Cognitive Science Prosem 202B

Reading List for P202B for Steyvers

For each week, we discuss several papers related the high-level cognition, with an emphasis on cognitive biases and Bayesian models of cognition. Each student has to choose one assignment, which consists of being either a presenter or a discussant. For each week, we have multiple presenters and one discussant. Please email me with your choice of assignment.

Presenters give an powerpoint overview of the assigned papers without going into too much detail. The emphasis in the presentation should be on the main underlying issues/ problems/ themes and should give examples to illustrate these. Sometimes it might help to assume that the audience has not fully read the material. Note that some assignments are associated with two presenters. In this case, it is up to the presenters to divide the material into two short presentations. Please limit each individual presentation to about 20 minutes or so.

Discussants read all assigned papers for that week and prepares several high-level questions about the material. The discussant can also ask for questions of clarification during each presentation.  

 Schedule

 

Date Topic Assignment #Students per assignment Papers
2/12 Cognitive Biases 1 2 Tversky, A. & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases. Science, 185, 1124-1131.

Gilovich, T., Vallone, R., & Tversky, A. (1985). The hot hand in basketball: on the misperception of random sequences. Cognitive Psychology, 17, 295-314.

Additional background reading for presenters and discussant:

bulletCh. 9 (p. 368-383 only)“Heuristics and Judgment Biases” from Woll, S. (2002). Everyday thinking: memory, reasoning, and judgment in the real world. Lawrence Erlbaum.
2 1 Schkade, D.A., & Kahneman, D. (1998). Does living in California make people happy? A focusing illusion in judgments of life satisfaction. Psychological Science, 9(5), 340-346.
3 1 DISCUSSANT

 
3/5 Rationality

4

 1 V. M. Chase, R. Hertwig, and G. Gigerenzer (1998). Visions of rationality. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 2, 206-214.

5

1

Goldstein, D.G., & Gigerenzer, G. (2002). Models of ecological rationality: the Recognition Heuristic. Psychological Review, 109(1), 75-90.

6

1

Chater, N. & Oaksford, M. (1999). Ten years of the rational analysis of cognition. Trends in Cognitive Science, 3, 57-65.

7

1

DISCUSSANT
3/12 Bayesian  Models of Cognition 8 1 Griffiths, T.L., & Tenenbaum, J.B. (2006). Optimal predictions in everyday cognition. Psychological Science, 17(9), 767-773.

 

Background material for presenter and discussant:

bullet article in economist “Bayes Rules” on Jan. 2006
bullet Griffiths, T. L. & Tenenbaum, J. B. (2006). Statistics and the Bayesian Mind. Significance 3(3), 130-133.
9 1 Griffiths, T. L. & Tenenbaum, J. B. (in press). From mere coincidences to meaningful discoveries. Cognition.
10 1 DISCUSSANT