Cognitive Simulation

The Essential Turing: Seminal Writings in Computing, Logic, Philosophy, Artificial Intelligence, and Artificial Life plus The Secrets of Enigma

Alan Turing was one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century. In 1935, aged 22, he developed the mathematical theory upon which all subsequent stored-program digital computers are modeled. At the outbreak of hostilities with Germany in September 1939, he joined the Goverment Codebreaking team at Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire and played a crucial role in deciphering Engima, the code used by the German armed forces to protect their radio communications. Turing's work on the version of Enigma used by the German navy was vital to the battle for supremacy in the North Atlantic. He also contributed to the attack on the cyphers known as 'Fish,' which were used by the German High Command for the encryption of signals during the latter part of the war. His contribution helped to shorten the war in Europe by an estimated two years. After the war, his theoretical work led to the development of Britain's first computers at the National Physical Laboratory and the Royal Society Computing Machine Laboratory at Manchester University. Turing was also a founding father of modern cognitive science, theorizing that the cortex at birth is an 'unorganized machine' which through 'training' becomes organized 'into a universal machine or something like it.' He went on to develop the use of computers to model biological growth, launching the discipline now referred to as Artificial Life. The papers in this book are the key works for understanding Turing's phenomenal contribution across all these fields. The collection includes Turing's declassified wartime 'Treatise on the Enigma'; letters from Turing to Churchill and to codebreakers; lectures, papers, and broadcasts which opened up the concept of AI and its implications; and the paper which formed the genesis of the investigation of Artifical Life.

Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams: Explorations in Massively Parallel Microworlds (Complex Adaptive Systems)

"Mitchel Resnick's book is one of the very few in the field of computing with an interdisciplinary discourse that can reach beyond the technical community to philsoophers, psychologists, and historians and sociologists of science." -- Sherry Turkle, Professor, Program in Science, Technology, and Society, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

"Resnick's work provides a rare glimpse of what I am sure will become a new paradigm for research in education." -- Seymour Papert

How does a bird flock keep its movements so graceful and synchronized? Most people assume that the bird in front leads and the others follow. In fact, bird flocks don't have leaders: they are organized without an organizer, coordinated without a coordinator. And a surprising number of other systems, from termite colonies to traffic jams to economic systems, work the same decentralized way. Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams describes innovative new computational tools that can qhelp people (even young children) explore the workings of such systems--and help them move beyond the centralized mindset.

For a copy of the StarLogo software described in this book, please visit the StarLogo website.

Fluid Concepts And Creative Analogies: Computer Models Of The Fundamental Mechanisms Of Thought

Douglas Hofstadter, best known for his masterpiece Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, tackles the subject of artificial intelligence and machine learning in his thought-provoking work Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies, written in conjunction with the Fluid Analogies Research Group at the University of Michigan. Driven to discover whether computers can be made to "think" like humans, Hofstadter and his colleagues created a variety of computer programs that extrapolate sequences, apply pattern-matching strategies, make analogies, and even act "creative." As always, Hofstadter's work requires devotion on the part of the reader, but rewards him with fascinating insights into the nature of both human and machine intelligence.

"Will change your idea of what it is to be creative and even what it is to be human."--(William Poundstone, New York Times Book Review)

Cognition and Multi-Agent Interaction: From Cognitive Modeling to Social Simulation

This book explores the intersection between cognitive sciences and social sciences. In particular, it explores the intersection between individual cognitive modeling and modeling of multi-agent interaction (social stimulation). The two contributing fields--individual cognitive modeling (especially cognitive architectures) and modeling of multi-agent interaction (including social simulation and, to some extent, multi-agent systems)--have seen phenomenal growth in recent years. However, the interaction of these two fields has not been sufficiently developed. We believe that the interaction of the two may be more significant than either alone.

This book explores the intersection between cognitive sciences and social sciences. It explores the relation between the individual mind and the social processes through computational modeling and simulation of both. The two sides bring with them enormous intellectual capitals. These intellectual capitals can be profitably leveraged in creating true synergy between the two fields, leading to more in-depth studies and a better understanding of both individual cognition and sociocultural processes.

Simulation: Presentation Technique and Cognitive Method (Context Architecture)

Digitalization has transformed the discourse of architecture: that discourse is now defined by a wealth of new terms and concepts that previously either had no meaning, or had different meanings, in the context of architectural theory and design. Its concepts and strategies are increasingly shaped by influences emerging at the intersection with scientific and cultural notions from modern information technology. The new series Context Architecture seeks to take a critical selection of concepts that play a vital role in the current discourse and put them up for discussion.

In the context of discussions of the medial, the notion of simulation plays a central role in architecture as illusion and imitation. In dialogue with information technology and computer science, however, that notion has now taken on a new quality in architectural discourse. Today when we speak of simulation we primarily think of "computer simulation," the technical ability to simulate processes.

Whereas simulation used to refer to a mode of presentation, it now connects architecture with the sciences and represents a strategic and methodological instrument, a tool of discovery. With the scientific principle of simulation the focus shifts to the idea of "modeling a dynamic system" (Norbert Wiener), not just presenting finished products but going in search of solutions and developing systems!

Computational Explorations in Cognitive Neuroscience: Understanding the Mind by Simulating the Brain

foreword by James L. McClelland

The goal of computational cognitive neuroscience is to understand how the brain embodies the mind by using biologically based computational models comprising networks of neuronlike units. This text, based on a course taught by Randall O'Reilly and Yuko Munakata over the past several years, provides an in-depth introduction to the main ideas in the field. The neural units in the simulations use equations based directly on the ion channels that govern the behavior of real neurons, and the neural networks incorporate anatomical and physiological properties of the neocortex. Thus the text provides the student with knowledge of the basic biology of the brain as well as the computational skills needed to simulate large-scale cognitive phenomena.

The text consists of two parts. The first part covers basic neural computation mechanisms: individual neurons, neural networks, and learning mechanisms. The second part covers large-scale brain area organization and cognitive phenomena: perception and attention, memory, language, and higher-level cognition. The second part is relatively self-contained and can be used separately for mechanistically oriented cognitive neuroscience courses. Integrated throughout the text are more than forty different simulation models, many of them full-scale research-grade models, with friendly interfaces and accompanying exercises. The simulation software (PDP++, available for all major platforms) and simulations can be downloaded free of charge from the Web. Exercise solutions are available, and the text includes full information on the software.

More about the book. Download software and simulations

Rethinking Commonsense Psychology: A Critique of Folk Psychology, Theory of Mind and Simulation (New Directions in Philosophy and Cognitive Science)

Computational Psycholinguistics: AI And Connectionist Models Of Human Language Processing

This text focuses on the use of computer simulation models in cognitive approaches to human language processing. A substantial range of computer models is presented and compared. The characteristic focus points of current trends in psycholinguistics are all covered. Firstly, psycholinguistics has a strong computational element and computer models can no longer be ignored in the description of important psycholinguistic theory. Secondly, the research area has recently seen a clash between the established "symbolic" view and the more recent "subsymbolic" connectionist approach to psycholinguistics. Thirdly, psycholinguistics has become an area of research that can be viewed as multidisciplinary, where co-operation takes place with researchers in linguistics as well as more diverse fields such as computer science, engineering, biophysics and philosophy.

Memory, Attention, and Decision-Making: A unifying computational neuroscience approach

Memory, attention, and decision-making are three major areas of cognitive neuroscience. They are, however, frequently studied in isolation, using a range of models to understand them. This book brings a unified approach to understanding these three processes. It shows how these fundamental functions for cognitive neuroscience can be understood in a common and unifying computational neuroscience framework. This framework links empirical research on brain function from neurophysiology, function neuroimaging, and the effects of brain damage, to a description of how neural networks in the brain implement these functions using a set of common principles. The book describes the principles of operation of these networks, and how they could implement such important functions as memory, attention, and decision-making.

Fundamentals of Neural Network Modeling: Neuropsychology and Cognitive Neuroscience (Computational Neuroscience)

Over the past few years, computer modeling has become more prevalent in the clinical sciences as an alternative to traditional symbol-processing models. This book provides an introduction to the neural network modeling of complex cognitive and neuropsychological processes. It is intended to make the neural network approach accessible to practicing neuropsychologists, psychologists, neurologists, and psychiatrists. It will also be a useful resource for computer scientists, mathematicians, and interdisciplinary cognitive neuroscientists. The editors (in their introduction) and contributors explain the basic concepts behind modeling and avoid the use of high-level mathematics. The book is divided into four parts. Part I provides an extensive but basic overview of neural network modeling, including its history, present, and future trends. It also includes chapters on attention, memory, and primate studies. Part II discusses neural network models of behavioral states such as alcohol dependence, learned helplessness, depression, and waking and sleeping. Part III presents neural network models of neuropsychological tests such as the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task, the Tower of Hanoi, and the Stroop Test. Finally, part IV describes the application of neural network models to dementia: models of acetycholine and memory, verbal fluency, Parkinsons disease, and Alzheimer's disease. Contributors: J. Wesson Ashford, Rajendra D. Badgaiyan, Jean P. Banquet, Yves Burnod, Nelson Butters, John Cardoso, Agnes S. Chan, Jean-Pierre Changeux, Kerry L. Coburn, Jonathan D. Cohen, Laurent Cohen, Jose L. Contreras-Vidal, Antonio R. Damasio, Hanna Damasio, Stanislas Dehaene, Martha J. Farah, Joaquin M. Fuster, Philippe Gaussier, Angelika Gissler, Dylan G. Harwood, Michael E. Hasselmo, J, Allan Hobson, Sam Leven, Daniel S. Levine, Debra L. Long, Roderick K. Mahurin, Raymond L. Ownby, Randolph W. Parks, Michael I. Posner, David P. Salmon, David Servan-Schreiber, Chantal E. Stern, Jeffrey P. Sutton, Lynette J. Tippett, Daniel Tranel, Bradley Wyble.