Evolution of Computing:-

Computers became much more prevalent in business due to the reduction in their size,
reduced need for a conditioned environment and greatly reduced acquisition cost. This led
to computers being purchased and used at the departmental level within businesses.
Departmental use of computers led to their proliferation across a business and therefore
their geographic distribution across a business as well. Other business factors such as
security, mergers, etc. also contributed to the geographic dispersal of computers within a
business. Initially, these geographically dispersed computers were used as stand alone
independent computer systems. The model of computing characterized by multiple
computers that did not communicate or interact with each other is called decentralized
computing. Each department that purchased its own computer was responsible for its
management and control.
Computational modeling plays an increasingly important role in the social and behavioral
sciences. This introductory course provides a broad survey of computational approaches to
human behavior. Topics will be organized around interests of students in class, however, the
core concepts we will cover are the goals and philosophy behind developing models and
basic issues in model evaluation, testing, and fitting. Readings and lectures will survey a
broad set of approaches to modeling cognitive processes with an emphasis on what are
traditionally considered "higher-level" cognitive processes. Example topics include reviews of
the basic properties (and limitations) of artificial neural networks/parallel distributed
processing, contemporary approaches to modeling memory, learning, and decision making
processes, modeling of reaction time data, developmental approaches (i.e., dynamical field
theory, etc...), models of categorization, reasoning, problem solving, analogy, etc...,
approaches to integrating models and findings from cognitive neuroscience (i.e., what can
they tell each other), the relative merits of bayesian/rational approaches and mechanic
models (a bit of modeling philosophy), other topics might include a segment on agent-based
models of socio-behavioral processes (i.e., models based on interactive, distributed
processing by independent components).
In other words, we'll aim to cover a relatively broad set of topics in formal modeling. In an
ideal world, everyone would leave the course with a richer understanding of the role that
computational model plays in contemporary cognitive science, understand how to
fit/evaluate models, and how to read a modeling paper, think about the predictions it
makes, and perhaps even implement it yourself.