Computational Cognitive Modeling

Catalog description

This course provides a survey of computational approaches to understanding human intelligence and cognition. Both psychologists and data scientists are working with increasingly large quantities of human behavioral data. Computational cognitive modeling is the project of understanding behavioral data (and the mind and brain, more generally) by building computational models of the cognitive processes that produce the data. The course will cover the goals, philosophy, and technical concepts behind computational cognitive modeling, including model fitting and evaluation. Ideally, students will leave the course with a richer understanding of how computational modeling advances cognitive science, how cognitive science can inform research in machine learning and artificial intelligence, and how to fit and evaluate cognitive models for understanding behavioral data.