Grounded Cognition – 2-IKV-236/15

The course objective is to provide students with deeper insight into up-to-date research trends in cognitive science, from the perspective of various disciplines (psychological, neural and computational). The course focus is on grounded (embodied) cognition, and its relation to language. The course should also help students in their ability to interpret scientific papers, to formulate, present and defend ideas.

The course is a part of Master Programme in Cognitive Science.

News

11. 9. 2018
We start on Tuesday, 25th September, at 10:00 in room I-23


Syllabus

Note: Papers marked with (*) are offered for student's presentation.

Date Topic References
25.09. Introduction to language and key issues about concepts.

♦ Wiki: Language
♦ Margolis E., Laurence S. (2014) Concepts, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

02.10. Toward embodied cognition.

♦ Wilson M. (2002) Six views of embodied cognition. Psychonomics Bulletin Review, 9(4), 625-636.
♦ Ziemke T. (2003) What's that thing called embodiment? Proc. of the 25th Annual Conf. of the Cog. Sci. Society, 1134-1139.

09.10. Mirror neuron system and its role(s) in cognition.

♦ Rizzolatti G. & Sinigaglia C. (2010) The functional role of the parieto-frontal mirror circuit: Interpretations and misinterpretations. Nature Rev. Neurosci., 11, 264-274.
♦ Ferrari PF, Rizzolatti G. (2014) Mirror neuron research: the past and the future. Philos. Trans. R Soc. Lond. B Biol. Sci., 369: 20130169.

16.10. Common coding theory, motor simulation, mental simulation.

♦ Smith A.H. (2006) Motor cognition and mental simulation. Chapter in Smith E. & Kosslyn S. (eds.): Cognitive Psychology: Mind and Brain, Prentice Hall, pp. 451-481.
♦ van der Wel R., Sebanz N., Knoblich G. (2013) Action perception from a common coding perspective. Chapter in K. Johnson and M. Schiffrar (Eds.), People Watching: Social, Perceptual, and Neurophysiological Studies of Body Perception, Oxford University Press

23.10. Language as action.

♦ Martin H. Fischer M.H., Zwaan R.A. (2008) Embodied language: A review of the role of the motor system in language comprehension. The Quaterly Journal of Exp. Psych., 61 (6), 825-850
♦ Arbib M., Gasser B., Barrès V. (2014) Language is handy but is it embodied?. Neuropsychologia, 55, 57–70.

30.10. no class
06.11. Conceptual and linguistic systems - two theories.

♦ Barsalou L. et al. (2008) Language and simulation in conceptual processing. In: de Vega, Glenberg & Graesser (eds), Symbols and Embodiment: Debates on Meaning and Cognition, OUP, 245-283.
♦ Evans V. (2009) Semantic representation in LCCM Theory. In: New Directions in Cognitive Linguistics, ed. By V. Evans & S. Pourcel. John Benjamins.

13.11. Role(s) of language in cognition.

♦ Mirolli M., Parisi D. (2009) Towards a Vygotskyan cognitive robotics: The role of language as a cognitive tool. New Ideas in Psychology, doi:10.1016/j.newideapsych.2009.07.001
♦ Sakai, K.L., Perlovsky, L., eds. (2015) Language and Cognition. Lausanne: Frontiers Media.

20.11. Symbol grounding problem.

♦ Steels L. (2008) The symbol grounding problem has been solved, so what’s next?. In: de Vega, Glenberg & Graesser (eds), Symbols and Embodiment: Debates on Meaning and Cognition, OUP, 223-244.
♦ Coradeschi S., Loutfi A., Wrede B. (2013) A short review of symbol grounding in robotic and intelligent systems. Künstliche Intelligenz, 27:129–136

27.11. Meaning as statistical covariation.

♦ Landauer T., Dumais D. (2008) Latent semantic analysis, Scholarpedia, 3(11):4356. wiki
♦ Glenberg, A. M., & Mehta, S. (2008) Constraint on covariation: It’s not meaning. Italian Journal of Linguistics, 20, 33-53.
♦ Bruni E., Tran N.K., Baroni M. (2014) Multimodal distributional semantics. Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, 49, 1-47

04.12. Unification attempts.

♦ Louwerse M. (2010) Symbol interdependency in symbolic and embodied cognition. Topics in Cognitive Science, 1-30, doi:10.1111/j.1756-8765.2010.01106.x
♦ Dove G. (2011) On the need for embodied and dis-embodied cognition. Frontiers in Psychology, 1:242, doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2010.00242

11.12. Grounding abstract concepts.

♦Borghi A.M., Barca L., Binkofski F., Tummolini L. (2018) Varieties of abstract concepts: development, use and representation in the brain. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B, 373: 20170121
♦ Barsalou L.W., Dutriaux L., Scheepers C. (2018) Moving beyond the distinction between concrete and abstract concepts. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B, 373: 20170144

18.12. Summary, reflection. your mind


Grading

  • Activity during the semester (50%). This includes weekly submitting inputs to the moderator and an active participation during discussions.
  • Paper presentation and moderation (30%). You will select a topic for presentation, collect the inputs from other students in advance, organize them (details will be explained) and you will moderate the discussion.
  • Final reflection (20%). You will write a two-page essay, that will include answers to two points: 1. How you understood the main issues we dealt with (trying to include open questions, if any), 2. How the learnt content enriched your existing knowledge.
  • Overall grading (in %): A > 90, B > 80, C > 70, D > 60, E > 50, else Fx.