Project and Sample Topics
Welcome to my class. We will be diving into the world of cognitive psychology. This means that we will be thinking about thoughts, ideas, and memories. We will consider how psychologists believe we store and retrieve information. We will explore the world of the conscious and try to tap into the unconscious. We will learn how our memory might trick us, and how we can improve our memory. We will learn why language is so special. We will look at different ways of measuring the mind and its operations, from looking at what people say they are thinking about to brain imaging techniques. We will also try to apply what we learn to things that interest you. Try to use cognitive psychology in your life.
This class is important because who we are and how we experience the world is based on the mind. If you want to fully understand yourself and others, you will need to understand how the mind works.
The primary goal of the course is to introduce you to the topics of cognition, including prominent models and experiments. I hope that you will obtain a vocabulary which will allow you to think of a thought-related phenomenon (e.g., what makes a joke funny; why did your significant other forgot your birthday) in a new way, one that is disciplined and precise enough that you would be able to test it experimentally.
In my years of teaching, I have found that cognitive psychology can be difficult for students to understand. It can be abstract and confusing - like a new language. This means that we should try to use every resource for you to learn and get something out of the course. That means me, the class, projects, and the book. What does this all mean? For one thing, it means that you will need to read the assigned chapters more than once. Three to four times would be excellent. Once is simply not enough. You will also need to come to class. I've found that the students who do not show up regularly for class usually receive low grades (e.g., D, F). Xeroxing your friends notes won't help either because they linked to knowledge that your friend acquired, not yours. Come to class and ask question about something in the book or something relevant that interests you. I like a flexible class where we can chat about the reading, some related topic, or listen to a lecture. I try to use different teaching styles, something that will appeal to everyone (e..g., lecture, discussion groups, demonstrations). Always bring your textbook to class.
I expect and assume that you will have read the assigned chapters by
the dates specified below. You will find the lectures more understandable
and interesting if you read the chapters ahead of time.
Tests. There will be 3 required tests.
Each one will cover a different portion of the course. Each test will cover
information from the class experiences and from the book. The format of
these tests will be multiple choice. Some of the questions have been written
by the author of the textbook and others I will write to tap your understanding
of the lecture material which was not covered by the book. It is very important
for you to know that around one-half of the questions will not be addressed
explicitly by your textbook; they will only be addressed in class. Therefore,
any day that you miss means you will miss the answer to 1 or 2 questions
on the test. A typical test will contain around 35 questions. If you miss
a test for what ever reason, you can make it up on the finals day.
Project. ?You will write a 2-page chapter on a topic related to cognitive psychology. It should be interesting and well-written, and it should be geared toward an average adult reader. The chapter should include at least one graphic. The 2-page chapter should be printed on both sides of a single sheet of paper. The font should be Times Roman. The title should be in 25 pt font, centered on the top. Your name should appear directly underneath the title, in 16 pt font. All other print should be in 12 pt. Besides these constraints, the format and content will be left up to you. Be creative!
We will collate the chapters into a book, which you will receive a copy. On the designated day, you will bring several copies of your chapter to class. The number will equal the number of students in the class, and myself. I will collate them into a book, and pass them out the following week. Therefore, no matter what you do, see to it that I receive your copies on or before the designated day. Otherwise, you chapter will not be included in the book, and it will not be graded leading to an F.
Because I dont want 20 chapters on the same topic, there is a list of sample topics listed below. I will post this on my office door - room 320 - and you will sign your name beside a topic. No more than 2 can sign up for a particular topic. If you want to do a topic which does not appear on the list, you will need my explicit approval. E-mail me or see me after class.
I will be grading your chapter on clarity, informativeness, and creativity. In addition, your classmates will grade your chapter on the final test day. Your project grade will be a combination of these two scores.
Brief Oral Report: I will
ask you to describe to the class what you learned from doing your project
- what you found interesting or some application. You will only have
up to 1 minute for doing this, so you should be prepared ahead of time.
This is an easy way to earn 1 percentage point of extra credit.
Text: Cognitive Psychology In and Out
of the Laboratory (1999) by Galotti.
The final grade will be based on the following:
Tests:
Each test is worth 25% of your final grade (total of 75%)
Project:
The project is worth 25% of the final grade.
Brief Oral Report:
1% extra credit - all or none
Calculating the final course grade:
On each test, you will receive a percentage correct. The project
will also be graded in a similar way - a percentage of possible points.
I will average these at the end of the semester to obtain your test score
which could range from 0% to 100%. I will then add 1% point
from the Brief Oral Report.
| Final Grade Score | Course Grade |
| .85 - 1.00 | A |
| .75 - .84 | B |
| .65 - .74 | C |
| .55 - .64 | D |
| 0 - .54 | F |
The tentative schedule. The dates might
change slightly - any changes will be announced in class. You are responsible
to know the changes
| Week | Topic and chapters |
| 8/26 week 1 | Introduction, history, representations & processes (1) |
| 9/2 week 2 | Holiday! no class |
| 9/9 week 3 | Perception and pattern recognition (2) |
| 9/16 week 4 | Attention (3); sign up for project topic is due |
| 9/23 week 5 | STM (4) |
| 9/30 week 6 | LTM and wrap-up of section I (5) |
| 10/7 week 7 | Test 1 (ch. 1-5); Narrative and autobiographical memory (6) |
| 10/14 week 8 | Knowledge Representation (7) |
| 10/21 week 9 | Concepts (8) |
| 10/28 week 10 | Imagery (9) and wrap-up of section II |
| 11/4 week 11 | Test 2 (ch. 6-9); Language(10); Project chapter is due |
| 11/11 week 12 | Language (10); Project book is passed out |
| 11/18 week 13 | Problem solving (11) |
| 11/25 week 14 | Reasoning (12) |
| 12/2 week 15 | Brief Oral Reports and Wrap-up |
| 12/9 week 16 | Test 3 (ch. 10 - 12); Grading chapters |
Sample Topics for Projects (And also a good study guide for the optional final)
priming
procedural memory
flashbulb memory
working memory
priming
schema
controlled and automatic processing
Beiderman's model of pattern recognition
mental imagery
levels of processing
amnesia
spreading activation
encoding specificity
measuring the mind (methods)
attentional resources (capacity models)
symbolic architectures
connectionist architecture
bottom-up and top-down processing
mnemonic devices
cognitive maps
episodic memory
semantic memory
malleability of memory
implicit memory
word recognition
mental models in reading
levels of representation in reading
pragmatics
stages of problem-solving
algorithms vs heuristics
forgetting
speech perception
functional fixedness/mental sets
ill vs well-defined problems
deductive reasoning
inductive reasoning
biases in reasoning or decision making
confirmation bias
concepts
incubation
dyslexia