Computational Social Cognition

3 Credits.

Humans are a fundamentally social species with amazing capabilities beyond any other biological or artificial system. Yet the cognitive and neural computations supporting our vast social abilities are still largely unknown. This course will explore how modern AI and computational approaches (including convolutional neural networks, transformers, planning algorithms, and reinforcement learning) can be used to answer algorithmic questions about social cognition, in topics ranging from face perception to theory of mind and language. We will address questions such as “does social cognition rely on forward prediction?” and “is there a social brain?” This is a discussion-based course that will consist mainly of reading and discussing primary research articles with a few technical lectures interspersed.