The course will focus on understanding how the arguably most abstract and most human characteristics of human behavior, such as reasoning, aesthetics, imagination, decision making and social interactions emerge from basic perceptual and motor behavioral processes that can be identified in lower animals as well. Since these higher cognitive processes are strongly embedded in and determined by the "simpler" perceptual operations, a systematic exploration of the links between the two can foster a deeper understanding of intelligent behavior in animals and humans.
Given the unique mix of the faculty and topics, the course will create an environment where students can freely move from basic perception to all the way to consciousness with the rigor of a solid computational approach and a firm footing in neural reality.The course will be organized around three key modules: (1) representation of visual scenes, tastes, and abstract categories (2) the emergence of internal representations of these domains: models of visual learning, taste learning, concept learning, and emergence of consciousness will be introduced and critically evaluated (3) feasibility of implementing in the brain the models reviewed in the second module.
Period
27-06-2011 - 01-07-2011 (1 weeks)
Target group
Course participants are expected to have at least started their graduate studies and have basic training in one of the related disciplines: either the psychological sciences/neuroscience, or in mathematics/ computer science, broadly defined. The course will also be appropriate for post-docs and junior faculty.
Pre-requisites: Working knowledge of general issues in the areas of perception, memory, linear algebra, and neural networks will be useful. Undergraduates without a university degree will not be considered.
Course aim
It is a high-level, research-based course, which will bring together world-class experts of different subfields. It focuses on a truly cross-disciplinary issue: how intelligent behavior emerges and how it is constructed and represented in our brain. The fundamental philosophy of the course is to demonstrate that some basic principles of structure learning can provide a unifying framework for explaining human cognition both in simple as well as in the most complex domains of behavior.
In addition, the course will present how these basic principles of behavior could be implemented in the neural hardware of the brain, thereby addressing the issue of how to bridge scientifically the gap between mind and body. To achieve this, lectures will progress via domains of gradually increasing abstraction that humans deal with starting from the perceptual domain of vision and taste, representing uncertainty and beliefs about observed and unobserved quantities, through learning internal models of the environment, to making adaptive and successful implicit decisions through concepts, and finally to conscious thinking.
Credits
1.0 ECTS creditsThe "Brains and Minds: The perceptual and computational bases of higher cognitive processes" course offers 1 ECTS point, which may be accepted for credit transfer by the participants' home universities. Those who wish to obtain these credits should inquire about the possible transfer at their home institution prior to their enrollment. The Summer University Office will send a transcript to those who have fulfilled all the necessary course requirements and request one.
Course fee
EUR 300: Tuition fee (550 EUR) is due by May 28, 2011.The tuition fee includes participation in the summer course, some administrative costs, an orientation program and welcome pack, access to the CEU Library and IT facilities, reading materials, printing quota, and some social activities.
EUR 270: Early Bird fee is available for tuition payment made before April 30, 2011.
Course leader
Jozsef Fiser, Brandeis University, Department of Psychology and the Neuroscience Program, Waltham, USA
Scholarships
Financial aid is available in the following categories:- tuition waiver- accommodation grant- travel grant (full or partial)
Central European University Summer University
Address: 9 Nador Street
Postal code: 1051
City: Budapest
Country: Hungary
Website: http://www.summer.ceu.hu
E-mail: summeru@ceu.hu
Phone: 361 3273811
Brains and Minds: The perceptual and computational bases of higher cognitive processes
