160123 VO Introduction to Cognitive Psychology for Linguists (2012W)

This two-semester course is aimed at giving a comprehensive introduction to cognitive psychology (and, more broadly, to cognitive science), with special emphasis on general issues relevant to linguistics. The first semester is devoted to exploring the historical roots, basic concepts, methodology, key problems and fundamental approaches which characterise the present-day cognitive science of human mind. The topics therefore will include, among others, the followings: kinds of explanation in cognitive science; the concept of internal (mental) representations; types of representations; levels of description/explanation; the relationship between neuroscience, computer modelling, psychology and linguistics; models of knowledge acquisition; basic views on mental architecture; analogies and dis-analogies between language and other domains of knowledge; the problem of human consciousness in cognitive science. Discussing these issues we shall use human linguistic capacities and their various explanations as recurring examples.
The second part of the course (SSM 2009) will be devoted to a narrower topic with both cognitive psychological and linguistic relevance.
The two parts of the course (in the two semesters) can be attended independently of each other.