E105: Rhythm and Cognition
Announcements
-
Topics courses
-
Course content
-
Instructor and AI
-
Classwork
-
Schedule
-
Things to play with or check out
- Check out the article on
Juggling in October's Scientific American! It is very relevant and
very readable.
TOPICS courses are designed to allow new undergraduates to learn about
topics which would not normally be taught in the regular curriculum,
topics which bring together ideas from different fields or treat
content in novel ways. The courses also get faculty more involved in
early undergraduate education than they have been. The goal
is for students to learn about arts and humanities, social sciences,
and mathematics and hard sciences in innovative ways.
Motivation
Rhythm is a pervasive aspect of our lives. It enters into the way we
walk, the way we talk to each other, and of course the way we listen
to and perform music. What enables us to be rhythmic? How does
rhythm function in the mind? Questions such as these belong to the
field of cognitive science, which is concerned with how the mind
works. In this course you should (1) learn something
about the basic concepts and methods of cognitive science and (2)
learn something about the role of rhythm in the mind.
Specific goals of this course
-
A better understanding of what science is
-
What is an experiment?
-
What is a scientific model or theory?
-
How do we know when we're right?
-
An introduction to cognitive science
-
What do cognitive scientists study?
-
How is cognitive science done?
-
What do we know about cognition?
-
What are some ongoing controversies about cognition?
-
Experience with some basic academic uses of computers
-
E-mail
-
World-Wide Web
-
Word processing
-
Possibly a bit of programming (in StarLogo)
-
Writing practice
Who we are
Mike Gasser
Fred Cummins
Office hours
Mike's: Tu 9-10, W 9-11; Lindley 230H
Fred's: M 2:30-3.30, F 2-4; Lindley 406
Mike:
You may drop by any time during my office hours, but I prefer you make
an appointment so you won't overlap with somebody else.
To make an appointment, click
here
.
Please do not come to my office unannounced outside my office hours.
If we can't find a time during my regular office hours, I'll arrange
another time to meet.
Fred:
Come by during office hours. You do not need an appointment. You do
not have to have a serious problem. If you do have a problem or feel
you are falling behind, I will be much less sympathetic if you do not
come and see me. Outside office hours, I can be asked questions
before and after labs and lectures. Otherwise I am not on campus.
Grading
Your grade will be based on the following:
-
6 "activities" (80%)
These will vary a lot in terms of what is expected of you, and the
amount of points they are worth will also vary.
For most you will be encouraged either to think about a topic before
we discuss it in class or to make use of what you have learned in
class to make sense out of some phenomenon.
Some will be writing assignments.
For these we will give you the opportunity to improve your grade by
revising what you have written.
Others will involve exercises with software which we make available to
you.
Collaboration on activities is fine as long as you make it clear to us
who has worked with whom.
-
A final exam (20%)
This will be open-notes.
Reading
There will be about 4 reading assignments consisting of articles from
journals or chapters from books, but this will not be a heavy reading
course.
Because there are not many readings, much of the material will be
presented and discussed in the lecture and the labs.
Attendance is very important.
Lecture notes will be made available on the World-Wide Web page for
the class.
You will learn how to access these and print them out.
List of readings
"*" means that the notes for a topic are complete.
Periodicity (Weeks 1-5)
- Reading: Scientific American article
- Activity 1: Using World-Wide Web, email
(5%, due Friday, Sept. 1)
- Activity 2: Exploring periodic
functions using Maple (10%, due Friday, Sept. 22)
- Activity 3:
Investigating coupled oscillators using StarLogo
(10%, due Tuesday, Oct. 10)
- Activity 4:
Describing periodicity and modeling (writing assignment)
(15%, due Tuesday, Oct. 17)
- Week 1
- Week 2
- Week 3
- Week 4
- Week 5
- Week 6 (Tu)
Meter and Rhythm (Weeks 6-12)
- Reading: Handel
- Activity 5:
Designing an experiment on meter or rhythm (20%, due Tuesday, Nov. 14)
- Activity 6: Investigating
rule-based models (20%, due Friday, Dec. 8).
- Week 6
- Week 7
- Week 8
- Week 9
- Week 10
- Week 11
- Week 12
- Week 13
- Week 14
Summing Up: Distributed vs. Centralized Computation (Week 15)
- Reading: Resnick
- Week 15
- Final exam: Thurs., 14 Dec., 5-7:00 pm
Things to Play With or Check Out
Take me to the IU Home Page.
URL: http://www.indiana.edu/~gasser/index.html
Last updated: 13 December 1995
Comments: gasser@salsa.indiana.edu
Copyright 1995, The Trustees of
Indiana University