia and Bechara. We will sort out who is right during class today 8^)

Th Oct. 11

Fall Break

M Oct. 15

Lab #5 Gambling with Cards and Dice!

T Oct. 16

Brand (2007) Decisions under ambiguity and decisions under risk: Correlations and executive functions and comparisons of two different gambling tasks with implicit and explicit rules.

Brand (2005) Decision-Making Deficits of Korsakoff Patients in a New Gambling Task With Explicit Rules: Associations With Executive Functions

Th Oct. 18

Tchanturia (2007) An investigation of decision making in anorexia nervosa using the Iowa Gambling Task and skin conductance measurements

Wagar (2004) Spiking Phineas Gage: A Neurocomputational Theory of Cognitive–Affective Integration in Decision Making

Introductory Lecture on Neural Networks and Connectionist Modeling

M Oct. 22

Lab #7 GDT Final Training and Data Collection

T Oct. 23

GDT Data Collection

Th Oct. 25

Try out this Neural network simulation for "solving" the Necker Cube.

Try to train this simple neural network called MIMIC to recognize 4 patterns

Cohen (1990) "On the control of automatic processes: A parallel distributed processing account of the stroop effect."

Reaction Paper:
For each simulation, write up and be ready to discuss the following questions:
1. What is the simulation trying to show?
2. How well does the simulation data match the empirical data?
3. What features of the neural network simulation are most responsible for producing the correspondence between empirical data and simulation results.

We will assign groups to lead the discussion for each of the simulation studies.

M Oct. 29

Lab #8

Rowley (1995) Human Face Detection in Visual Scenes

- Read about the Human Face Detection Project at Carnegie Mellon University. This paper describes a novel Computer Vision approach incorporating a neural network to recognize faces in pictures submitted by anyone on the Web. Technology willing, we will submit some pictures and see if the program successfully finds our faces.

T Oct. 30

Read about TD-Gammon, a Neural Network Backgammon Expert that learns without input from Humans!
 
  Play at least 2 games of backgammon against a computer opponent

Search the web and online research databases for two recent examples (2002 or later) of the use of neural network/connectionist,PDP modeling. One of the examples should be focused on theory development and the other on an applied topic. Be prepared to give a brief overview of the research in class today using the computer projection unit to show us your "finds".

Th Nov. 1

Read one of the classic papers in cognitive science by written by Alan Turing in 1950 entitled "Computing Machinery and Intelligence". Turing poses the question"Can machines think?"

Here is what one reviewer had to say about the paper when nominating it for the 3rd most influential paper in cognitive science for the 20th century.

This paper is often said to mark the beginning of the cognitivist revolution in psychology by arguing that computing machines that think are possible, thus defending the appropriateness of computational models of intelligence and, by extension, other cognitive processes. The paper also recommends the controversial Turing test, according to which a computing machine that can simulate a thinking, speaking human so well that a human judge cannot detect the simulation should be deemed to possess genuine intelligence.

Read the paper and write a response paper commenting on the adequacy of the Turing Test "Imitation Game" for determining machine intelligence. Which of the objections that Turing presents do you find the most compelling and why? Which is the least convincing objection? Submit this one on the Moodle assignment entitled Turing Thoughts

Come up with an objection of your own to the Turing Test. What would it take to convince you that a Machine was truly intelligent? Be ready to discuss and defend your position!

A recent critique of the Turing Test by Mark Alpern

In class today we will play a version of the "Turing Test " and also test your human wits against the machine in a domain specific Turing Test for Poetry Writing. Come prepared to defend humanity!!

M Nov. 5

Lab #9

Here is the an article on the Computer Poet that we used for our Domain Specific Turing test that we ran in class on Thursday.

Travel to the Loebner Prize Home page to learn about the $100,000 award offered to the first computer program that passes an unrestricted Turing Test. Follow the links to learn about the rules and history of the test and peruse the transcripts of the Winners (really the best losers) from previous contests. The 2007 contest was just held in New York on Oct. 21st. We will look at this years competition results if they have anything posted on the web in time.

There is a moodle assignment under today's date entitled ChatBot Snippets. Your lab assignment for today is to chat with at least four different chatbots and post:

1.) examples of impressive snippets of conversation. Be sure to specify what Bot you were chatting with.

and

2.) OK, the easy part of the lab is finding examples of silly and/or ridiculous ChatBot responses.

Be sure to engage in a conversation with last year's Loebner Contest Winner, Joan! Jot down any interesting dialogue that comes from your "conversation" to share on the moodle site. Search the web site to learn what you can about how Joan "thinks".

A video-enabled, speaking version of Joan that requires high bandwith is also an option.

Other bots you might chat with include the 2007 Loebner winner UltraHal in several flavors!

A.L.I.C.E., the 2004 Loebner Prize winner

and yes, even iGod!

and a whole list of popular bots found at the PandoraBots web site.

T Nov. 6

In class we will contrast various Chatterbots conversational abilities with the Grand Dame of Chatterbot's, Eliza. Here you will find a paper describing Eliza that describes her principles of operation. How does Joan work differently?

Read the paper "Computer modeling and simulation of Personality" handed out in class on Thursday (No digital copy available alas). Compare and contrast the approach of Aldous and Parry in modeling emotions. What do you think about the validity of their approach? Parry has passed a version of the Turing test. Compare this testing format with the unrestricted turing test. Why do you think that Parry is so convincing when Eliza is so lame?

Th Nov. 8

You have 2 1/2 Kismet Papers to Read for Today's class. Class discussion will revolve around how Kismet embodies theories of emotion and expressive states. Pay particular attention to the experiments described (and graphed) of Kismet interacting with faces and stuffed animals!

Kismet is a sociable robot being developed at MIT which uses facial expressiveness as a central feature. Browse around the Kismet web site to get a feel for the goals of the project and what they have accomplished to date! Be sure to check out Kismet's "space of emotive facial expressions" and look at the pages concerning social interaction and how Kismet "learns".

Leonardo is Kismet's kin that has taken some major steps forward in abilities, most notably, it has arms, understands some language and has a fairly sophisticated representation about the beliefs of others in reference to it's world of faces and objects. check out the Leonardo project web site and this video of Leo learning a new concept from a human!

M Nov. 12

Lab #10

MindHabits (do not access before lab)

Smile Experiment (do not access before lab)

Bring your draft copy (with my marked up comments) and your revised IAT Results
Section complete with figure and figure caption page to class on Monday. You
should also upload your revised paper to the Moodle page before class.

T Nov. 13

Darwin, Deception, and Facial Expression (Ekman, 2003)

Perception of Robot Smiles and Dimensions for Human-Robot Interaction Design. Blow(2006).pdf in Face Lab folder on Webdisk account.

Cutting Stress Off at the Pass: Reducing Vigilance and Responsiveness to Social Threat by Manipulating Attention. dandeneau(2007).pdf in Face Lab folder on Webdisk account.

Today in class we are going to discuss these articles and the lab results from Monday. Several Small groups will design different experiments based on the synergy of these research efforts.

Th Nov. 15

Architectures of Cognition (cogarchoverview.pdf) in cognition papers folder pages 26 - 48.

Search the Web and/or Research databases for one research projects/papers that incorporate the 3 major (EPIC, ACT-R, SOAR) Cognitive Architectures (a total of 3). Each person will be given a time period to select their research projects from in class On Tuesday. Post the Citation information (Title, Authors, publication) and write a brief (5 - 8 Sentence) description of each paper on the Moodle site in the Unified Theories of Cognition assignment.

M Nov. 19

Searching and Selecting from Menus of the Computer Variety

Anthony J. Hornof and David E. Kieras. (1997). Cognitive Modeling Reveals Menu Search is Both Random and Systematic. Human Factors in Computing Systems: Proceedings of CHI 99, 107 - 114. New York: ACM.

Byrne, M. D., Anderson, J. R., Douglass, S., & Matessa, M. (1999). Eye tracking the visual search of click-down menus. Human Factors in Computing Systems: Proceedings of CHI 99, 402-409. New York: ACM.

Nilsen, E., and Evans, J. (1999). Exploring the Divide Between Two Unified Theories of Cognition: Modeling Visual Attention in Menu Selection. Human Factors in Computing Systems: Extended Abstracts Proceedings of CHI 99, 288-289. New York: ACM.

These 3 papers dive into the details of EPIC and ACT-R computational modeling using one of Erik's dissertation experiments as the "lab rat" to compare and contrast two of the Cognitive Architectures that we discussed last Thursday.

Supporting Web Sites

EPIC: A cognitive architecture for computational modeling of human performance

The ACT-R Website

T Nov. 20

FInal Project Discussion and Ramachandran Video

Th Nov. 22

Thanksgiving Break

M Nov. 26

nuh-uh! no lab today

T Nov. 27

Ramachandran Book Discussion and Final Project Roundtable.

Th Nov. 29

Ramachandran Research Presentations (class split up into 3 groups for 5 - 7 minutes talks by each class member). See moodle site for description and to upload your written assignment.

M Dec. 3

Lab #12 Phantom Fun, Somatosensory Strangeness, and Kinesthetic Quirks.

T Dec. 4

Synesthesia - Nature and Nurture

Hearing Colors, Tasting Shapes. (2003) Vilayanur S. Ramachandran and Edward M. Hubbard. Scientific American. p 52 - 59. May, 2003.

SYNESTHETIC COLORS DETERMINED BY HAVING COLORED REFRIGERATOR MAGNETS IN CHILDHOOD (in press)
Nathan Witthoft and Jonathan Winawer. Cortex .

Th Dec. 6

The God Spot?! Seeking Spirituality in the Brain. Readings TBD

M Dec. 10

Preparation for Research Presentations

T Dec. 11

Data Crunching