Unit convenor and teaching staff | Unit convenor and teaching staff |
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Credit points |
Credit points
4
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Prerequisites |
Prerequisites
Admission to MRes
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Corequisites |
Corequisites
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Co-badged status |
Co-badged status
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Unit description |
Unit description
This unit explores some of the cutting edge research questions at the forefront of cognitive science and the philosophy of cognition. The unit explores philosophical problems that arise from the core disciplines of cognitive psychology, cognitive neuropsychology, linguistics, neuroscience and AI and robotics. Topics to be covered may include: embodied and distributed cognition; disorders of the mind; folk psychology and theory of mind; the use of FMRI to understand brain function; is the brain massively modular; can cognitive science explain consciousness, or the self?
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Information about important academic dates including deadlines for withdrawing from units are available at https://www.mq.edu.au/study/calendar-of-dates
On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
Name | Weighting | Hurdle | Due |
---|---|---|---|
Weekly discussion of reading | 10% | No | Each week online |
Essay Plan | 10% | No | week 9 |
Presentation | 30% | No | Week 11 |
Research Essay | 50% | No | Week 12 |
Due: Each week online
Weighting: 10%
Each week a summary of the weekly readings will be posted online. You will be expected to post your discussion points and comments and engage in discussion of the readings each week.
Due: week 9
Weighting: 10%
Brief plan and outline of your essay.
Due: Week 11
Weighting: 30%
Presentation to the class or posted online on the background to your essay topic and an outline of your essay. 20 minute presentation
Due: Week 12
Weighting: 50%
Research Essay on a topic covered in the course. Title and topic to be agreed with the course leaders by week 10.
2- hour weekly seminar plus online discussion and assessments.
Topic of the unit:
Social Learning and Traditions in Animal and Humans
Social learning allows the spread of new knowledge and skills, and is the basis for traditions in a wide range of animal species. These traditions may, in turn, form the basis of culture. Although often used synonymously with social learning, imitation denotes a distinctive social learning mechanism, which many researchers hypothesize allows particularly high-fidelity transmission of information. This unit examines a range of social learning mechanisms that have been distinguished and reviews how they have been investigated. Current debates on the definition and identification of imitation and other forms of social learning are outlined, addressing differences in their usage across different animal species and impacts on the spread of traditions and culture
Social Learning and Traditions in Animal and Humans
Social learning allows the spread of new knowledge and skills, and is the basis for traditions in a wide range of animal species. These traditions may, in turn, form the basis of culture. Although often used synonymously with social learning, imitation denotes a distinctive social learning mechanism, which many researchers hypothesize allows particularly high-fidelity transmission of information. This unit examines a range of social learning mechanisms that have been distinguished and reviews how they have been investigated. Current debates on the definition and identification of imitation and other forms of social learning are outlined, addressing differences in their usage across different animal species and impacts on the spread of traditions and culture
Week 1. General Overview I: (38 pages)
1. Galef, Bennett G. (2012). Social learning and traditions in animals: evidence, definitions, and relationship to human culture. Wiley Interdiscip Rev Cogn Sci.3(6):581-592. (9)
2. Galef, Bennett G. (2013). Imitation and local enhancement: detrimental effects of consensus definitions on analyses of social learning in animals. Behav Processes 100:123-30. (6)
3. Heyes, Celia M. (1994). Social learning in animals: Categories and mechanisms. Biol. Rev. 69: 207-231. (23)
Week 2. General Overview II: (35)
1. Heyes, C. M., Ray, E. D. (2000). What is the significance of imitation in animals? Adv Stud Behav 29:215–245. (27)
2. Gariépy, Jean-François, Karli K. Watson, Emily Du, Diana L. Xie, Joshua Erb, Dianna Amasino and Michael L. Platt (2014) Social learning in humans and other animals. Front. Neurosci. 8: 58. (8 ½)
Further Reading:
1. Nehaniv, Chrystopher L., & Kerstin Dautenhahn (2007). Introduction: the constructive interdisciplinary viewpoint for understanding mechanisms and models of imitation and social learning. In: Imitation and Social Learning in Robots, Humans and Animals: Behavioural, Social and Communicative Dimensions by Chrystopher L. Nehaniv & Kerstin Dautenhahn (Eds.), 1-18. Cambridge University Press (18)
2. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OsO1VHmOy0
Week 3. Integrative studies of social learning (30)
1. Galef, Bennett G (2015). Laboratory studies of imitation/field studies of tradition: towards a synthesis in animal social learning. Behav Processes 112:114-9 (5)
2. Healy, S.D., I.E. Bacon, O. Haggis, A.P. Harris, & L.A. Kelley (2009). Explanations for variation in cognitive ability: Behavioural ecology meets comparative cognition. Behavioural Processes 80(3): 288-294 (16)
3. van Schaik, C., Graber, S., Schuppli, C., & Burkart, J. (2017) The Ecology of Social Learning in Animals and its Link with Intelligence. Span J Psychol. 19:E99. (9)
Week 4. Social Learning in animals: (32)
1. Holzhaider JC, Hunt GR, Gray RD. (2010). Social learning in New Caledonian crows. Learn Behav 38:206–219. (13)
2. Gyula K. Gajdon, Gyula K. & Ludwig Huber (2004) Testing social learning in a wild mountain parrot, the kea (Nestor notabilis). Animal Learning & Behavior 32 (1): 62-71 (9)
3. Huber, L., & Gajdon GK. (2006) Technical intelligence in animals: the kea model. Anim Cogn. 9(4):295-305 (10)
Further Reading:
4. O’Hara, Mark, Gyula K. Gajdon, and Ludwig Huber (2012). Kea Logics: How These Birds Solve Difficult Problems and Outsmart Researchers. In: Shigeru Watanabe (ed) Logic and Sensibility. Centre for Advanced Research on Logic and Sensibility, Keio Univiersity, Chapter2: 29-38
Week 5. Kinds of Social Learning I (34)
1. Whiten, Andrew, Nicola McGuigan, Sarah Marshall-Pescini, and Lydia M. Hopper (2009). Emulation, imitation, over-imitation and the scope of culture for child and chimpanzee. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 364(1528): 2417–2428. (9)
2. Ziemke, Tom, Nicklas Bergfeldt , Gunnar Buason , Tarja Susi & Henrik Svensson (2004). Evolving cognitive scaffolding and environment adaptation: a new research direction for evolutionary robotics. Connection Science 16(4): 339-350 (11)
3. Katsnelson, Edith, Arnon Lotem, & Marcus W. Feldman (2014). Assortative Social Learning and Its Implications for Human and Animal Societies. Evolution 68 (7): 1894-1906. (12)
4. Byrne, Richard W. (2005). Social cognition: imitation, imitation, imitation. Current Biology 15 (3): R498-R500 (2)
Week 6. Kinds of Social Learning II (31)
1. Carpenter, Malinda & Josep Call (2007). The question of 'what to imitate': Inferring goals and intentions from demonstrations. In: Imitation and Social Learning in Robots, Humans and Animals: Behavioural, Social and Communicative Dimensions by Chrystopher L. Nehaniv & Kerstin Dautenhahn (Eds.), 135-151. Cambridge University Press. (16)
2. Giorgi, Franco & Luis E. Bruni (2015) Developmental Scaffolding. Biosemiotics 8(2): 173–189 (15)
Further Reading:
3. Rachel L. Kendal, Jeremy R. Kendal, Will Hoppitt, Kevin N. Laland (2009) Identifying Social Learning in Animal Populations: A New ‘Option-Bias’ Method. PLOS One 4 (8): e6541
4. Huber, Ludwig (2007). Emulation learning: the integration of technical and social cognition. In: Imitation and Social Learning in Robots, Humans and Animals: Behavioural, Social and Communicative Dimensions by Chrystopher L. Nehaniv & Kerstin Dautenhahn (Eds.), 427-439. Cambridge University Press. (12)
Week 7. From social learning to human culture (34)
1. Hill, K. (2010). Experimental studies of animal social learning in the wild: Trying to untangle the mystery of human culture. Learn Behav. 38(3):319-28.(9)
2. Lyn, Heidi (2017) The Question of Capacity: Why Enculturated and Trained Animals have much to Tell Us about the Evolution of Language. Psychon Bull Rev 24(1):85-90. (5)
3. Pepperberg, Irene M. & Diane V. Sherman (2007). Training behavior by imitation: from parrots to people … to robots? In: Imitation and Social Learning in Robots, Humans and Animals: Behavioural, Social and Communicative Dimensions by Chrystopher L. Nehaniv & Kerstin Dautenhahn (Eds.), 383-405. Cambridge University Press. (20)
Further Reading:
Nielson, Mark, & Virginia Slaughter (2007). Multiple motivations for imitation in infancy. In: Imitation and Social Learning in Robots, Humans and Animals: Behavioural, Social and Communicative Dimensions by Chrystopher L. Nehaniv & Kerstin Dautenhahn (Eds.), 343-359. Cambridge University Press. (16)
Week 8 and 9:
Readings proposed and introduced by students
Week 10, 11 and 12:
Student presentations (20mins + 10mins discussion)
Week 13:
Deadline for essay
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Late Submissions - Guidelines T
Tasks 10% or less. No extensions will be granted. Students who have not submitted the task prior to the deadline will be awarded a mark of 0 for the task, except for cases in which an application for Special Consideration is made and approved.
Tasks above 10%. No extensions will be granted. Students who submit late work without an extension will receive a penalty. This penalty does not apply for cases in which an application for Special Consideration is made and approved.
Late Submission Text: “Unless a Special Consideration request has been submitted and approved, (a) a penalty for lateness will apply – two (2) marks out of 100 will be deducted per day for assignments submitted after the due date – and (b) no assignment will be accepted more than seven (7) days (incl. weekends) after the original submission deadline. No late submissions will be accepted for timed assessments – e.g. quizzes, online tests.”