Watch Introduction to Cognitive Science

2025
1 Season

Today, with modern technologies, including the best in neuroscience, medical imaging, and recent advances in artificial intelligence, we are making more progress than ever before. In Introduction to Cognitive Science, Professor Thad A. Polk takes you on a fascinating tour of the latest discoveries in the relatively new field of cognitive science.

Introduction to Cognitive Science is a series that ran for 1 seasons (24 episodes) between January 23, 2025 and on The Great Courses

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Seasons

24. The Future of AI and Cognitive Science

January 23, 2025

Have you wondered what could happen if we develop the ability to build artificial intelligences that rival or surpass our own? Scientists no longer believe the issue is

23. Cognitive Science in the Field

January 23, 2025

Explore how the latest discoveries about cognition have affected the field of education, helping both the learner and the teacher. We now have the science to influence decisions about when and how to study, and how to help students better retain information. Even in the disparate fields of law and design, learn how cognitive science has profoundly impacted best practices.

22. The Rapid Rise of Artificial Intelligence

January 23, 2025

Learn how AI has profoundly impacted the field of cognitive science. Explore the ways in which AI

21. Putting It Together: Unified Theories of Cognition

January 23, 2025

Investigate ACT-R, one of the most well-developed cognitive architectures that exists today in the quest to create a unified theory of cognition. Learn how ACT-R implements a specific theory about how the mind

20. The Puzzle of Consciousness

January 23, 2025

What is the nature of consciousness and how is it implemented in the human brain? Does consciousness inevitably arise when a certain threshold of intelligence is met? These are some of the most profound questions humans have ever asked. Explore what cognitive science has contributed to studying both the content and level of human consciousness.

19. Autism, Schizophrenia, and OCD

January 23, 2025

Learn how cognitive scientists are developing theories and computational models to explain the behaviors associated with these three disorders. Explore the latest theories that explain the obsessions and compulsions of OCD, and recent research into the glutamate system

18. Depression and Anxiety

January 23, 2025

Dig into computational psychiatry, the field that brings together computer science, math, and neuroscience to simulate the neural processes contributing to psychiatric disorders. Explore how many symptoms of depression and anxiety make sense when viewed through the lens of Bayesian decision theory.

17. What Damage Reveals about the Brain

January 23, 2025

Historically, one of the best ways for neuroscientists to learn about the brain has been to study people whose brains have been damaged, resulting in unusual and unexpected phenomena. Meet three such patients

16. Computational Models of Vision

January 23, 2025

Learn about one of the most influential computational models of the brain

15. The Science of Perception and Illusion

January 23, 2025

When we look at the world around us, we

14. The Emotional Brain

January 23, 2025

Do your emotions cause physiological changes in your body or do physiological changes cause your emotions? Is each physiological change associated with one and only one emotion? You might be surprised by the answers to these questions as you learn about theories of cognition and emotion and explore the fascinating case of patient

13. Computational Models of Decision-Making

January 23, 2025

Could our brain and mind be designed as Bayesian computation engines? Instead of dealing in black or white absolutes, is it possible our brains are always updating the conditional probability of various hypotheses based on evidence and base rates? Explore the evidence for this possibility and the behaviors scientists would expect to see if this were the case.

12. Decision-Making at the Neural Level

January 23, 2025

How do we make decisions at the neural level? Explore a fascinating monkey experiment that allows us to see which neurons fire while the animal is making a real decision. You

11. The Psychology of Decision-Making

January 23, 2025

While we like to think of ourselves as rational creatures, why is it that we so often make what seem to be irrational decisions? Learn about Bayes

10. The Animal Mind

January 23, 2025

If an animal can learn specific hand signals and communicate with a trainer, does that mean he has language? If a great ape can recognize itself in a mirror, does it have the consciousness we attribute to humans? Learn about some exciting animal experiments and the resulting evidence. Cognitive scientists have arrived at some conclusions that you might find contrary to your personal experience.

9. Semantic Memory: The Mind

January 23, 2025

We each maintain an enormous database of information we

8. Episodic Memory: A Library of Times and Places

January 23, 2025

How is it that we can remember so much information for so long, but we also make so many mistakes in what we remember? Explore the psychology, neuroscience, and computational modeling of episodic memory

7. Working Memory: The Mind

January 23, 2025

Participate with Professor Polk in fascinating experiments that reveal many aspects of your working memory

6. How Babies Think about the World

January 23, 2025

Learn about the violation-of-expectation paradigm that allows researchers to study infant cognition with often surprising results. From physical to psychological to moral reasoning, scientists have determined that babies and very young children understand much more about the world than we had previously realized.

5. Artificial Neural Networks and Language

January 23, 2025

Artificial neural networks play a central role in cognitive science. Learn how these networks simulate the excitatory and inhibitory processing of real neurons, and how scientists train the networks using sophisticated learning algorithms. This type of modeling provides the foundation for the development of ChatGPT and other AI applications.

4. The Neuroscience of Language

January 23, 2025

Meet French patient Louis Victor Leborgne and his physician Paul Broca. Learn how Broca

3. How We Acquire and Understand Language

January 23, 2025

Explore the fascinating cognitive process of human language, one of our most powerful tools. Discover some of the key features of natural languages and how we acquire them. You might be surprised to learn that one of the most significant aspects of language that we use every single day is ... guessing.

2. A Hands-On Guide to Brain Anatomy

January 23, 2025

Professor Polk takes you on a quick tour of the anatomy of the brain. In addition to examining important structures and where they

1. Opening the Black Box of the Mind

January 23, 2025

Welcome to the world of cognitive science, where the goal is nothing less than simulating the precise workings of the human brain. But with the mind hidden in the proverbial

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Where to Watch Introduction to Cognitive Science

Introduction to Cognitive Science is available for streaming on the The Great Courses website, both individual episodes and full seasons. You can also watch Introduction to Cognitive Science on demand at Apple TV Channels, Prime Video and Amazon.