The final will be held from 11:00-2:00 on December 12 in our classroom.  It is designed to be taken in about 1.5 hours, but you will have the full 3 hours to work on it.

The Final will have two parts.
I. The first part will ask you to answer 4 questions in approximately 5 to 8 sentences (or about 100 words) each on topics since the last mid-term. This will include material on Evolutionary Psychology, Vision, Concepts, Logic and Problem Solving, Emotion, Social Alliance, The Arts and Religion, and Free Will.
II. The second part will be a review of the course. You will be asked to answer a single question in about 200 words relating together ideas from different parts of the course.
 

Some sample questions follow. Some of these may be on the exam.

PART I. (Questions on Weeks 7-14)
Week 7. Evolutionary Psychology
Pinker believes that the evolution of cognition was determined by human exploitation of the cognitive niche. What is the cognitive niche and what consequences does it have for the evolution of human cognition?
Week 8. Vision and Visualization
Describe Marr's theory of vision. On this theory what is the ultimate goal of vision and how is this goal reached?
Week 9. Concepts, Learning and Creativity
Compare and contrast the prototype and classical theories of concepts. What evidence supports each view?
Week 10. Logic and Problem Solving
Describe evidence from research in cognitive psychology that indicates that humans are not very good at general reasoning skills. Include research on both inductive and deductive reasoning.
Week 11. Emotions and their Social Roles
Pinker claims that passion (even irrational passion) has evolutionary advantages. Explain how this can be.
Week 12. Social Alliance and Conflict
What are the implications that can be drawn concerning the evolution of cooperation from research on the iterated prisoner's dilemma?
Week 13. The Arts and Religion
Explain Pinker's views on the evolutionary sources of human interest in music.
Week 14. Free Will
Explain Compatibilism and give the best arguments you can in its favor.

Part II (Overview of the Course)

1. In the beginning of this course, we described a conflict between two camps in cognitive science: the classical camp which believes that cognition depends on mentalese, and the connectionist camp which would do without mentalese. Explore how the tensions between these two camps resurface in theories of vision and theories of concepts.

2. Garson claimed that being a naturalist may require difficult conceptual revision. Illustrate that point using Churchland's solution to the problem of qualia and Ayer's solution to the problem of free will as examples.