Psy 331 - Sensation and Perception
Course Description:
The course provides a survey of contemporary issues in sensation and perception. Broadly speaking, we will consider how the human mind collects information about the world. At its core, this class focusses on a single mystery – how are we able to rebuild and understand the world around us our eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and skin. For instance, how does a song on the radio become a series of electrical signals in our ear and how do these electrical signals once again become a song in our minds? Such issues are amazingly complex and this class will give you a good understanding of what is known (and unknown) about perception.
Student learning outcomes for this course are:
- the principles, assumptions, and methods on which perceptual psychology is based
- how the external, object world becomes an internal, subjective one
- the tricks and shortcuts that human perception uses and what types of errors they bring about
- facts and theories regarding specific aspects of perception.
- At the end of the course students should know the basic concepts, phenomena, and issues of perceptual psychology. They should have a better understanding about how people understand and interact with the world around them.
Psy 332: Introduction to cognition
Course Description:
The course provides a survey of contemporary cognitive psychology. We consider how humans perceive, attend to, remember, and act on information received from the environment.
Student learning outcomes for this course are:
- To understand the principles, assumptions, and methods on which cognitive psychology is based
- To understand what the information-processing approach to the study of cognition is and why it has been successful
- To understand the factors that influence the speed and accuracy with which people can perform tasks and the types of errors they will tend to make
- To understand facts and theories regarding specific aspects of perception, attention, memory, problem solving, decision making, and action
- To recognize specific methods for studying human cognition such as neuroimaging and response time measurement
- To generally understand the basic concepts, phenomena, and issues of cognitive psychology. Students should have a better understanding about how people think and reason, and the factors that will influence these and other cognitive processes.
Psy 433/533 Research Methods in Cognition and Learning
Course Description:
This course was designed to provide real-world research experience in cognition to advanced undergraduates and first-year graduate students. A major goal for students is to use the research skills acquired in previous coursework to design, conduct, analyze, and report on a novel research project.
The class involved a mix of both theoretical and methodological issues.
Student Learning outcomes for this course are:
- To be able to critically evaluate and synthesize published research in cognitive psychology
- To design an experiment based on previous studies to test a novel hypothesis
- To be able to construct a successful research proposal
- To be able to collect, analyze, and interpret data from a research project in cognition
- To present research results in a written report (using APA style) and a poster presentation
Psy 634 Seminar in Advanced Cognition
Course Description
The goal of this course is to help students to learn the many different ways that psychologists have conceptualized the topics comprising cognitive psychology. There are many, many approaches to cognitive psychology and many ways in which it is applied. Since we only have 1 semester, we will necessarily need to focus on some aspects of cognitive psychology at the cost of others. However, we will try our best to review a range of basic significant findings and theories within the field which will provide you with a good conceptual grounding in the field of cognitive psychology as it stands today.
Student Learning outcomes for this course are:
- to describe the historical and philosophical background of cognitive psychology
- to describe current knowledge about human cognition derived from research
- findings in a variety of domains within cognitive psychology (e.g., attention, memory, thinking, reasoning, and action
- to describe different theoretical approaches to human cognition
- to develop the ability to understand, explain, and interpret scientific literature in the field of cognitive psychology in a review paper