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Syllabus

Requirements for the Course
Textbook

Reisberg, D. Cognition: Exploring the Science of the Mind. 2nd ed. New York: Norton, 2001.

Requirements

  • Participation in two in-class labs, with lab reports - 14%
  • One paper (4-5 pages, double-spaced) designing an original experiment, plus 4-minute class report - 18%
  • Two in-class quizzes - 44%
  • Final exam covering the whole course, but with special attention to the last third of the semester (2 hours) - 24%

Topics

  • Introduction; How We Read
  • The Brain
  • Object Recognition
  • Attention I
  • Attention II
  • Memory I: Working Memory
  • Memory II: Conceptual Short Term Memory
  • Memory III: Implicit Memory
  • Memory IV: Remembering and Forgetting
  • Memory V: Associative Memory
  • Learning
  • Concepts and Prototypes 
  • Language: Psycholinguistics
  • Visual Knowledge
  • Experimental Design and Hypothesis Testing (tutorial instructions for final paper)
  • Mental Codes I
  • Mental Codes II
  • Judgment
  • Reasoning
  • Solving Problems