Part One

COGNITIVE SYSTEMSawright boo don't freak out this is simpler than it looks. A cognitive system is like how things react to each other. Like. Take this picture for example. This picture right here.  

Don't think y'all can read the tiny writing but here's how this goes. There's an environment. You PERCEIVE that environment through one or some of five senses and that external stimuli gets turned into internal representations once in your noggin. Said noggin happens to be your BRAIN. Then, once you've made sense of the environment, you've gotta REACT to it. You then turn your decisions about that into ACTION on the environment.EXAMPLE TIME: There's a tree. You PERCEIVE the tree through your eyes. Your eyes tell your BRAIN hola chica listen there's a tree up ahead okay just letting you know. The brain is like well diddly dang they're right and so decide that the thing to do it go around the tree. Sidestepping the tree like a boss is the ACTION on the ENVIRONMENT. 

Well okay that's great but wait! There's more! In fact, there's DIFFERENT KINDS of COGNITIVE SYSTEMS! BOY HOWDY!

Okay so AI at the most basic description is trying to emulate a natural organisms cognitive process. So in the case of R2D2, his sensors that act as eyes PERCEIVE the tree. This gets communicated to the MOTHERBOARD or something which then figures out what ACTION to take- perhaps telling the lil wheels to steer their way around this obstacle in the ENVIRONMENT.

But, AI isn't just in sassy robots who squirt oil over hostile droids and set the bastards on fire like the little shit R2 is. AI is everywhere, like whoa. It's not even SKIANET everywhere, it's in stuff like calculators and computers and registers. Basically if every AI currently in use crashed like a mofo then society as we know it would be hella inconvenienced. Probably collapse, actually. Fun fact for the day.

Point is, we could end up with an example like this on this hellspawn of a midterm:

What you're looking at here is a DISEMBODIED SYSTEM. Spoopy. These systems deal with AI- in this case, the Amazon's Recommender AI, that thing that looks at the kind of whacky stuff you've been looking up and goes golly gee I wonder what I could recommend to this sucker so they'll buy more.In this case the ENVIRONMENT is the input you're feeding the thing- your searches. The AI translates this as a bunch of confusing computer code and starts thinking in it's logical computer way about what ACTION (recommendations) it can make. 

This here is supposed to be a DISTRIBUTED SYSTEM. The hell is that? I'm not sure- even the powerpoint doesn't seem to be sure. What I've got jotted down is that these systems involve MULTIPLE COG SYSTEMS affecting the environment.Okay, makes some sense.

Okey dokey moving on. Cognition is basically the manipulation of representations. Representations are stored in memory. For us thats our brain. Softwares use disk memory and such while distributed systems rely on paper, brains, that kind of thing. 

So now it's time to talk about SENSORY, SHORT TERM, and LONG TERM memory.

SENSORY MEMORYIt's like a scratchpad or a tape recorder in that it can be written over. It's 'written over' every few seconds because of new perceptions.

SHORT TERM MEMORYThings that end up here are temporary, but some of it can end up getting promoted to long term.

LONG TERM MEMORYThis shit is here to stay forever. 

The thing to remember here is that an environment is not apart of a cog system, though it can affect it. Likewise, a cog system can perceive an environment and can only affect it through action.

Here's a secret okay: the brain is complicated as hell and we still don't know jack shit about where the fuck long term memory is stored. Best I've got to offer is that the hippocampus is PROBABLY important to trandferring STM to LTM

HABITATIONThis is learning how to not react to regular, originally significant stimuli. This is like staying at your uncles for the month and spending the first four days unable to sleep because of the goddamn traffic coming through the window. You learn how to deal, though, and soon you aren't loosing QUITE as much sleep.Point it, you get USED TO the stimuli.

SENSITATIONThis here's the exact opposite- you become more SENSITIVE to an event over time. Like when I got my first phone like hell I'd notice that thing vibrating but eventually I attuned myself to it's summons.Point is, you NOTICE the stimuli more over time.

So, what the actual fuck is learning from a biological perspective and not a 'please-god-kill-me' perspective?Learning is CHANGING MEMORY in order to prepare you for better actions in the future.

CLASSICAL CONDITIONINGUsing brainpower to associate two otherwise unrelated events to each other. You better BELIEVE my cats know 5 in the evening mean feeding. They'll start bugging me for it way beforehand, but they know some real injustice is being served for dinner when they haven't got it by 5.

Okay but now we've got OPERANT CONDITIONING which has a bunch of different types. Are you ready kids? (Aye, aye Captain).

POSITIVE REINFORCEMENTEx: Someone smiles when you help them. 

NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENTEx: A baby screams until it gets candy like the conniving poo machine it is

POSITIVE PUNISHMENTEx: You touch the stove like a dumbass and get burnt for your trouble

NEGATIVE PUNISHMENTEx: Your parents cut off your allowance because you got baked and hosted a voodoo party in the park

With all that now in mind, OPERANT CONDITIONING is about making a behavior more or less likely depending on the reward or punishment receved for your action.

POSITVE: GiveNEGATIVE: RemoveREINFORCEMENT: Make more likelyPUNISHMENT: Make less likely

PRACTISEDoing shit over and over again to learn how to do it- practise makes perfect. This uses a punish/reinforce kind of judgement to hone in your newly developing skin for playing the piano with your toes.FUN FACT: play is thought to be a form of practise for future adult skills, like how my cats play fight with each other but then the outdoor one comes home sporting new scratches an insufferable smugness that says she beat the hell out of the mofo.

IMPRINTINGThis is time sensitive learning- you can only learn the skill in a certain time frame, like how little duckies learn who their mother is somewhere between 13-16 hours of life. 

OBSERVATIONAL LEARNINGIf you're a dancer like me then you are hella familiar with this one. Trying to copy the teachers dance moves and looking extremely silly whilst doing so, aw yeah.FUN FACT: Some people have tried to get robots to do this. A lot of cultural learning is this as well.

TESTIMONYLearning by someone telling you something. Like, I don't know, university lecture halls. This can be reading as well, so add textbooks to the mix.

GUESS WHAT there's also learning over human history.

There's GENETIC, from enviornments changing slowly like they are want to do.

PRESTIGE BIAS is literally just imitating the most successful person to try and get the same kind of success they do. Copycats.

CONFORMIST BIAS: basically lemming syndrome. Follow the herd.

COGNITIVE LEVEL

SOCIOLOGICAL LEARNINGTake food taboos in Fiji. Nobody knows why you don't eat the fish if you're pregnant, they just know that they DON'T. Guess what though it turns out those fish are toxic to expecting mothers, so go figure.WHY DO WE NEED IT?Some group behaviour is just too weird to be explained properly by simple psychology.

PSYCHOLOGICAL LEVELThis is like noticing that when pregnant women eat a certain food they get sick.WHY DO WE NEED IT?Some behaviours just aren't that influenced by social context. We also need it because psychology is more uptight about shit than cognitive

COGNITIVE LEVELSeems to work on an IF, AND, THEN kind of logic: IF you see a fish AND it's blue THEN you'll eat it. And hopefully it's not toxic and you're not pregnant.Basically, depending on if something good or bad happens, you'll adjust your actions to it accordingly. Cognition ALWAYS deal with information and how its processed.WHY DO WE NEED IT?Sometimes psych just can't pin down the vague stuff, like how we can do shit like multiplication.Also, mental states and such are to be defined functionally, not biologically like a tool

BIOLOGICAL LEVELThis is some brain shit right here. Synapses are the spaces between neurons where the chemicals are released to sen signals across said gap. They get more efficient with use, related to PRACTISe from the LEARNING note. Neurons that FIRE together WIRE together, and thats how associations are learned.WHY DO WE NEED IT?Sometimes biological structure influences behaviour in a way cognition can't explain. Meanwhile chemistry only explains SOME of the brain

CHEMICAL LEVELThis could be synaptic changes in your taste receptors to tolerate spicy food because you've recently moved to India and you don't feel like eating naan bread for the rest of you life.WHY DO WE NEED IT? Chemicals can affect behaviour what do you think drugs are.Physics doesn't tell us shit about human behaviour. Why is the physical level a thing. No one knows. Even my professor thinks its stupid.

PHYSICAL LEVELWhy is this listed if no one has a definition for it yet? ????No one fucking knows what the hell this is supposed to mean.

Okay, but how do we know if levels are "legit", as Jim puts it.Well, if one can make casual predictions using ontology (a set of thing said to exist) about it.What's shown above is like a scale- we need every one of those to consider stuff (except physical, cause again, who the fuck even knows)

Okay, 

Okay new topic. In cog sci we've got proximate and ultimate explanations for things. Like, the PROXIMATE explanation for eating is because it satisfies our hunger and it tastes like the heavens. The ULTIMATE explanation would be that we need the nutrition to stay alive.

Okay 

This note is about how cog sci can help me pass this midterm and get a bitching score on it! YAY!Yeah this was an actual 80 minute lecture you wouldn't believe how happy I was.

Okay so you know these times when teachers would hand you the sheets about visual auditory and hands on learning? Turns out it's almost definitely bullshit. Complete bullshit. No prof at university is going to take you whining about not being an auditory learner.

Okay 

HYPOCRITE TIME: take notes. Like, actual written notes. Apparently the act of messily scrawling on paper is actually a lot more brain engaging than typing. It's like a mixture of less distraction from computer and writing just being more complicated. Typing is banging your digits against buttons it just doesn't sink in as well.So yeah. Buy notebooks and use those. New notebooks are fun. Doodle in them. 

MULTASKINGSURPRISE! ALSO A MYTH. People are shit at multitasking. Like, it FEELS like you can do it but if there's one thing a cog sci major is telling me, it's that our sense are distressingly inaccurate and inconsistent, especially the brain.

STILL A HYPOCRITE: if you aren't spending 20 hours a week studying then you shouldn't be complaining about you're marks. That's not TOO bad I guess. I mean. 20 divied by 7 is just...3 hours a day. Sure. Yeah. Fun. Ugh.

Argh time management. I don't know about you but I'm terrible at this. I just had a whole four day weekend to figure out what the actual fuck is going on in my linguistics course and I didn't touch the textbook.My prof says to just sort of plan out your day when you wake up in half hour incriments,

Flashcards are boss for memorization.

Stu

Study in more than one place. Take a walk before studying. Study just before sleeping- you encode lots of long term memory in your sleep so all nighters are largely useless. Little tricks to force your brain into retaining shit.

Writing is the key to clear thinking, apparently. Prof says to favour classes that involve a lot of writing. Got that covered, I'm in a philosophy class- ESSAYS FOR EVERYONE.

AWRIGHT LEARNING DISABILITIES HERE WE GO

These things have to be assessed and diagnosed by a clinical psychologist to be valid. Assessing what? Your cognitive and academic prowess.

These things have to be diagnosed by a 

The working definition is that this is a:-Thing since birth-A dysfunction of the brain-Affects certain psychological processes-Is indicated by an underperformance academeically

METACOGNITION could help. This is where you consciously and deliberately monitor your knowledge, processes, and general internal state. This can be stuff like self regulated planning for studying, managing your emotions and thoughts.

Cognitive Systems

Memory

Learning

Ontology Levels

Learning Tools