GROUP
Spring
2009 Office Hours:
M 10-11:30; T 3-4:30; W 10-11:30; Th 3-4:30, or by appointment
Psych
164: Cognitive Psychology
The study of human mental processes, including attention, perception,
memory, language and problem solving. Course content includes cognitive
strengths, such as creativity and expertise, and weaknesses, such as biases
and mindlessness. Differences related to gender, age and culture are also
considered. While the majority of the course will be spent introducing
students to classic models from the filed, students will also be asked
to read relevant, recent articles from the literature. In addition, students
will complete and critically consider a number of cognitive psych experiments
using CogLab.
Part I of a two-semester sequence, which presents the complementary topics of research analysis and statistics. Topics include the nature of research and theory, research methods, measurement theory and procedures, ways of controlling and manipulating variables, univariate and bivariate descriptive statistics, graphical methods, correlation, and regression methods. The basics of probability, sampling distributions and estimation are also presented. Emphasis in this section is placed on research methods as they inform our use of statistics. In addition, the course focuses on an examination of psychology as a science, utilizing Stanovich's text, How to Think Straight about Psychology.
An examination of current research and theory in discourse processing. The Spring 2009 semester will primarily focus on debates regarding computer-mediated communication (CMC) and the use of eyetracking in psycholinguistic research. Specific topics may include the characteristics of language use in email, text messaging, IMing, and social utilities like Facebook. The course emphasizes close reading and discussion of selected primary sources and recent texts and will prepare students for developing, designing, and implementing the senior project.
Part II of a two-semester sequence, which supports the independent research projects of senior psych students. In addition to meeting weekly as a comp group, students will recruit and test participants, score and code data, analyze the data, interpret the results, and complete an APA-style paper. Students should also plan to regularly attend meetings of the Cognitive Group and are encouraged to present their study at one of these meetings. Finally, students are required to present a poster or give a presentation at the Western Pennsylvania Undergraduate Psychology Conference (WPUPC) at the end of April. The course concludes with the meeting of the Senior Comp committee.