PART I. DESCRIPTION

1. Title: Doctor of Philosophy in Cognitive Science

The University of Southwestern Louisiana proposes establishing an interdisciplinary Ph.D. program in Cognitive Science.

Cognitive science by its nature is a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary endeavor. Cognitive scientists study the structures and processes underlying cognition and decision making in humans, animals, and machines. At its heart, cognitive science is concerned with understanding the mental processes underlying intelligence and the nature of thinking. Cognitive scientists study the human mind and how it works. They attempt to determine how learning occurs, how memory operates, how we reason through a problem and make decisions, what attention and consciousness are, and how brain structures enable cognitive processes. Since mind is a result of evolution, cognitive scientists also study animals and their thought processes to discover what animals can know and how they learn. The similarities and differences among species reveal properties of both the human mind and the nature of intelligence. Cognitive scientists implement their models on computers, and they test the models by examining animate behavior. They also develop and test models of intelligent decision-oriented behavior that correspond to no living species. In this way, they establish a more precise understanding of mind, mental processing, and thinking. Cognitive scientists also seek to identify unique qualities of the human mind that set us apart from other species, and first among these qualities is our ability to speak. The relation between language and thought is central to the field, especially the role of language in propositional or representational thought, in categorization, and in maintaining a concept of the self. These concerns lie at the core of the program we propose to establish at USL.

In addition to a concern with describing the mental representations of humans and animals, cognitive scientists seek to understand the basis of intentional action. Among the tools cognitive scientists use are neural networks and the computational approach. Arising from developments in computer science during the 1960s (most notably the field of artificial intelligence), these tools specify how agents establish and implement plans of action (for example, the next move in a chess game) in terms of logical rules (in information processing systems) or non-rule-based procedures such as flow of activation in a neural network. These tools have enabled researchers and thinkers from fields such as psychology, computer science, philosophy, linguistics, and neuroscience to coordinate research on reasoning, intelligence, and problem solving. Because of the shared scientific vocabulary and methodology, results of cognitive research in one area are now readily available to (and influence the work of) researchers situated in other disciplines. Indeed, many researchers from diverse parent disciplines view themselves as sharing a core set of models, although their specific interests involve the application of these models to their respective fields.

The contribution of computational tools and computer models (particularly the information processing approach) cannot be overestimated. These tools have enabled the formulation and testing of cognitive models at new levels of sophistication. Thus, over the last two decades, linguists, psychologists, and philosophers have joined hands with artificial intelligence and neural network researchers in an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary endeavor that promises major advances in our understanding of intelligence and cognition. The multidisciplinary character of this approach is evident in that it involves problems, ideas, and concepts taken from the traditional fields such as biology, computer science, linguistics, psychology, and philosophy. Its interdisciplinary nature arises from the contributions of these various disciplines to a unique computational/information-processing framework and a distinctive language.

As a consequence of the vast, multidisciplinary domain of cognitive science, superior Ph.D. programs require an infrastructure of resources that extends throughout the university. USL now possesses an extraordinary combination of faculty and facilities capable of supporting a cognitive science program that is not only excellent, but also unique. Specifically, the proposed program at USL is distinctive because resources at the university encourage the comparative perspective from which cognitive science approaches the task of describing intelligence and reasoning. Thus, a significant component of the program is a resource that is one of the few of its kind in the country, the New Iberia Research Center, where research on colonies of primates directly addresses cognition. In addition, the Center For Advanced Computer Studies, the Cognition Laboratories in psychology, and the Center For Child Studies provide support for research on human and machine cognition, facilitating comparisons between different species, as well as between animate and inanimate systems. These facilities can also sustain the study of neural computation. This felicitous assembly of research resources, joined in the right way, will project the university and the state onto the national scene.

Cognitive Science is a growing field and most major universities have one or another version of such a program. In your case, you have the opportunity to create something unique because virtually none of these programs has a strong comparative component. With the resources of the New Iberia Research Center this program could be one that carves out its own distinctive niche, and will attract the very best graduate students in the country who are interested in cognition from a comparative perspective. Indeed, the major competition will be Emory/Yerkes, where I am located. (letter from Michael Tomasello, Associate Editor, Child Development and Journal of Comparative Psychology, and Professor of Psychology at Emory University; see Appendix G) The shared interests of researchers on the main campus at USL and at USL’s New Iberia Research Center converge on three areas: (a) comparative cognition (concerned with examining similarities in cognitive processes and their development in humans and non-human primates), (b) cognitive processes (concerned with the broad questions of memory, categorization, attention and learning, automated reasoning, perception, and computational models of intelligence), and (c) language and mind (focusing on psycholinguistics, automated language processing, discourse analysis, and primate and human studies in language acquisition). The comparative cognition area will involve researchers working with the primate colony at USL-NIRC. The area of cognitive processes will involve researchers working in the laboratories located in the psychology and computer science departments, and it will encompass information processing and neural net models of cognitive processes. Finally, the area of language and mind will unite a number of researchers in all of these laboratories who are concerned with understanding the cognitive capacities and structures required and/or enabled by language. The proposed structure of the USL program promises to provide fertile ground for pursuing current issues in the field. The focal area in cognitive processes provides a center for the research approaches of "younger" disciplines such as information science and cognitive psychology, while the focal area of comparative cognition, grounded in genetic and physiological traditions, complements the emphasis on computational modelling in studies of cognitive processes. The focal area of language and mind provides linguistic and philosophical perspectives and problems. Together, these areas provide adequate coverage of the broad range of research in a typical cognitive science program.

At the same time, the combination of USL’s strong Center for Advanced Computer Studies and state-of-the-art primate research center will make the proposed program unique. I anticipate an exciting future for the program and look forward to the day when USL will join the University of Pennsylvania and other fine institutions that have developed programs in cognitive science. (letter from Aravind K. Joshi, Henry Salvatori Professor of Computer and Cognitive Science and Co-Director of the Institute for Research in Cognitive Science at the University of Pennsylvania; see Appendix G)

 Cognitive science-related programs have been established elsewhere. The literature is growing in leaps and bounds. External funding is increasingly more available for cognitive sciences projects, and USL is in a strong position to compete for these funds. There are also now grants programs to help nourish nascent cognitive science programs. A cognitive science Ph.D. program in the State of Louisiana is overdue. I have been asked to comment on the appropriateness of a cognitive science program at the University of Southwestern Louisiana. Given what I know of the facilities of the university (particularly the New Iberia primate research facility) and the strength of the two most relevant departments (computer science and psychology), I would regard such a move as long overdue.

I believe it is accurate to say that most research universities, public and private, have at least programs in cognitive science. There are several major universities, most notably Brown and the University of California, San Diego, that have actual departments of cognitive science. (letter from Edward J. Shoben, former Editor of the Journal of Memory and Language, Head of the Department of Psychology, and Professor in the Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois; see Appendix G)
 

 2. Degree Contemplated: Doctor of Philosophy

The program will award a doctorate in cognitive science. An undergraduate minor in cognitive science is currently available at the University of Southwestern Louisiana. Faculty and students from numerous disciplines at the university have met regularly over the past eight years to discuss cognitive science-related issues, and to present cognitive science research. Most of the related disciplines (computer science; linguistics; psychology) already provide graduate courses that introduce students to cognitive science. Almost all courses needed to provide a full interdisciplinary specialization in cognitive science are currently offered.

Entering students will need to familiarize themselves with at least two of the disciplines contributing to this multidisciplinary endeavor. The course requirements for such proficiency are indicated in Appendix C. The core courses shall include (a) History and Foundations of Cognitive Science; (b) Cognitive Psychology; (c) Philosophy of Mind, (d) Computational Basis of Intelligence, (e) Cognitive Neuroscience, and (f) Comparative Cognition. Also included in the core shall be methodological courses acquainting the student with at least two disciplines contributing to this program (e.g., Experimental Design or Quantitative Models courses in Psychology; Artificial Neural Networks or Computer Modeling courses in computer science; Linguistic Analysis or Generative Grammar courses in linguistics). Members of thesis committees will include representatives from outside the student's major discipline. Such cross-disciplinary training should enable students to seek employment in several disciplines.