Psychology 315: Cognitive Psychology

Fall, 2006

Tue & Thu 9:30-10:45 Herter 231 email: psy315@psych.umass.edu

Instructor: Kyle Cave office: 432 Tobin phone: 5-2787 office hours: Wed 2:00-3:00 pm or by appointment

Teaching Assistant: Jennifer McAdoo office: 425 Tobin phone: 7-3094 office hours: Tue 3:00-4:00 pm

(This page last updated 5 January 2007.)

For the scores for the final exam and the grades for the class, click here.

This course will cover the study of human cognition. We will start with the computational foundations of Cognitive Psychology and Cognitive Science. Then we will work our way up from lower-level perceptual aspects of cognition, such as vision and object recognition, through a discussion of memory, and then on to higher-level cognitive abilities including language and decision making. At the end we will discuss the philosophical questions that underlie consciousness.

Readings:

The textbook for this course is Cognition (3rd edition) by Daniel Reisberg. It is available at the Textbook Annex and at the Jeffery Amherst Bookshop. Other readings may be added later.

Schedule:

Below is a schedule showing the topic, and readings from the textbook for each class. Be sure that you have completed the readings before class, so that you can understand the material presented during class and can participate in the discussion. If you are confused about any part of the reading, try to formulate questions and ask them at the beginning of class.

date

topic

reading

1

Sep 7

History of Cognitive Psychology

2	Sep 12	Information Processing	chapter 1
3	Sep 14	Neuroscience	chapter 2

4	Sep 19	Neuroscience continued
5	Sep 21	The Visual System	chapter 3

6	Sep 26	The Visual System continued
7	Sep 28	exam 1

8	Oct 3	Word Recognition
9	Oct 5	Object Recognition

10	Oct 10	Attention	chapter 4
11	Oct 12	Attention to Locations and Objects Visual Search and Automaticity Reading

12	Oct 17	The Modal Model of Memory Working Memory	chapter 5
13	Oct 19	Getting Into Long Term Memory Getting Back Out of Long Term Memory	chapter 6

14	Oct 24	exam 2
15	Oct 26	Implicit Memory

16	Oct 31	Amnesia
17	Nov 2	Remembering the Gist

18	Nov 7	Forgetting True Memories and Creating False Memories	chapter 7
19	Nov 9	Network Models of Memory	chapter 8

20	Nov 14	Concepts Prototype and Exemplar Theories	chapter 9
21	Nov 16	exam 3

22	Nov 21	Concepts as Implicit Theories
	Nov 23	no class - Thanksgiving

23	Nov 28	Language	chapter 10
24	Nov 30	Syntax Language and the Brain

25	Dec 5	Visual Imagery Imagery in the Brain	chapter 11
26	Dec 7	Availability and Representativeness Deduction	chapters 12 and 13

27

Dec 12

Consciousness

chapter 15

The final exam is Thursday, 21 December from 1:30 to 3:30 pm in Bartlett 65.

We may decide to change the schedule as the class progresses.

Communicating Outside of Class:

There is a World Wide Web site for this class with this syllabus, class notes, and other materials. The address for the Web site is at the bottom of this syllabus.

The best way to contact the instructor and teaching assistant is through e-mail, using the address at the top of this syllabus, or to come by during office hours. You can also phone us at the numbers above.

Exams:

	Read this carefully. Ask us if there is any part you do not understand.
	There will be three regular exams during the semester and a final exam at the end.
	The exams will cover both material from class and material from the reading.
	The exams may include multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank, and matching questions, along with short answer questions.
	Each of the three regular exams will be devoted mainly to the most recent material that has been presented up to that point, but parts of Exams 2 and 3 will cover material from earlier in the course that may have also been covered on previous exams.
	The final will have two parts. The first part will cover the last part of the course, and will be similar to the three regular exams. The second part will cover the entire course.
	No make-up exams will be given.
	The lowest exam score will be dropped. The two parts of the final will count as two separate scores. Thus, the three regular exams and the final will give you five different scores, and your grade will be based on the top four scores.
	Repeat: No make-up exams will be given.

Assignments:

There may be short assignments throughout the class. They will include your written thoughts and questions about one of the readings or a class discussion, other short written assignments, and perhaps an occasional short quiz. I may encourage you to discuss these assignments with other students (except, of course, the quizzes). However, unless I specifically say otherwise, the work you turn in for the assignments must be entirely your own.

Experimental Participation:

By participating in experiments done within the Psychology Department, you can learn first hand how experimental psychology is done, you can contribute to the advancement of the field, and you can improve your grade through extra credit.

	You will receive one credit for each half-hour of experimental participation. Each credit will add one-half of one percent to your total number of points..
	The total amount of extra credit you can receive is 8 credits, which will take 4 hours, and will add 4% to your point total.
	If you sign up to participate in an experiment and do not show up, you lose one credit for each credit you would have received.
	Credit slips for experimental participation must be turned in to the office at Tobin 441 by May 6 at 4:00 p.m.
	Extra credit cannot make a failing grade into a passing grade.

Academic Honesty:

All students are expected to adhere scrupulously to the University policy concerning academic honesty.  For more information on the University's academic honesty policy, check this web site:

http://www.umass.edu/dean_students/rights/.  (See also http://www.umass.edu/dean_students/rights/acad_honest.htm.)

Final grade:

If we have any assignments, they will count for a small portion of the grade; probably around 5%. The rest of the grade will be made up of the four exam scores after the lowest score is dropped. See above under "Exams" for details.

Extra credit is available through experimental participation. See above.

An updated version of syllabus is available on the World Wide Web at: http://courses.umass.edu/psy315/

Psych 315: Cognitive Psychology Kyle Cave Psychology Dept. U. Mass.