Humans sense, act, think, feel, communicate, learn and evolve. We see these capabilities increasingly also in machines. This course aims to develop a first understanding of how humans and machines make sense of the natural environment from all the physical signals pouring into them. Information from the world around us will be related to the structure of our brain and basic cognitive tasks such as language, sensory perception, intelligent interaction, and action. In parallel, the course will introduce how machines can encode information, store it, reason with it and retrieve it later to guide behavior. The course is particularly relevant for students interested in crossing the divide between (physical, life, social) sciences to cooperatively i) step up progress in cognitive information processing in both man and machine, and ii) develop new applications and technologies serving society. Topics covered include, information structure, pattern recognition and machine learning, man-machine interaction, collective intelligence, mediated communication, expression and emotion, memory, brain structure, neuronal processing, visual consciousness, social cognition