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Exam
Research Proposal
For the first exam students will be presented with four or five questions and be required to answer two of them. Answers are essay format.
Here are a couple examples of the sorts of questions that I might ask on the first exam.
- 1. Gallistel writes, "An isomorphism exists when there is a procedure that maps entities, relations, and operations in the represented system into entities, relations, and operations in the representing system in such a way that two or more entities within the represented system are related in a given way if and only if ... there is a corresponding relation between their representatives in the representing system." (p. 16) Using examples, explain what this means and why it is important for the computational representational approach to learning and behaviour.
2. You are the xenoethologist (i.e., an expert in alien behaviour) on the Starship Enterprise. You beam down to the planet Algox IV with Captain Kirk, Spock, and Dr. "Bones" McCoy and find an alien species of silicon-based life (by way of reference, life on Earth is carbon-based) that lives in large hive-colonies in tall, above-ground crystal spires. The "Algoxians" leave their home spire for a variety of purposes, but always seem to return home successfully. Bones immediately declares, "It's life, Jim, but not as we know it!" You're not so sure about this. You remember reading an old text at Starfleet Academy, Gallistel's (1990; pre-Stardate calendar system) The Organization of Learning, in which Gallistel argued that there are underlying similarities in the spatial representational systems of all mobile animals. You want to try prove Bone's claim wrong by demonstrating that the Algoxians use the same navigational techniques as Earth animals. Some quick work with the scientific tricorder reveals that the Algoxians have well developed visual, kinesthetic/proprioceptive, and memory systems. Devise and explain the experimental methodologies you would use to determine if Algoxians use either path integration or piloting to return to their home spire.