Upon completion of the degree requirements in either of the Baccalaureate of Arts or Baccalaureate of Sciences degree programs in Cogntive Science, a graduate will be able to:

1. Demonstrate understanding of basic concepts and vocabulary central to cognitive science by using it in expository compositions.
2. Concisely state, explain and debate, from diverse perspectives, the "computational/representational assumption " which underlies and unifies the field of cognitive science.
3. Discuss cultural origins and cognitive consequences of the "big ideas " in cognitive science, either by summarizing from one source or by synthesizing from a number of sources.
4. Present technical descriptions of software systems, linguistic models, and psychological experiments by means of texts which appeal to multiple levels of abstraction.
5. Produce written narratives to accompany statistical techniques, computational explorations, and anthropological investigations.
6. Demonstrate skills of conceptual and analytical expression through incremental revision and editing techniques.
7. Summarize in their own words various classical papers relating to cognitive science.
8. Write an essay on some controversial topic or emerging discipline associated with the field which identifies and explores relavent ideas and issues from an interdisciplinary perspective.
9. Contextualize, by means of narrative description from an interdisciplinary perspective, a program of the student' s own creation which serves to investigate some cognitive phenomenon in computational terms.
10. Maintain a journal, or "scientists notebook " .
11. Present the results of an original research project in 2-dimensional terms (poster form) which at once features points of perceptual interest for the "casual " reader and lines of reasoned exposition for the "interested " reader.
12. Present the results of an orignial research project in the a professional format.

1. Behavior: Specific Writing Experiences
In pursuing the cognitive science major each student will engage in a variety of writing experiences, including one or more:
• conceptual expositions
• methodological explanations
• idea summaries
• contextualizations of formal systems
• reports on statistical and computational studies
• review articles
• position papers
• poster presentations
• research papers
• journal writing tasks
2. Conditions: Generic Writing Experiences
All students in the cognitive science major will be required to write frequently as part of their course work, and will receive extensive feedback on their writing, with some opportunity for submitting rough drafts and rewriting (reworking and refining) earlier drafts. Students will be provided with plenty of examples of the kind of writing expected along with clear instructions about the writing component of all assignments.
3. Criteria for Writing Experiences
Each cognitive science major must take five courses, each with a significant writing component, from three categories which are being identified as "introductory " , "writing to learn " , and "advanced " . Specifically, students are required to take:
• one particular "introductory " writing course,
• three particular "writing to learn " courses, and
• one particular "advanced " course.

In passing, it is worth noting that students majoring in cognitive science will also, as part of their requirements, take a number of courses which are parts of the writing plans in other majors, including LIN100-Introduction to Linguistics and PSY30X/PSY40X-Topics in Psychology.

1. Introductory

Students need to be able to communicate effectively, in writing, ideas pertaining to the fundamental assumptions, methodologies, ideas, questions, and findings of cognitive science. To this end they need to learn the basic vocabulary of cognitive science, and they need to learn to wield this vocabulary effectively. The "gateway " course for the cognitive science major Cog166-Introduction to Cognitive Science helps to improve student writing skills in these respects. The course includes a collaborative glossary generation assignment in which students individually synthesize definitions from multiple sources [Goal 1]. It includes an essay writing assignment which uses a selection of the glossary terms to illuminate the standard characterisation of the field in terms of its defining assumptions and methodologies [Goal 2]. It includes a biography project in which students report on a cognitive science pioneer and his or her main contributions to the field [Goal 3]. tn includes a series of short essays which critically examine various ideas and issues which pertain to cognitive science, ideas and issues which are put forth in a corresponding series of short texts [Goal 3]. It also features technical writing assignments which describe Prolog programs which include phrase structured grammars and/or relational knowledge representations in the contexts of problems which touch on models of cognitive processes such as memory, attention, or conversation [Goal 4].

2. Writing to Learn

Students of cognitive science need to be able to perform "write-ups " for scientific experiments. In Psy280-Analysis of Psychological Data, students learn statistical techniques which are central to behavioral experimentation and produce written narratives based on experimentation which explain the rationale for the use of particular techniques, which report on results of analyses, and which offer interpretations of these results [Goals 5 and 12]. This is done in APA format, and constitutes elements of the "Methods " , "Results " , and "Discussion " sections of a journal manuscript.

Students of cognitive science also should to be able to present in-depth reviews of books and other materials in a mature and measured manner. In Ant344-Language and Culture students are required to prepare an extended book review with revisions and editing after a first reading by the instructor for final submission for a grade [Goal 6].

Students of cognitive science need to be able to summarize key ideas found in source papers, clarify issues of controversy which fuel debate within the field, explain emergent sciences and technologies which impact on the field, and convey work that they are engaged in which endeavors to illuminate aspects of cognition through computational investigation. In the "cornerstone " course for the cognitive science major, Cog366-Computational Models of Cognitive Processes, students write at least one paper which summarizes a key source paper within the field [Goal 7], they write at least one paper which addresses an intellectual issue of controversy or emergence within the field [Goal 8], and they produce a rather lengthy companion document to a CLOS program which computationally models some cognitive process [Goal 9].

3. Advanced

Students of cognitive science need to know what it means to do research in the field and they should be reasonably comfortable with and competent in presenting their research in both informal and formal settings. To this end, the "capstone " course for cogntive science majors, Cog468-Cognitive Science Capstone Seminar, calls upon students to perform three significant activities involving writing. Students are required to maintain a "scientists notebook " , or "work journal " in support of an individual research project that the students designs and pursues under the guidance of the course instructor or another professor associated with the cognitive science program at Oswego [Goal 10]. Students are required to present their work in the form of "poster presentation " at an appropriate forum (perhaps Quest or the very modest Oswego Cognitive Science Day Conference which the class will organize and administer) [Goal 11]. Finally, students are required to write a paper consistent with submission specifications for the annual conference of the Cognitive Science Society, the premier venue for sharing original research in the cognitive science community [Goal 12].

1. Cog166 Introduction to Cognitive Science

This course will introduce the fundamental questions, findings and methods of cognitive science. The computational approach to cognition and the notion of abstract mental representation are introduced within the interdisciplinary framework of the field. Basic knowledge of cognition, computation, and evolution is surveyed. Symbol systems are described and their role in standard representations is discussed. Artificial neural networks are proposed as a model of both the brain and the mind. Linguistic models are introduced and philosophical challenges are discussed.

2. Psy280 Analysis of Psychological Data

Basic techniques of descriptive and inferential statistics and their applications to research in psychology.

3. Ant344 Language and Culture

Linguistic diversity and change; cultural emphases in language and relation to world view.

4. Cog366 Computational Models of Cognitive Processes

Introduction to the computational study of human and machine intelligence. Discussion of computational models, algorithms, and research in neural processing, vision, memory, learning, reasoning, and information processing.

5. Cog468 Cognitive Science Capstone Seminar

The course will feature individual research projects of a relatively modest scale. Students will have wide latitude in negotiating a realm of study, as well as the approach to study of the selected topic. The research project must be interdisciplinary to the extent that it draws on at least two contributing disciplines to cognitive science. Furthermore, the project must stand in a justifiable relationship to the computational/representational assumption which unifies the field. Beyond this, the project must be mindful of the constraints of capstone objectives for the arts and sciences, learning outcomes for cognitive science majors, and to the interests and orientation of the professor teaching the course.