This course will teach how to understand the behaviours of complex functional systems in terms of their components, using as an example the problem of relating psychology to physiology for the human brain.Students will learn how to approach understanding of complex functional systems by means of descriptions on many different levels of detail which can be mapped into each other. This is one of the basic skills needed to understand, design and modify complex functional systems. The course will be relevant to students interested in designing or maintaining complex functional systems. Using the human brain as the example will make the course relevant to students interested in research on the mammal brain, and students interested in medical studies of the human brain.

By the end of this course you should be able to:

• Describe the primary information processing functions of major anatomical and physiological structures in the brain.
• Explain the operation of a range of cognitive processes on several different but consistent levels of detail from psychology to physiology.
• Explain how different levels of the same phenomenon at different levels of detail.
• Identify ways in which cognitive processes can be understood in terms of physiological and anatomical mechanisms.
• Identify what is lacking in an explanation of a behaviour of a complex system.

Assignments (30%); Exam (70%)

12 units of 2000-series COMP or 12 units of 2000-series PSYC

A System Architecture Approach to the Brain: from Neurons to Consciousness by L. Andrew Coward