UC Merced Magazine | Volume XIX, Issue VII

THREE ESSENTIAL READS | Cognitive Science

— Professor David C. Noelle, with the Department of Cognitive and Information Sciences, said finding books in the popular presses is difficult because his field is highly technical. Noelle’s research interests include computational cognitive neuroscience, cognitive psychology and artificial intelligence. Still, he has recommended three books he considers important for anyone interested in his field of study and explains why he chose them.

“Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology” by Valentino Braitenberg Animals, including humans, exhibit amazingly complex patterns of behavior. In “Vehicles,” neuroscientist Valentino Braitenberg walks the reader through a series of playful thought experiments to show how complex behavior can arise from the simplest mechanisms. While the second half of the book applies these insights to detailed questions about the brain, the first half is highly accessible to any thoughtful reader. I enjoyed sharing these ideas with Tibetan Buddhist monks in exile in India through the Emory-Tibet Science Initiative. Also, my colleague Professor Je Yoshimi, with Scott Hotton, has recently released a book building on Braitenberg’s ideas called “ e Open Dynamics of Braitenberg Vehicles,” published by MIT Press.

“ e Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark” by Carl Sagan e astronomer Carl Sagan was a modern pioneer in communicating science to the public. His work seduced many people, including myself, into careers in science and engineering. In “ e Demon-Haunted World,” Sagan eloquently expresses the importance of ensuring that every member of society has a fundamental appreciation and understanding of the scientific approach to encountering the world. He both reveals the wonder of getting to know the universe and warns us of the dangers of an uninformed population in a time of rapidly expanding technological growth. Many of the themes of this book are discussed in the general education class “Scientific inking.”

“ e Computational Brain” by Patricia S. Churchland & Terrence J. Sejnowski Philosopher Patricia Churchland and neuroscientist Terrence Sejnowski provide a comprehensive foundation for understanding how the brain processes information. e evolved brain operates in radically di erent ways than designed digital computers, making it necessary to adopt fundamentally new perspectives on computation. ese perspectives are at the heart of modern artificial intelligence systems, and they guide my research into simulations of brain function as windows on human cognition. Churchland was the 2011 recipient of the Distinguished Cognitive Scientist Award granted by the UC Merced Department of Cognitive and Information Sciences.

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