Bilkent ACM SIGART (Special Interest Group on Artificial Intelligence)

A Brief Introduction to
Cognitive Science
as an Interdisciplinary Field
by
Bilge Say & Umit Turan
METU Cognitive Science Programme Faculty Members

Why are human beings intelligent? Can machines be intelligent? How can human children acquire language so effortlessly? What is knowledge? How do we attain it and how do we use it to solve problems? How do we perceive our environment through seeing and hearing? What is the nature of consciousness, attention, and memory? In general, what are human mental capacities?

Cognitive Science is the scientific study of such cognitive processes underlying intelligent behaviour. Five main disciplines contribute to Cognitive Science. Cognitive Psychology studies cognitive processes such as memory, attention, perception, and reasoning through empirical research on human behaviour. Linguistics investigates the nature of human language, its manifestation as a mental ability, and how language is acquired. Computer Science creates computational models of cognitive processes for purposes of understanding similar abilities in

humans and designing intelligent systems. Philosophy addresses questions about the essential nature of mind , knowledge, representation, and language. Neuroscience studies complex information processing as it is achieved by nervous systems and tests the biological plausibility of the theories developed by the other disciplines.

In this talk, we will briefly outline and sample the issues created by the marriage of these disciplines especially emphasizing computational and linguistic approaches.

Monday 3rd May, 1999
at 17:40 in EA502 (Eng. Building)

Everyone Welcome