Computational Aspects of Cognitive Science Focus Area: Human Computation

我们建议在康奈尔大学计算机科学和认知科学的交界处创建一个新的博士前培训计划。虽然这个界面最近被典型的人工智能(常识推理、神经网络等)的“模糊工程”方法挤满了，但我们计划转而关注“形式-科学”方面，包括计算和推理过程的形式建模、人机接口和计算机科学教育研究、视觉和机器人、学习理论和智能信息检索。我们认为，1.计算机科学和认知科学这两个学科都将从这样一个项目中受益，2.康奈尔大学是唯一适合适应这样一个项目的学科。事实上，我们希望拟议的计划将成为工程领域和文科领域如何相互利用的典范，并最终导致(1)更关注人类用户的工程技巧和(2)更好地正式理解人类思维过程。首先，我们介绍了几种可能存在的问题和未来的研究方向。每个模块都是具体的，因为至少有一名当前的博士生或教职员工有兴趣从事这一主题；每个模块都很有希望，因为进展将取决于并促进两个参与的学科。其次，我们简要描述了康奈尔大学目前的基础设施，并介绍了拟议计划的结构。第三，我们提出了一项招聘计划，第四，我们证明了资金的必要性。

We propose to create a novel predoctoral training program at the interface of Computer Science and Cognitive Science at Cornell University. While this interface has been crowded lately with "fuzzy-engineering" approaches typically identified as Artificial Intelligence (common-sense reasoning, neural nets, etc.), we plan to focus, instead, on "formal-scientific" aspects, including the formal modeling of computational and inference processes, computer- human interface and computer science education studies, vision and robotics, learning theory, and intelligent information retrieval. We argue that 1. both disciplines, Computer Science and Cognitive Science, will benefit from such a program, and 2. Cornell is uniquely suited to accommodate such a program. Indeed, we hope that the proposed program would serve as a model of how and engineering field and a liberal-arts field can leverage each other and ultimately lead to both (1) engineering artifices that pay more attention to the human user and (2) a better formal understanding of human thought process The proposal is organized in four parts. First, we present several con=crete and promising research directions. Each module is concrete in that at least one current doctoral student or faculty member is interested in pursuing the topic; each module is promising in that progress will depend on and advance both participating disciplines. Second, we briefly portray the current infrastructure at Cornell and we present the structure of the proposed program. Third, we present a plan for recruiting and, fourth, we justify the need for funding.