Mental Models, Mental Logic

Dept. of Psychological and Brain Sciences

Course Location: 217 Ames Hall, Johns Hopkins University

Course # 200.383

M&T 3:30-5

Professor Justin Halberda TA:

Office: 231 Ames Hall Office:

Email: Email:

Phone: 516-6289 Phone:

Office hours: Wed, 3:00-4:30 Office hours:

Course Aims:

This is an advanced seminar course. For each class, students will have to read an average of 2 journal articles (approximately 25 pages of reading per class meeting). We will adopt an environment of collaborative class discussion, focused on these papers, and every student is expected to contribute to the discussion by making comments and asking questions. The aim of this course is for students to grow in their understanding of mental representation (i.e how the mind represents knowledge in a format that can be used by the cognitive system). Other goals include that students will increase their abilities to discuss scientific issues in a collaborative setting that includes dynamic, friendly debate.

An Introduction to the Guiding Theme of the Course:

We all have a concept of a tree, I hope. We can think about trees (e.g. that they are green). We can recognize trees (e.g. that we see one outside). Et cetera. This thinking and recognizing must involve mental representations. We must have some way of representing a tree in our minds in order for us to be thinking of it. What is the structure of this representation TREE? Is it a tiny tree that is growing inside of our head? Unlikely to be the case, though fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) may prove otherwise. Most likely this representation is some pattern of neurons firing. Neurons are the physical structure that encodes information for us. When we are asking about our representation TREE, we are interested in the conceptual structure of the representation, not just its physical structure. So, what is this conceptual structure? Consider two common ways of storing information that the mind/brain appears to use: images from vision and sentences from language. These are two of the most efficient ways that we know of to store information. Might our representation of a tree be image-like? Like a small picture of a generalized tree in our heads? Or, might it instead be something more like a sentence? Like a string of informational bits, telling us what a generalized tree looks like? E.g. “brown wood coming out of the ground with smaller green soft planar objects attached to it,”; sounds like a tree to me. Which one seems to be correct to you? These are the questions that will guide us throughout the semester. We’ll begin with a brief discussion of this general tension between image-based (i.e. imagistic) or sentence-based (i.e. propositional) representation; what is it, how could an experiment inform us about it? Then we will explore what it means to be a mental representation. And for the rest of the semester (the majority) we will be exploring these issues in a number of case studies (specific areas of study where the debate over imagistic and propositional representations has occurred). The course will have difficult readings, and everyone will be expected to participate in the class discussions. I would be happy if this was the most intellectually challenging course you’ve taken and the most fun.

Course Materials:

Journal articles made available in class and on the web at:

http://reserves.library.jhu.edu/access/reserves/findit/articles/index.php)

Requirements:

Attendance: Everyone has to be in class, every meeting.

Participation: Everyone has to speak in class, every meeting.

Exams: There will be 2 mandatory exams: 1 midterm and 1 final (see schedule below). These will test for the major concepts and the research methods covered throughout the course. In this sense, the exams are cumulative. However, research findings specific to particular topics will only appear on the relevant exam. In this sense, the exams are not cumulative. Exams will be structured as follows. You will be given a list of approximately 8 essay questions at least 1 week before the exam. In class, on the test day, the professor will choose 2 of these questions and everyone will have to answer these 2 questions during the time allotted. You will be free to use any legal resources (see ethics statement below) that you like in order to prepare for the test, including your class notes and readings. You may discuss the questions with other students from the course in order to prepare for the exams. You are encouraged to do so. You can not write out your answers to the essays in advance.

Written Assignments: At the beginning of each class, the instructor will ask a quiz question about the papers that were read for that class. You will be given approximately 5 minutes to write an answer to this question. You must answer 10 of these questions over the course of the semester. After hearing the question, you get to choose whether or not you want to try to answer it. But, all answers are final. There are no make-ups for poorly answered questions. At the end of the semester, when there are only 10 class meetings left, anyone who hasn’t already completed their 10 required quizzes will have no choice but to take the quizzes on the remaining days. If you only answer 8 questions, then you will get 8 scores and 2 zeros. No make-ups.

Missed/Late Exams: You must turn in both exams and 10 quizzes. There are no make-up exams or quizzes. If you must miss an exam due to a medical or family emergency, you must provide official documentation. In this case, either a make-up exam will be scheduled or your grade will be calculated without the missed exam, at the instructor’s discretion.

If, after seeing your graded exam or quiz, you would like your work to be re-graded you may see the instructor or your TA. But please be advised that the entire exam or quiz will be re-graded, and that your score may go up or down. In general, re-grades result in a score lower than the original about 50% of the time. In asking for a re-grade, students agree to accept the re-grade as final, whether it is lower or higher than the original score.

Grading:

Grading percents will be set by the students by vote during the first class meeting for the class as a whole. Everyone gets graded by these same percentages and they will not be changed over the course of the semester. This first meeting gives students a chance to choose how heavily to count the quizzes, exams, and class participation. The minimum for each category being 15%.

(chosen by the students in class on 9/7)

Class Participation: 50 %

Quizzes: 20 %

Midterm: 15 %

Final Exam: 15 %

Total: 100%

Participating in Research for Extra Credit:

No extra credit will be given in this course for research participation. But, go to the Research Participation Website at http://experimetrix2.com/JHU for details about how to sign up.

Academic Ethics:

From the JHU Ethics Policy Statement:

"The strength of the university depends on academic and personal integrity. In this course, you must be honest and truthful. Ethical violations include cheating on exams, plagiarism, reuse of assignments, improper use of the Internet and electronic devices, unauthorized collaboration, alteration of graded assignments, forgery and falsification, lying, facilitating academic dishonesty, and unfair competition. Violations can lead to failure of an examination, failure of the course, a notation on the student's transcript, and/or other actions.

"Report any violations you witness to the instructor. You may consult the associate dean of students and/or the chairman of the Ethics Board beforehand. Please consult the Academic Ethics for Undergraduates guide and the Ethics Board website for more information."

Instructor Availability:

Your professor and your TA want to help you learn from and enjoy this course! We encourage you to ask questions in class, to email us with questions and/or comments, to come talk to us during our office hours, or to schedule appointments with us if our office hours are not convenient for you. No question is too big or too small.

Course Schedule

(Subject to change, which will be announced in lecture)

MONDAY / TUESDAY
LABOR DAY:
NO CLASS / 9/7
Course introduction & welcome
Grading Percentages set in stone
9/13
Are humans Logical 1? / 9/14
Are humans Logical 2?
9/20
Conditional Reasoning 1 / 9/21
Conditional Reasoning 2
9/27
Conceptual Structure 1 / 9/28
Conceptual Structure 2
10/4
Vision & Images / 10/5
Sentences & Propositions
10/11
FALL BREAK:
NO CLASS / 10/12
Transitive Inference 1
10/18
Transitive Inference 2 / 10/19
Transitive Inference 3
10/25
Mental Imagery 1 / 10/26
Mental Imagery 2
11/1
Mental Imagery 3 / 11/2
MIDTERM
HELD IN CLASS
11/8
Navigation 1 / 11/9
Navigation 2
11/15
Navigation 3 / 11/16
Navigation 4
11/22
Mental Logic / 11/23
Mental Models
11/29
Children & Logic / 11/30
Word Meaning
12/6
Consciousness / 12/7
Final day: Wrap-up

Final Exam: 9-12 Noon Saturday, December 11

Paper & Book Reserve Request:

Course #: 200.383

Course Title: Mental Models, Mental Logic

Professor: Justin Halberda

231 Ames Hall

Dept. of Psychological and Brain Sciences

Preferred Reserve Method: .pdf

Assignment Date: 9/13

How the mind works.Pinker, Steven; New York, NY, US: W. W. Norton & Co, Inc, 1997. xii, pgs343-351.

The hot hand in basketball: On the misperception of random sequences.Gilovich, Thomas; Vallone, Robert; Tversky, Amos; Cognitive Psychology, Vol 17(3), Jul 1985. pp. 295-314.

Assignment Date: 9/14

Larkey, P.D., Smith, R.A., & Kadane, J.B. (1989). It's okay to believe in the 'Hot Hand.' Chance, 2(4), 22-30.

Tversky, A., & Gilovich, T. (1989). The 'Hot Hand': Statistical reality or cognitive illusion? Chance, 2(4), 31-34.

Communicating statistical information.Hoffrage, Ulrich; Lindsey, Samuel; Hertwig, Ralph; Science, Vol 290(5500), Dec 2000. pp. 2261-2262.

Assignment Date: 9/20

How the mind works.Pinker, Steven; New York, NY, US: W. W. Norton & Co, Inc, 1997. xii, pgs 333-338.

Why we are so good at catching cheaters.Fodor, Jerry; Cognition, Vol 75(1), Apr 2000. pp. 29-32.

Why are we good at detecting cheaters? A reply to Fodor.Beaman, C. Philip; Cognition, Vol 83(2), Mar 2002. pp. 215-220

Assignment Date: 9/21

Duyck, W., Vandierendonck, A. & De Vooght, G. (2003). Conditional reasoning with a spatial content requires visuo-spatial working memory. Thinking And Reasoning, 9 (3), 267-287.

Assignment Date: 9/27

How the mind works.Pinker, Steven; New York, NY, US: W. W. Norton & Co, Inc, 1997. xii, pgs 89-93.

Johnson-Laird, P. N. (1983) Mental Models: Towards a cognitive science of language, inference and consciousness, Cambridge, MA, US: Harvard University Press. pgs. ix-22.

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