Dr. William Sturgill is a Professor of Psychology here at
Rockhurst and he teaches a multitude of classes, including courses like
Cognition, Cognitive Neuroscience, Psychology of Perception, Psychology of
Language, and more. His interests lie especially in cognitive neuroscience and
how the brain enables higher cognitive functions. Current research projects of
his include projects on the brain and humor, on the formation and maintenance
of an attentional set, and on visual perception of words. When we asked Dr.
Sturgill what made him decide to study cognitive neuroscience, his answer was
quite simple- it’s interesting! The brain is the most complex organ and an amazing
piece of evidence for evolution. There is so much that we have learned about
the brain, yet so many things are still unknown and may forever remain
mysteries.
To
prepare for our interview, the group prepared a handful of questions relating
to the evolution of the brain and comparing the human brain to the Neanderthal
and chimp brains, the evolution of thought, and artificial intelligence. We
planned on asking these questions one by one in typical interview fashion but
that’s not how it played out at all! Once we asked one question, the questions snowballed off of each other and we ending up covering a variety of topics! We started off by explaining the MindModeling
project to Dr. Sturgill and asked him if he thought we would ever really be
able to mimic human thought and other mental processes and be able to model the
mind for a computer program. He answered instantly with a big, fat NO! He said
that the brain is just way too complex for this kind of mind modeling program
to be feasible and there is still so much we don’t know about the brain, so how
we can model it if we don’t understand it completely yet ourselves!? Dr.
Sturgill started to talk about some of the connectionist models that people
have currently been working on since about the 1970s. Following is a recap of
some the things he talked about regarding cognition and connectionism.
Cognition
can be explained as the act of understanding and learning and involves mental
processes that take place in the brain. Connectionism explains cognition as the
process of multiple areas of the brain working together to process information
and think. Because each neuron in the brain has multiple dendrites, when an
action potential fires, synapses transfer across multiple areas of the brain. By
doing so, processing information can be learned through multiple perspectives.
For example, items could be processed by their color, texture, size, or other
features. The brain registers this information in the sensory part of the
brain. Following this process, your brain’s motor area may begin working for
you to act based on these features. For this all to occur, connectionists argue
that smaller units all work together in the brain to create action potential.
This process can be explained using complicated mathematical models found
online.
In
order for this to apply to artificial intelligence for the MindModeling project,
we have to consider the use of symbolism. Researchers over the last couple
decades have tried to mimic the human brain based on symbolism. With this method,
people type an input such as “brown” into the computer and connect it with
“dog.” Several features are added to the word dog so that if you ask the
computer a question like “what is brown and furry?” the computer will filter
out everything that isn’t brown and furry. In a sense, it is connecting the
word “dog” to “brown and furry.” The physical word “dog” symbolizes those two
characteristics. Critics do not believe this technique can ever be perfected to
mimic the human mind though because humans are so complex (http://www.cogsci.rpi.edu/~rsun/sun.encyc01.pdf).
The
Turing Test is used to measure whether a machine (such as a computer) can match
the human mind. With this test, a person sits there and types onto a keyboard a
conversation or topic starter. This input is then shared with a human being and
a machine made to mimic a human. The person then reads both responses (one from
a human and another as the machine) and tries to distinguish them. If the
person cannot tell the difference between the two, then the machine is said to
successfully have mimicked a human brain. Again, critics of this test do not
believe that this is technically mimicking the human brain because it is
simulated intelligence rather than real intelligence (http://www.turing.org.uk/publications/testbook.html).
As you
can see, there seems to be some people who think conditioning a computer with
input and output responses is similar to the way the brain works and therefore mimics the
brain, but this just isn’t the case. Computer programs, no matter how “smart”
they are, can’t make spontaneous decisions on their own like humans can and
therefore computers aren’t really mimicking the actions of the human brain. That’s
why it seems implausible to Dr. Sturgill that we would ever be able to create a
program of artificial intelligence that mimics the brain thought process and
other higher cognitive functions. After talking about connectionism and current
theories that claim to mimic the brain, the rest of our interview was spent
talking about the evolution of the brain. This topic in itself could be
discussed for days on end, not just the hour that we had but we got a
glimpse into the history of the brain. But before we talk about what Dr.
Sturgill had to say about this, we will briefly outline the structure of the
brain so you have a better idea of what we are talking about in regards to its
evolution.
In order for higher thinking and
creativity, there has to be connections and fluidity throughout the
cortex. The cerebrum, also known as the
cortex, is the part of the brain that is associated with tasks and higher brain
functioning such as thought and action.
The cerebrum is divided into four lobes: the frontal lobe (anterior part
of brain), parietal lobes (superior lateral sides of brain), occipital lobe
(posterior part of brain), and the temporal lobe (inferior lateral sides of
brain). Each lobe is given a specific
function to carry out within the process of thought and action. The frontal lobe is associated with
reasoning, planning, parts of speech, movement, emotions, and problem
solving. The parietal lobe is associated
with movement, orientation, recognition, and perception of stimuli. The occipital lobe is associated with visual
processing and the temporal lobe is associated with perception and recognition
of auditory stimuli, memory, and speech.
Within the central nervous
system (CNS, which includes the brain and spinal cord), nerves extend from your
brain to your face and from the spinal cord to the limbs and remaining parts of
your body. Sensory nerves gather
information from your environment (input) and send a signal to your brain to
perform the necessary action (output), which are carried out by motor nerves. The brain is essentially divided into a motor
section and sensory section and these two sections work together to allow us to
perform all of the actions we do on a daily basis. The brain is amazingly
interconnected this way. Each system
works separately but at the same time. Evolution has allowed them to work
together almost flawlessly. By that we mean interconnections are going on all the time
and we don’t even know it!
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| From
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| From http://www.sciguru.com/newsitem/11760/Compared-Neanderthals-modern-humans-have-better-sense-smell |
(http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14972752).
Thus,
the frontal lobes contribute to our capability to be innovative as it requires
activation and communication between regions of the brain which usually do not possess
strong pathways. Thus it is possible as
a result of a more compact brain, whose versatility enables us to manipulate
the environment on a much larger scale than any other species. This is seen, according to Dr. Sturgill, in
the lifestyle of the Neanderthals, who lacked innovation which may have
resulted in their remaining in the freezing north with no other hunting methods
than the spear for thousands of years without looking for changes to improve
their quality of life.
Another
key to the evolution of the human brain with respect to innovation is the
importance of the evolution of thought.
Dr. Sturgill stated that speech is an adaptation of the vocalization of
thought, with communication as an exaptation as a result. Many believe that speech was adapted for communication
but Dr. Sturgill doesn’t think this is the case. Speech was adapted to express
all of the interconnections and thoughts and ideas going on in the brain. Without
the presence of frontal lobes, humans may not have established the increased
connections necessary for developing novel and alternative ideas, which through
the aid of communication, has allowed the evolutionary success of humans to
explore and expand our environment over the Neanderthals. If you want to take a look at the proposed evolutionary tree Homo sapiens brain, take a look below, it's pretty cool!
Overall, our interview with Dr. Sturgill went very well and was very informative! Like we mentioned before, there's so much history regarding the brain and it's evolution- that could be a class all on it's own probably. It was interesting to hear about the current models for the brain and what artificial intelligence currently exists. However, it seems unlikely that we will ever understand the brain enough to create an artificial brain that does the exact same things and thinks like us humans do. Decision making and higher cognitive functions are what make humans human so it makes sense that it is unlikely to make a model that exactly mimics us.
One of the most interesting parts of the interview to me was when we discussed the differences, or if there is a difference, between the 'mind' and physiological functioning of the brain. I felt this discussion showed the complexity and difficulty of studying cognitive neuroscience as there is very little we know about the brain and thought. In addition, the lack of concrete methods to study and/or understand cognition as well as varying interpretations about the definitions and interaction of the mind, soul, and neural firings. For example, we discussed the mind and neurological function as a 'chicken and egg' scenario, does the mind result from brain activity or does the mind influence our perception and cognition? Our interview was very interesting and showed us an introduction into the challenges and variety of areas to explore within cognitive neuroscience.
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| From http://neurophilosophy.wordpress.com/2006/08/07/499/ |
Overall, our interview with Dr. Sturgill went very well and was very informative! Like we mentioned before, there's so much history regarding the brain and it's evolution- that could be a class all on it's own probably. It was interesting to hear about the current models for the brain and what artificial intelligence currently exists. However, it seems unlikely that we will ever understand the brain enough to create an artificial brain that does the exact same things and thinks like us humans do. Decision making and higher cognitive functions are what make humans human so it makes sense that it is unlikely to make a model that exactly mimics us.
One of the most interesting parts of the interview to me was when we discussed the differences, or if there is a difference, between the 'mind' and physiological functioning of the brain. I felt this discussion showed the complexity and difficulty of studying cognitive neuroscience as there is very little we know about the brain and thought. In addition, the lack of concrete methods to study and/or understand cognition as well as varying interpretations about the definitions and interaction of the mind, soul, and neural firings. For example, we discussed the mind and neurological function as a 'chicken and egg' scenario, does the mind result from brain activity or does the mind influence our perception and cognition? Our interview was very interesting and showed us an introduction into the challenges and variety of areas to explore within cognitive neuroscience.
