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If one were to rank a list of civilization's greatest and most elusive intellectual

challenges, the problem of "decoding" ourselves -- understanding the inner

workings of our minds and our brains, and how the architecture of these

elements is encoded in our genome -- would surely be at the top. Yet the diversefields that took on this challenge, from philosophy and psychology to computer

science and neuroscience, have been fraught with disagreement about the right

approach.

In 1956, the computer scientist John McCarthy coined the term "Artificial

Intelligence" (AI) to describe the study of intelligence by implementing its

essential features on a computer. Instantiating an intelligent system using man-

made hardware, rather than our own "biological hardware" of cells and tissues,would show ultimate understanding, and have obvious practical applications in

the creation of intelligent devices or even robots.

Some of McCarthy's colleagues in neighboring departments, however, were

more interested in how intelligence is implemented in humans (and other

animals) first. Noam Chomsky and others worked on what became cognitive

science, a field aimed at uncovering the mental representations and rules that

underlie our perceptual and cognitive abilities. Chomsky and his colleagues hadto overthrow the then-dominant paradigm of behaviorism, championed by

Harvard psychologist B.F. Skinner, where animal behavior was reduced to a

simple set of associations between an action and its subsequent reward or

punishment. The undoing of Skinner's grip on psychology is commonly marked

by Chomsky's1967 critical review of Skinner's bookVerbal Behavior, a book

in which Skinner attempted to explain linguistic ability using behaviorist

principles.

Skinner's approach stressed the historical associations between a stimulus and

the animal's response -- an approach easily framed as a kind of empirical

statistical analysis, predicting the future as a function of the past. Chomsky's

conception of language, on the other hand, stressed the complexity of internal

representations, encoded in the genome, and their maturation in light of the right

data into a sophisticated computational system, one that cannot be usefully

broken down into a set of associations. Behaviorist principles of associations

could not explain the richness of linguistic knowledge, our endlessly creative

http://www.chomsky.info/articles/1967----.htmhttp://www.chomsky.info/articles/1967----.htmhttp://www.chomsky.info/articles/1967----.htmhttp://www.chomsky.info/articles/1967----.htm

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though Chomsky himself rejects this term. While this may be a relatively

accurate depiction in cognitive science and psychology, behaviorist thinking is

far from dead in related disciplines. Behaviorist experimental paradigms and

associationist explanations for animal behavior are used routinely by

neuroscientists who aim to study the neurobiology of behavior in laboratory

animals such as rodents, where the systematic three-level framework advocated

by Marr is not applied.

1.According to Marr, a complex biological system can be understood at three

distinct levels. The third level being

a) describes how ones own biological hardware of cells implements theprocedure described by the algorithmic level.

b) the third level ("implementation level") the input might be the image

projected on our retina and the output might our brain's identification of the

objects present in the image we had observed

C) Initiating an intelligent system using man-made hardware.

d) with input received from the algorithmic level our brain give rise to our

cognitive abilities.

Ans is (a) clearly stated in third last paragraph.

2. The authorsets offthe word "cognitive revolution" with quotation marks in

order to

a) Emphasize its departure from behaviourism.

b) ) show his support for behaviourist thinking.

c) Assert that there are historical associations between a stimulus and the

animal's response.

d) indicate that the term was one of Chomskys favorites.

Ans a) 2nd last paragraph states that the approach taken by Chomsky and Marr

toward understanding how our minds achieve what they do is as different as can

be from behaviorism.

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3. It can be inferred from the passage that Chomskys ideas about the language

a) a simple set of associations between an action and its subsequent reward orpunishment

b) The historical associations between a stimulus and the animal's response.

c) Encoded in the genome, and their maturation in light of the right data into a

sophisticated computational system.

d) The systematic three-level framework advocated by Marr is not applied.

Ans c) stated in the passage.

4. The primary purpose of the passage is to

a)Where Artificial Intelligence Went Wrong.

b) Chomsky's conception of language

c) Skinner's approach towards verbal behaviourism.

d) Compare animal behaviour and human behavoiur

ans a)naom Chomsky and other scientists have different views and disagree

about the right approach towards decoding ourselves---creating a.i

5.If a child is born to Indian parents in France ,what can you comment on

childs linguistic capabilities

a) according to Chomsky The "language faculty," was part of the organism's

genetic endowment hence the child will acquire his mother tongue easily with

only minimal and imperfect exposure to language presented by environment.

b) according to marx the child can learn anything with a simple set of

associations between an action and its subsequent reward or punishment.

c)the child will not be able to acquire the language skills.

d)he will find difficulty at the implementation level

ans a)Chomsky described language as encoded in the genome.