Autumn 2011
| Class: SCC 145: MWF 9-9:50 | Instructor: John H. Krantz, Ph.D. |
| Lab: SCC 148: T 2:00-4:50 | Office: Science Center 151 |
| Text: Cognitive Psychology, 8th ed. by Solso et al. & CogLab 2.0 by Francis et al. | Phone: x7316;
Calendar email: krantzj@hanover.edu |
Sep 5
Welcome to the Cognition. I hope you had an enjoyable summer.
All changes to the course will be posted here. In addition, if new resources become
available, you will be able to find them here.
What is this course that you are embarking upon? What is cognition? In the most basic terms cognition is the action of the brain or mind to understand the world around us and to determine an appropriate action. To unpack that barebones definition, there are many activities that are required. For example, you need to perceive the world around you, remember past events to compare present events to, select the important parts of the world to attend to, store what has been learned from the current experience for later use, understand and transmit language, etc.
Course Objectives: My primary goal for this course is to develop your ability to think soundly and well using the material of cognitive psychology. As part of this goal you will need to comprehend the substance and methods of cognitive psychology.
Major Objectives: In the context of this major, this course is an upper level lab based course. As such the department has specified some goals for you. First, the department wants to develop a more independent level of thinking as you progress through the major. Thus, there will be less structure to the course and you will be given some responsibility for assignments. As part of this goal, you will also be asked to develop your own cognitive theory. Second, the department wants to have you prepared more for an independent research project which forms the senior capstone experience. Thus, you will be asked to design and implement a small research project to present at the end of the semester.
I want you to consider the text book not so much as a document as to the current nature of cognitive psychology, which is its attempt, but as a theory of cognitive psychology, which is what it is. The author tries to present several theories about cognitive psychology but definitely has an overall sense of how cognition works that guides his presentation. It would be dishonest to do otherwise, to present a theory or idea that he believes is demonstrably false just for the sake of balance. So as you read, read with your critical mind awake critiquing the ideas and using the evidence you have at hand to determine what you think is correct. A truism in science is that most major discoveries are made by those new in the field that have unjaundiced eyes. Thus your inexperience may be a great benefit is seeing what those more experienced may miss or misunderstand. In addition, wherever possible you will be given as set of studies to do (the data are due by 3:00 pm on the Friday before they are discussed). We will used the data from our class as a jumping off point for discussion.
Class Behavior Rules
| Day/Date | Topic | Reading/Assignment |
|
Week 1, |
Introduction | Ch. 1 |
| F | Biological Bases of Cognition | Ch. 2 Spatial and Temporal Summation Neural Coding Synaptic Modification (Basic Hebbian Learning) |
| Week 2, MW |
Perception
|
Ch 3 Signal Detection Tutorial Signal Detection Experiment Cog Lab: Partial Report, Visual Search, Müller-Lyer, Garner Interference Data by Friday of Week Before. |
| F | Pattern Recognition | Ch 4 |
| Week 3, MWF |
Attention | Posner et al., 1980 CogLab: Stroop Effect, Attentional Blink, Spatial Cueing, Simon Effect, Change Detection Data by Friday of Week Before. |
| Week 4, MWF |
Consciousness | Ch 8 PsychExperiments: Implicit Associations Test CogLab: Implicit Learning Data by Friday of Week Before. |
| Week 5, MWF |
Memory Models and Primary Memory | Ch 5 Miller, 1956 CogLab: Suffix Effect, Brown-Peterson, Memory Span, Sternberg Search, Serial Position Effect, Phonological Similarity Data by Friday of Week Before |
| Week 6, MWF |
Memory Theories and Long-Term Memory |
Ch 7,9 |
| F | Test 1, Due 3:00 PM |
|
| Week 7, MWF |
The Verbal Representation of Knowledge | Ch 9 CogLab: False Memory, Word Superiority Effect, Irrelevant Speech Effect |
| Week 8 | Winter Break | |
| Week 9, MWF |
Mental Imagery |
Ch 10; CogLab: Mental Rotation Data by Friday of Week Before |
| Week 10, MWF |
Language | Ch 11; Illustration of
McClelland and Rumelhart's Theory CogLab: Lexical Decision, Categorical Perception-Identification |
| Week 11, MWF |
Cognitive Development | Ch 12 |
| Week 12, MWF |
Concept Formation, Logic, Decision Making | Ch. 14; Tversky & Kahneman, 1981 CogLab: Prototypes, Typical Reasoning, Monty Hall, Risky Decisions, Wason Selection Task |
| Week 13, MWF |
Problem Solving, Creativity Intelligence | Ch 15 |
| Week 14, MWF |
Artificial Intelligence | Ch 16; Churchland & Churchland, 1990 |
Final Exam: Due at the End of Finals Exam Time |
| Lab Period | Laboratory/Article |
| Week 1 | Attentional Blink I/Raymond et al. (1992). Temporary Suppression of Visual Processing in an RSVP Task: An Attentional Blink? |
| Week 2 | Attentional Blink II |
| Week 3 | Attentional Blink III |
| Week 4 | Attentional Blink due/Brown-Peterson I/Peterson, L., & Peterson, M. (1959). Short-term retention of individual verbal items. |
| Week 5 | Brown-Peterson II/Project Idea Due/Human Subject Form Draft Needed |
| Week 6 | Brwon-Peterson III/Discuss Projects |
| Week 7 | On Break |
| Week 8 | Brown-Peterson due/Mental Rotation I Metzler & Shepherd (1974). Transformational studies of the internal representation of three-dimensional objects |
| Week 9 | Mental Rotation II |
| Week 10 | Mental Rotation III |
| Week 11 | Mental Rotation Due/Final Project Time |
| Week 12 | Final Project Time |
| Week 13 | Final Project Time/Practice Presentation/Draft of Paper Due |
| Last Week | Project Presentations |
Exams
Over the course of the semester there will be two take home exams. These exams will be in an essay format. You will get the questions about 1 week ahead of time. These exams will either be in class or take home. We will discuss these options in class. If the exams are take home, they will due, emailed as a Word file, at the end of the day indicated above. Each exam is cumulative and therefore each exam is worth more points. The points are awarded as follows:
Laboratories and Their Reports
For each laboratory you write of a brief paper describing the lab and the results from the lab. The format of the reports will be APA. You have had APA format before so you are expected to be familiar with writing papers in this format. The labs are to be emailed to me in a Word format on the due date indicated.
Final Laboratory Project
In teams of two or three, you will design and conduct an experiment in the realm of cognitive psychology. To prepare you for this project, you need to develop teams and develop an idea for the project by the lab period set aside to discuss the projects. During this lab the class will act a research group. Each team will present their project idea and the whole class will discuss the project, anticipate projects and suggest solutions and improvements. At the end of the term you will present the project in written, and oral formats. The paper is due the same day on Monday of dead week. The paper will be emailed to me in a Word format by 5:00 pm that day. For your assistance, here is a link to past PowerPoints, and in some cases papers, from past projects.
The points for the various parts of this project are:
Initial Presentation of Idea 25 points Oral Presentation 75 points Written Version 75 points
Additional Forms
Human Subject Application - required at the time initial presentation
Sign-up Sheet - as an example that might be helpful
To help ensure that students actively participate there is a participation grade of 100 points. Attendance alone cannot but provide for half of these points. As stated above, sharing of your views and critiquing the ideas of others is a necessary part of this class. These behaviors are necessary for the remainder of the class participation grade.
An assignment is late 1 minute after the beginning of class. One letter grade will be subtracted for the first day late and another letter grade for each additional day. No assignment will be accepted more than three days late. The one exception to this rule is for homework. No late homework will be accepted at all.
Grades will be converted to percentiles and letter grades will be assigned as follows:
|
Grade |
Percentage Range |
|
A |
100 - >93% |
|
A- |
93 - 90% |
|
B+ |
<90 - 87% |
|
B |
<87 - >83% |
|
B- |
83 - 80% |
|
C+ |
<80% - 77% |
|
C |
<77 - > 73% |
|
C- |
73 - 70% |
|
D+ |
<70 - 67% |
|
D |
<67 - 60% |
|
F |
< 60% |