Computational Cognitive Science

Image showing ways of structuring knowledge representations using directed networks.

Human learning and reasoning is founded on multiple knowledge representations with different kinds of structures, such as trees, chains, dominance hierarchies, neighborhood graphs, and directed networks. This class uses probabilistic inference methods from machine learning and Bayesian statistics, operating over different kinds of structured representational systems, to explain how people's domain knowledge can support a wide range of learning and reasoning tasks, and how these knowledge structures may themselves be learned from experience. (Image by Prof. Joshua Tenenbaum.)

Instructor(s)

MIT Course Number

9.66J / 9.660J / 6.804J

As Taught In

Fall 2004

Level

Undergraduate / Graduate

Cite This Course

Course Description

Course Features

Course Description

This course is an introduction to computational theories of human cognition. Drawing on formal models from classic and contemporary artificial intelligence, students will explore fundamental issues in human knowledge representation, inductive learning and reasoning. What are the forms that our knowledge of the world takes? What are the inductive principles that allow us to acquire new knowledge from the interaction of prior knowledge with observed data? What kinds of data must be available to human learners, and what kinds of innate knowledge (if any) must they have?

Related Content

Joshua Tenenbaum. 9.66J Computational Cognitive Science. Fall 2004. Massachusetts Institute of Technology: MIT OpenCourseWare, https://ocw.mit.edu. License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA.


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