CS C182. The Neural Basis of Thought and Language

Catalog Description: This is a course on the current status of interdisciplinary studies that seeks to answer the following questions: (1) How is it possible for the human brain, which is a highly structured network of neurons, to think and to learn, use, and understand language? (2) How are language and thought related to perception, motor control, and our other neural systems, including social cognition? (3) How do the computational properties of neural systems and the specific neural structures of the human brain shape the nature of thought and language? Much of the course will focus on the Neural Theory of Language (NTL), which seeks to answer these questions in terms of architecture and mechanism, using models and simulations of language and learning phenomena.

Units: 4

Formats:
Fall: 3 hours of lecture and 1 hour of discussion per week
Spring: 3 hours of lecture and 1 hour of discussion per week

Grading basis: letter

Final exam status: Written final exam conducted during the scheduled final exam period

Also listed as: LINGUIS C109, COG SCI C110

Class homepage on inst.eecs

Department Notes:

This is an inherently interdisciplinary class with weekly problems ranging from linguistic analyses to programming of neural network algorithms. The final paper is an original synthesis in the style of the journal: Behavioral and Brain Sciences. Students are encouraged to work in teams and these tend to be mixed disciplines. Considerable attention is paid to the design of experiments - biological, psychological and computational. There is no specific lecture on professional responsibility or social responsibility, but both issues arise because of the importance of language understanding systems in society. The design aspect of the course lies in the detailed study of and experimenting with connectionist models and in two programming assignments that require design.

Prerequisites: CS 61B.

Course objectives: Learn about the computational structure of the human brain. Gain familiarity with neural computation and how it is modeled. Learn how language and thought can be understood as neural computations.

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