Courses

Core Courses

AP/LING 1000 6.0, Introduction To Linguistics

Examination of fundamental principles of language organization in phonology, morphology and syntax from both practical and theoretical points of view with illustrations from English and a variety of other languages. Brief survey of the areas of child language acquisition, historical linguistics and psycholinguistics.

HH/PSYC 1010 6.0, Introduction To Psychology

A survey of psychology introducing basic terms, concepts and methods. Included are topics such as biological bases of behaviour, learning, perception, motivation, cognition, child development, personality, and abnormal and social psychology.

AP/PHIL/COGS 3750 3.0, Philosophy Of Artificial Intelligence

This course examines Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a framework for modeling and analysing fundamental ideas about the nature of intelligence and cognition in general. Topics include the exploration of computer models for concepts such as remembering, learning, inference, and affect.

AP/PHIL 3265 3.0, Philosophy Of Mind

How can we understand the relation between mind and body? How do mental states get their meaning? What is consciousness? Other topics may be discussed, such as: human agency, self-knowledge, unity of self, rationality of emotion, language and mind.

AP/PHIL 3260 3.0, Philosophy Of Psychology

An introduction to central philosophical issues in psychology. This course critically examines aspects of psychology as a scientific discipline and gives an overview about philosophy of psychology.

HH/PSYC 3260 3.0, Cognition

A survey of higher-order cognitive processes in humans. Topics include attention, memory, problem solving, thinking and language.

AP/COGS/PHIL 4750 6.0, Honours Thesis In Cognitive Science

Students carry out an individual piece of research in cognitive science in consultation with a thesis supervisor and write a thesis.

[To complete the thesis requirement, students will each work with an individual faculty member on their particular project. The program coordinator will act as liaison between students and potential supervisors, and the student will be able to choose a supervisor from a list of possible options with advisement from the program coordinator.]

AP/COGS/PHIL 4900 6.0, Honours Seminar In Cognitive Science

This course is the capstone for students in the COGS Honours BA program. Students will obtain a greater understanding of the work that cognitvie scientists do, and how the theoretical background can be implimented in solving real-world problems and uncovering additional facts about the world. Students will be expected to produce a major work in COGS as well as demonstrate their knowledge of the applications of COGS to many different areas of academia and industry.

Analytical (6 credits)

SC/CSE 1020 3.0, Introduction To Computer Science I: Conceptual foundations of object-oriented programming, including data types, control structures, class library usage, encapsulation, inheritance and other abstractions; the software development process, specification and implementation, with emphasis on software engineering principles.
SC/CSE 1030 3.0, Introduction To Computer Science II: This course builds on CSE 1020 3.0 covering class implementation and system design in object-oriented programming, including composition, inheritance, polymorphism, and exception handling. Other topics include recursion, searching and sorting, and introductory data structures.
SC/CSE 2001 3.0, Introduction To The Theory of Computation: Introduction to the theory of computing, including automata theory, formal languages and Turing machines; theoretical models and their applications in various fields of computer science. The emphasis is on practical applications of the theory and concepts rather than formal rigour.
AP/ITEC 1000 3.0 - Introduction To Information Technologies: This course introduces basic concepts of contemporary information technologies (computers, networks, telecommunications) used to process and store information in organizations. The course material includes both hardware and software components, which students compare, select and combine to solve information problems.
AP/ITEC 1010 3.0 - Information And Organizations: The value and importance of information to organizations, how it is used, stored and processed; emphasizes the uses of information technologies of various kinds, the benefits of the technologies, and the associated costs and problems; use of desktop applications.
AP/LING 2120 3.0, Fundamentals Of Phonological Analysis: Practical techniques of phonological analysis exemplified by data taken from a variety of languages. Practice in the use of distinctive features and rule formalisms.
AP/LING 2140 3.0, Fundamentals Of Grammatical Analysis: Practical techniques of grammatical analysis exemplified by data taken from a variety of languages.
AP/PHIL 2100 3.0, Introduction To Logic: Logic, in the philosophical tradition, is the study of what makes arguments valid. That is, it aims to distinguish correct reasoning from faulty reasoning. Modern symbolic logic begins this project by giving two complementary analyses of validity. This course presents the basic elements of modern symbolic logic for the beginning student.
AP/PHIL 3100 3.0, Classical Logic: Classical logic is that well-established part of philosophical logic which is sometimes taken as the foundation for rationality, as well as mathematics. This course begins to explore foundational concepts in metalogic, such as the notion of a logical system and the rigorous definition of a proof. It explores the ideas of the soundness and completeness of a logical system and introduces the incompleteness of arithmetic.
AP/PHIL 3105 3.0, Deviant Logic: An exploration of several systems of non-standard logic including modal logic, many-valued logic, and relevance logic. The deductive structure, consistency and completeness of the systems will be explored.
HH/PSYC 2020 6.0, Statistical Methods I and II: An introduction to the analysis of data from psychological studies. Fundamental concepts and techniques of both descriptive and inferential statistics and their application to psychological research.
HH/PSYC 2021 3.0, Statistical Methods I: The fundamental concepts and application of descriptive statistics. An introduction to probability and inferential statistics, including hypothesis testing with the normal- and t-distributions.
HH/PSYC 2030 3.0, Introduction to Research Methods: An introduction to the use of experimental and non-experimental research methods by psychologists in the study of behaviour. Topics such as research design, external and internal validity, sources of bias, APA style and ethics are considered.

Introductory Philosophy (3 credits )

AP/PHIL 2160 3.0, Mind, Brain, And Machines: An introduction to metaphysical issues about the mind. What is the nature of the mind and what is its relation to the body? What is the self and what is it that makes one the same person over time? What is the nature of consciousness and what is its relation to the brain?
AP/PHIL 2240 3.0, Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind: What concepts of mind underlie current research on mind in psychology and cognitive science? What methods are used to study it? How much can science tell us about our own subjectivity?

Mid-level Computer Science, Linguistics, Psychology (9 credits)

9 credits chosen from the following courses, including at least two different disciplines

SC/CSE 2011 3.0, Fundamentals Of Data Structure

A study of fundamental data structures and their use in the efficient implementation of algorithms. Topics include abstract data types, lists, stacks, queues, trees and graphs.

SC/CSE 3401 3.0, Functional And Logical Programming

Students, who are familiar with the procedural and object-oriented approaches offered by Java and C, learn about and contrast functional programming (using a language like Standard ML) and logic programming (using the language Prolog).

SC/CSE 3402 3.0, Introduction To Concepts Of Artificial Intelligence

The concept of artificial intelligence. Interpretation of learning and reasoning as computational processes; simulation using logic and inference rules; analysis of the structure of visual scenes; game playing by computer; natural language analysis and synthesis; domain-independent planning and problem solving.

AP/ITEC 3230 3.0 - Designing User Interfaces

Examines a range of topics in the analysis and design of interfaces and human-computer interaction. Focusing on the human perspective, the course will discuss improving interaction with computers and reducing the possible mismatch between human and machine.

AP/LING 3120 3.0, Phonology

Theoretical principles and practical techniques of phonological analysis exemplified by data taken from a variety of languages.

AP/LING 3140 3.0, Syntax

This course provides a basic introduction to generative syntax, in particular to the recent work of Noam Chomsky and his followers. Although most of the data analyzed will be English, syntactic patterns of some other languages will be discussed.

AP/LING 3210 3.0, First Language Acquisition

This course surveys first language acquisition from a variety of approaches, including social interactionist, innatist, and information processing.

AP/LING 3220 3.0, Psycholinguistics

A survey of psycholinguistic research and theory. Topics chosen from the following: introduction to language structure, biological basis for language, speech perception, sentence processing, speech production, relation of language and thought, language acquisition and atypical language. Cross-listed to: AS/AK/SC/PSYC 3290 3.0.

HH/SC/PSYC 2110 3.0, Developmental Psychology

This course considers physical, intellectual, emotional and social development from birth through adolescence and the impact of the interaction of these various aspects of development upon the individual as a whole.

HH/SC/PSYC 2120 3.0, Social Psychology

This course reviews the theories, methods and empirical evidence in the scientific study of human social behaviour. The aim is to elucidate social psychological processes through the examination of areas such as social influence, attribution, attitudes and stereotyping.

HH/PSYC 2220 3.0, Sensation And Perception I

A course in problems, experimental methods and research findings in sensation and perception. Vision and hearing are covered in some detail, including discussion of the structure and function of the eye and ear, and cortical areas responsible for processing visual and auditory information.

HH/PSYC 2240 3.0, Biological Basis Of Behaviour

An introduction to fundamental principles of brain function and neural organization, as illustrated by classic findings and current research. Topics may include sleep and dreaming, memory, sensory motor processing, motivation (e.g., eating, reproductive behaviours), higher cognitive processes, and neurological disorders.

HH/PSYC 3250 3.0, Neural Bases Of Behaviour

This course surveys issues concerning the development and localization of cerebral functions, and examines experimental and clinical studies illustrating behavioural effects of brain damage.

HH/PSYC 3265 3.0, Memory

An examination of how humans encode, store and retrieve information from memory. Although the course focuses on data from laboratory studies and their theoretical interpretation, some consideration is given to applied aspects of human memory.

HH/PSYC 3280 3.0, Animal Behaviour

An introduction to the study of animal behaviour including comparative psychology, behavioural ecology, ethology and sociobiology.

HH/PSYC 3290 3.0, Psycholinguistics

Cross-listed to: AS/LING 3220 3.0.

Upper level Computer Science, Linguistics, Psychology, Philosophy (6 credits)

6 credits chosen from the following courses, including at least two different disciplines

SC/CSE 4401 3.0, Artificial Intelligence: Introduction to the main ideas of current machine learning research: induction, abduction, deduction; learning from examples and formal models, Bayes' rule, Solomonoff's idea, Gold paradigm, Valiant model of learning, Rissanen's minimum description length principle; distribution free and unsupervised learning.
SC/CSE 4421 3.0, Introduction To Robotics: An introduction to robot arms and autonomous vehicles. The course covers control and manipulator theory, robot sensors and navigation.
SC/CSE 4422 3.0, Computer Vision: An introductory course in computer vision: high- and low-level vision systems, the measurement and interpretation of visual data, static and dynamic scene analysis.
SC/CSE 4441 3.0, Human-Computer Interaction: This course introduces the concepts and technology necessary to design, manage and implement interactive software. Students work in small groups and learn how to design user interfaces, how to realize them and how to evaluate the end result. Both design and evaluation are emphasized.
AP/LING 4120 3.0, Phonological Theories: This course concentrates on recent developments in phonological theory within a generative framework. Specific topics include the representation of segments, autosegmental phonology, syllable structure, metrical phonology and lexical phonology.
AP/PHIL 3200 3.0, Philosophy of Language: This course provides an introduction to basic notions of the philosophy of language. Questions to be discussed may include: How is communication in language possible? What is a language? What makes words and phrases meaningful? What is truth?
AP/PHIL 3635 3.0, Philosophical Foundations Of Cognitive Science: An introduction to philosophical issues in the foundations of cognitive science, an interdisciplinary field made up of psychology, neuroscience, computer science and artificial intelligence, linguistics, and philosophy. The course covers the main philosophical issues and debates associated with this field.
AP/PHIL 4080 3.0, Seminar In The Philosophy Of Mind: A selection of the following topics are discussed: mind and body, thinking, intention, emotions, desires, motives, reasons, dispositions, memory, the unconscious, and the concept of a person.
AP/PHIL 4082 3.0, Seminar: Philosophy of Perception: An investigation of metaphysical and epistemological issues about perception. What is the nature of perceptual experience and knowledge? How can one fit an account of perception into a broader account of the nature of the mind and the world?
AP/PHIL 4083 3.0, Philosophy Of Clinical Psychology: A study of the logic and epistemology of psychoanalysis, psychodynamic psychotherapy and clinical psychology. Some of the questions explored are: Is psychodynamic psychotherapy empirically testable? How do we know that it works? Is it a science?
AP/PHIL4084 3.0, Animals And The Philosophy of Mind: In this course students are introduced to the history of animals cognition research, and examine methodological and conceptual issues related to animal minds.
HH/PSYC 4010 3.0/6.0, Seminar In Developmental Psychology: Some major modern theories of child development are compared and their corresponding data and methodologies are analyzed.
HH/PSYC 4020 3.0/6.0, Seminar In Social Psychology: In depth consideration of contemporary issues in social psychology. The focus will vary depending on the speciality area of the instructor.
HH/PSYC 4080 6.0, The Neuropsychology Of Abnormal Behavior: An examination of the genetic, physiological and anatomical bases of several types of abnormal behaviour. The social, public policy and ethical implications of a neuropsychological view of abnormal behaviour are discussed.
HH/PSYC 4180 3.0, Seminar In Comparative Cognition: This seminar course focuses on the various approaches to the study of cognitive processes in non-human animal species. The course includes the study of memory, problem-solving, concept formation, the representation of time and number, and language acquisition in non-human animals.
HH/PSYCH 4230 3.0, Human Performance In Systems: This seminar course examines the application of systems psychology and human factors to the development and evaluation of complex operational systems. Seminar topics include simulation techniques, function allocation, human capabilities, task design, personnel selection, evaluation of individual and system performance.
HH/PSYCH 4260 3.0, Seminar In Sensation And Perception: A review of current research in normal and disordered sensory and perceptual processes. The course includes the study of the development of normal and abnormal vision, auditory perception, spatially coordinated behaviour, neurological disorders, and robotic simulations of human perceptual abilities.
HH/PSYC 4270 3.0 Seminar In Memory And Cognition: An examination of a number of issues in memory and cognition. The course focuses on areas of current interest and may include topics such as pattern recognition, perception of art, memory retrieval, connectionist models, problem solving, thinking, concept formation, categorization and artificial intelligence.