Psychology

Course description: Covers mechanisms of cognitive functions. Topics include visual cognition, attention, memory, executive function, language and consciousness, including development and where appropriate disorders of cognition. The lectures and readings will reflect the multiple approaches of cognitive psychology but will focus on behavioral studies and methods.

 When: Wednesdays 1:10-4pm

 

Where: Conference Room, Center for Mind and Brain (CMB), 267 Cousteau Place (EXCEPT: on 10/26…we will be across the street).

For directions, see http://mindbrain.ucdavis.edu/about/directions-to-the-cmb

 

1) Weekly participation, questions and discussion contributions (33%)

2) Oral presentation on topic of the week (33%) – see below

3) Critical literature review of the topic you have presented on (33%)

 

Smartsite, PSC 230 001 FQ 2011

One or more papers/review articles/chapters will be assigned as background reading for each lecture and discussion. Please come to class prepared to ask questions. You will also be expected to ask questions of the faculty speaker during their presentation.

 

Each of you will be asked to give a presentation on the topic of the week that is focused on one a target paper that you select. The quality of your presentations will determine 33% of your grade.

 

Please prepare a 30-minute Powerpoint presentation covering the following (send me the papers you select or post directly to Smartsite Resources):

 

1.    Sufficient background information to understand the motivation for the experiment(s) of the target article

2.    A clear explanation of the question(s) being addressed

3.    A concise summary of the methods with as much details as needed to understand and critique the results

4.    The take-home message for key figures and tables and a summary for additional results of importance

5.    Critique of the paper, its weaknesses and strengths, and/or further experiments that could shed light on these results.

 

For the final assignment (due 1 week after your presentation), you will provide a review paper of a topic that we covered in class. This review paper should discuss at least five papers in depth and try to come to as broad a consensus as possible about the literature you review in this area. Try as best as you can to identify areas of controversy and places in the literature that require more development (33% of your grade). Your paper should be 3-5 pages in length using 12 point font (with 1.5 line spacing).