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Introduction to Cognitive Science: Minds, Machines and Consciousness (G5077)

15 credits, Level 4

Autumn teaching

What is mind? How can our view of ourselves as subjects with a mental life be reconciled with the non-mental, scientific accounts we have of our brains and bodies?

We will look at a number of different physicalist theories, concentrating on variants of the view that cognition is computation, and on neurophysiologically-based accounts of mind.

In doing so, we will examine some of the basic issues underlying cognitive science as an interdisciplinary study of the mind, taking in topics from psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, computing, artificial intelligence, robotics, evolutionary theory, biology and philosophy along the way.

Contact hours and workload

This module is approximately 150 hours of work. This breaks down into about 22 hours of contact time and about 128 hours of independent study. The University may make minor variations to the contact hours for operational reasons, including timetabling requirements.

We regularly review our modules to incorporate student feedback, staff expertise, as well as the latest research and teaching methodology. We’re planning to run these modules in the academic year 2024/25. However, there may be changes to these modules in response to feedback, staff availability, student demand or updates to our curriculum.

We’ll make sure to let you know of any material changes to modules at the earliest opportunity.