Teaching

WINTER TERM 2012/13

Mental Architectures
Liz Irvine, Catherine Stinson, Kirsten Volz, and Hong Yu Wong

Time: 20 February and 6 March 2013, 10.00 - 12.30 and 13.30-16.00 

Location: Room X, Burse, Bursagasse 1, 72070 Tübingen 

Course Prerequisites:
One course in philosophy of mind/psychology/neuroscience.

Course Requirements:
The student must read the assigned literature and write a short (300w) summary of the main issues for each of the 4 sessions. Students taking the course for credit have to write an essay of 3000 words each submitted by 3rd April.

Cross-listed in:
Tübingen Philosophy
Tübingen Cognitive Science Program
Max Planck Neural and Behavioural Graduate School

In this class we will explore different ways of characterising mental architectures, and methodological questions surrounding the identification of particular architectures. Topics will be based around: modularity (both Fodorian and massive modularity), computational approaches within AI (including symbolic and connectionist models), methodological questions about architectures arising within neuropsychology and neuroimaging, and a case study of dual-systems theories of decision making.

In the first part of the seminar, we will look at two ways of thinking about the mind as being composed of (somewhat) independent processing modules (from Fodor and Carruthers), and criticisms of modularity theses from empirical and theoretical points of view.

In the second part of the seminar, we will explore the rationale(s) behind trying to find out about human psychology by mucking around with computer programs. We will look at several classic papers in the field, focusing on two major schools of thought in AI---Classical and Connectionist---and how each claims to be able to discover the architecture of cognition. In addition to reading some of the founding papers from each school, we’ll review an extended battle between the two camps over which approach is better suited to the task of explaining psychological behaviour.

For Details see: 

https://sites.google.com/site/whywong/teaching

and

https://sites.google.com/site/lizirvinephilosophy/home/teaching-and-lecturing/mentalarchitecture

PAST SEMINARS

SUMMER TERM 2012

Explaining Consciousness? 

CIN Graduiertenkolleg Seminar

Instructors: Hong Yu Wong and Liz Irvine (CIN)

Consciousness is a growing field of research both in contemporary philosophy and in cognitive science. However, consciousness science faces to two sets of problems. First, there are philosophical worries about which aspects of consciousness can be explained (ranging from all to none). Second, assuming that consciousness can be given a scientific explanation, there are on-going debates about which measures and theories of consciousness are the ‘best’ ones. This is largely due to the lack of agreement on a working definition (or definitions) of consciousness, or even which research methods to use to establish such a working definition. Moving through philosophical and methodological problems, this seminar will question whether ‘consciousness’ refers to a phenomenon that can be the subject of a scientific explanation. The seminar will draw on the literature from philosophy of mind and philosophy of science, particularly philosophy of psychology, cognitive science and neuroscience. The seminar will feature guest speakers for some of the sessions.

Topics to be covered include: Hard/easy problems of consciousness, phenomenal/access consciousness, criteria for adequate explanation of consciousness, reductive/eliminativist theories of consciousness, contemporary theories of consciousness (global workspace, recurrent processing, etc), the role of first person methods in science (including introspection and subjective reports), dissociation methods and heuristics and their relation to conscious/unconscious perception, neural correlates of consciousness vs. identity claims, animal consciousness.

A provisional schedule and further information can be found here:

https://sites.google.com/site/lizirvinephilosophy/home/teaching

Body Perception Seminar

co-presented by the University of Tuebingen Centre for Integrative Neuroscience, and Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics

Instructors: Sally Linkenauger (MPI Biological Cybernetics), Betty Mohler (MPI Biological Cybernetics), Catherine Stinson (CIN, MPI), and Hong Yu Wong (CIN)

Mondays 4.15 pm – 6 pm, MRZ Seminar Room, MPI Biological Cybernetics, Spemannstr. 41 

Objectives: This seminar will provide an overview of contemporary issues in the understanding of body perception from the point of view of philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, neurology, and psychiatry. Themes include the role of the body in perception and action, methods for operationalizing body experiences, distinctions between the sense of ownership, agency and self, and disorders of bodily perception. The seminar will meet approximately every 2 weeks, and will feature guest speakers, such as Kathryn Tabb (University of Pittsburgh), Dennis R. Proffitt (University of Virginia), Matthew Longo (Birkbeck, University of London), Michael J. Black (MPI), Axel Lindner, Matthis Synofzik (both HIH) and Bruce Bridgeman (UC Santa Cruz).

Semester Themes: Affordance measures of body perception, Connections between clinical and scientific research

A provisional schedule and further information can be found here:

https://sites.google.com/site/cstinsonteach/home/bodyperceptionsummer2012

WINTER TERM 2011/12

The Senses: Themes in Contemporary Philosophy of Psychology

CIN Graduiertenkolleg Seminar, CIN Seminar Room

Instructors: Catrin Misselhorn and Hong Yu Wong 

Blockseminar, TTR Building, Paul Ehrlich Str. 17

This seminar will cover a number of contemporary themes in the philosophy of mind/psychology/neuroscience with a focus on the treatment of different sense modalities. One particular issue is how attention to sense modalities other than vision challenge orthodox accounts of perception constructed on the basis of vision, and, in particular, whether vision might be the ‘odd one out’ rather than the golden standard. Other themes covered include the phenomenology of action and will, and connections between perception and action. The seminar consists of distinguished guest speakers each conducting 3-5 seminars on important unpublished work they have.

http://sites.google.com/site/whywong/teaching/themes-winter-2011

Levels and Decision-Making 

CIN Graduiertenkolleg Seminar

Instructors: Liz Irvine, Kirsten Volz, and Hong Yu Wong

Wednesday, 12-2 pm, Raum X, Burse

In the study of mental phenomena, accounts of the underlying mechanisms are characterized at different levels. A classical account of the idea of levels can be found in Marr’s Vision, which distinguished between the computational, algorithmic, and implementation levels. Starting with Marr’s distinction, this seminar will examine the very notion of levels, different accounts of levels, and how explanations at different levels can cohere or compete with each other. The seminar will draw on literature from the philosophy of science, psychology, and cognitive neuroscience.

Topics to be covered include: Modelling psychological phenomena at different levels; notion of levels, and how explanations at different levels relate; as-if vs. process models of mechanisms underlying cognition; explanatory benefits from these; viability of dual process models in cognition; distinction between the personal and sub-personal; Bayesian and other statistical models, and the very idea of optimization and predictive coding; examination of these topics for specific case studies – decision processes, visuomotor control, action, functional role of consciousness. The seminar will also feature guest speakers at some sessions.

http://sites.google.com/site/whywong/teaching/levels

Body Perception: From the Inside out and from the Outside in

Instructors: Sally Linkenauger (MPI Biological Cybernetics), Betty Mohler (MPI Biological Cybernetics), and Hong Yu Wong (CIN)

Mondays 4.15 pm – 6 pm, MRZ Seminar Room, MPI Biological Cybernetics, Spemannstr. 41

This seminar will provide a comprehensive overview of contemporary issues in the understanding of body perception from the point of view of philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, and the technological innovations involved. Themes include the role of the body in perception and action, multi-sensory integration, body ownership, interoception, experimental methods in the induction of unusual body experiences, methods for operationalizing body experiences, and how body perception is implicated in one’s sense of self. The seminar will also feature guest speakers. 

http://sites.google.com/site/whywong/teaching/body-perception-winter-2011

SUMMER TERM 2011

Perception and Action. Philosophical Issues in Psychology and Neuroscience

Instructor: Hong Yu Wong

Monday, 12-2 pm, Raum X, Burse

What is the role of consciousness in the control of action? In this seminar, we will explore the interplay between agentive control and the complex mechanisms underlying this control. What are we committed to when we claim that agents are in control of their actions? Is it that the actions are consciously guided by the agent? If so, what is the extent of the agent’s conscious control? Does it go down to the level of specific spatial parameters for movement? And what is the extent of the agent’s awareness of the specifics of movement execution? A recent surge of work in cognitive neuropsychology on action has thrown up an unprecedented amount of data about the neural and psychological processes involved in action control, allowing the student of action to approach the questions raised above with some level of empirical concreteness, and not just speculatively. Psychologists and neuroscientists distinguish between two classes of actions: stimulus-driven and endogenous. Roughly, stimulus-driven actions are actions performed in response to some perceptual stimulus; and endogenous actions are those actions which are not stimulus-driven. The seminar will be structured around this distinction. In the first half, we will look at how perception guides action. In particular, we will examine functional dissociations within sensory processing streams in vision and bodily awareness. We will also consider the reverse direction of explanation: whether action is a condition on perception. In the second half, we will explore issues concerning how intention and awareness of intention relate to the mechanisms underlying action control and the awareness of action. We will consider challenges to our commonsensical understanding of agency raised by experiments concerning the timing of intention and the influence of confabulation. The overarching aim of the seminar is to articulate the challenges to our understanding of agency raised by recent scientific work into stimulus-driven action and endogenous action, and to re-evaluate our philosophical picture of agency in the light of this.

http://sites.google.com/site/whywong/teaching/perception-and-action