Cognitive Psychology Course Outline –Summer 2005

360s2005 Wednesday evening 19:00-22:00 classroom 3820
Instructor: Bruce Landon, Ph.D. Office:
Phone: 604-
Office hours: Wednesday 18:00 +
email: Bruce_Landon@douglas.bc.ca
Homepage: Bruce-Landon.Douglas.bc.ca

 Required Reading:

Text: Bruning, R.H., Schraw, G.J., Norby, M.M., & Ronning, R.R, (2004). Cognitive Psychology and Instruction 4th Edition. Pearson, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

Readings: Spellman, B.A., & Willingham, D.T. (2005) Current Directions in Cognitive Science (editors), Pearson Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

Anderson, J. R., Bothell, D., Byrne, M. D., Douglass, S., Lebiere, C., & Qin, Y . (2004). An integrated theory of the mind. Psychological Review 111, (4). 1036-1060.

Available from:  http://act-r.psy.cmu.edu/papers/526/FSQUERY.pdf

 

Optional Reading: Wegner, D. (2002). The Illusion of Conscious Will, MIT Press, Boston.

Schedule outline to be supplemented with required articles from the library and due dates

 

05-04    chapter 1           Introduction to Cognitive Psychology (brain imagery) (course resources)

Readings           Miller, G. A., & Keller, J. (2000). Psychology and neuroscience: Making peace.

Readings           Roser, M. & Gazzaniga, M. S. (2004). Automatic brains-Interpretative minds.

Video clips        Split Brain Clip and other brain clips related to readings

 

05-11    chapter 9           Classroom Contexts for Cognitive Growth (knowledge construction) eDiscussion     class discussion expectations/norms

Readings           Norenzayan, A., & Nisbett, R. E. (2000). Culture and causal cognition.

Readings           The Projective Way of Knowing: A Useful Heuristic That Sometimes Misleads

Video clips        Vygotsky teaching clip [BF 721 V94 1994]

 

05-18    chapter 2           Sensory, Short-Term, and Working Memory (attention and perception) (multitasking) (UltraHal demonstration) (protothinker demonstration)

Readings           Inattentional Blindness: Looking Without Seeing

Video clips        Multitasking and Gender clip2

 

05-25    chapter 3           Long-Term Memory: Structures and Models (ACT-R) (PDP) (storytelling)

Readings           McNally, R. J.(2003). Recovering memories of trauma: A view from the laboratory.

Anderson, J. R., Bothell, D., Byrne, M. D., Douglass, S., Lebiere, C., & Qin, Y . (2004). An integrated theory of the mind. Psychological Review 111, (4). 1036-1060.

Available from:  http://act-r.psy.cmu.edu/papers/526/FSQUERY.pdf

video clips         Breaking Silence clip and False Memory clip

 

06-01    chapter 4           Encoding Processes (imagery) (metacognition) (concept maps)

Readings           Garry, M., & Polaschek, D. L. L. (2000). Imagination and memory.

Video clips        Multitasking and Gender encoding emotion clip1 [face memory]

Project title page and references section due

 

6-08      chapter 5           Retrieval Processes (reconstruction) (testing for learning) (storytelling)

Readings           Landauer, T. K. (1998). Learning and representing verbal meaning: The latent semantic analysis theory.

Readings           Brown, V. R., & Paulus, P. B. (2002). Making group brainstorming more effective: Recommendations from an associative memory perspective.

Project introduction section due

 

06-15    chapter 6           Beliefs about Self (attitudes) (attribution) (Theory of Planned Behaviour)

Readings           Thompson, S. C. (1999). Illusions of control: How we overestimate our personal influence.

            chapter 7           Beliefs about Intelligence and Knowledge (changing beliefs)          

Video clips        Intelligence theories clip

 

06-22    Midterm Examination

 

06-29    chapter 8           Problem Solving and Critical Thinking (expert-novice) (creativity)

Readings           Klahr, D., & Simon, H. A. (2001). What have psychologists (and others) discovered about the process of scientific discovery?

Readings           Mellers, B. A., & McGraw, A. P. (2001). Anticipated emotions as guides to choice.

 

07-06    Reading: Kahneman, D. (2002). A Perspective on Judgment and Choice: Mapping Bounded Rationality. American Psychologist. 58 (9) pp. 697-720. (Course Decision Making)
            chapter 10         Technological Contexts for Cognitive Growth (HCI)

 

07-13    chapter 11         Learning to Read (ACT-R LSA model)

Readings           Ferreira, F., Bailey, K. G. D., & Ferraro, V. (2002). Good-enough representations in language comprehension.

Article:  Bidiu, R. & Anderson, J.R. (2004) Interpretation-based processing: A unified theory of semantic sentence comprehension, Cognitive Science, 28(1), 1-44.

Project paper Method Section Due

 

07-20    chapter 12         Reading to Learn (strategies and individual differences)

Readings           Saffran, J. R. (2003). Statistical language learning: Mechanisms and constraints

 

07-27    chapter 13         Writing  (APAFORMAT) (summarizing)

Readings           Zwaan, R. A. (1999). Situation models: The mental leap into imagined worlds.

Complete revised Project paper due

 

08-03    chapter 14         Cognitive Approaches to Mathematics (cognitive tutor)

            chapter 15         Cognitive Approaches to Science (expert-novice)

Readings           Spellman, B. A., & Mandel, D. R. (1999). When possibility informs reality: Counterfactual thinking as a cue to causality.

 

 08-10 tentative date for final Final exam

 

Research Designer Term Project Paper - The intention of the term project is that students will learn about a subtopic of Cognitive Psychology in depth by studying the scientific literature and by proposing an original experiment in the context of ACT-R theory.  The intention of the designing of an "original experiment" is help develop the student's critical thinking skills in psychology.  The term project paper will develop one of the approved topics in Cognition from the list below that have been studied in relation to the ACT-R theory. The form of the term paper is a research proposal that provides a review of the relevant current literature (10+ sources since January 1, 1994 cited in the introduction). This is similar in form to the introduction and method sections of an experimental research paper with an emphasis on clarity of thought and logical development of ideas. The method section is to include the design of an experiment or series of experiments that are proposed to clarify theoretical issues developed in the introductory section.  Papers that are plagiarized or do not integrate ACT-R theory of the mind will not be marked for credit and will be awarded a zero mark.


Limited list of potentially Approved Project topics

(for more information please see http://act-r.psy.cmu.edu/publications/ )


10. Perception & Attention       
 11. Psychophysical Judgments       
 12. Visual Search       
 13. Eye Movements       
 14. Psychological Refractory Period       
 15. Task Switching              
 16. Stroop       
 17. Driving Behavior       
 18. Situational Awareness       
 19. Graphical User Interfaces       
20. Learning & Memory       
 21. List Memory       
 22. Fan Effect       
 23. Implicit Learning       
 24. Skill Acquisition       
 25. Cognitive Arithmetic       
 26. Category Learning       
 27. Learning by Exploration and Demonstration      
 28. Updating Memory &Prospective Memory      
 29. Causal Learning       
30. Problem Solving & Decision Making       
 31. Tower of Hanoi       
 32. Choice & Strategy Selection       
 33. Mathematical Problem Solving       
 34. Spatial Reasoning       
 35. Dynamic Systems       
 36. Use and Design of Artifacts       
 37. Game Playing       
 38. Insight and Scientific Discovery       
40. Language Processing       
 41. Parsing       
 42. Analogy & Metaphor       
 43. Learning       
 44. Sentence Memory       
50. Other areas       
 51. Cognitive Development       
 52. Individual Differences       
 53. Emotion as a dual-task
 54. Cognitive Workload       
 55. Computer Generated Forces       
 56. fMRI       
 57. Communication        
 58. Negotiation        
 59. Group Decision Making       

Essentially, this is a small version of a research proposal that would be submitted as part of a grant proposal or advanced degree requirement (title page, abstract, introduction, method, and references sections only omitting the results and discussion sections in this term project paper). In order to minimize the APA style problems all projects will use the formatted Term Project Document and just make appropriate changes and build the project inside the document where all of the margins and headings are appropriate APA style.

The intention of breaking the term project into parts is to make the task easier and to allow for feedback to guide student revisions so that in the final version demonstrates the student's Researcher Term Project Deliverables inside the basic APA style model document:
Submitted by sending 5 emails with the attachment and specific subject line
Title Page
References Section
Outline of the introduction including hypothesis statement
Outline of the Method Section including subsections
Final proofread version

Grading System Policy

Plagiarism Policy - Academic Dishonesty will result in Zero credit for assignment, quiz, or exam. Plagiarism can be avoided by not using other's work as one's own. Be careful in citing all of your sources and people appropriately.

Make-up Policy - Missed quizzes are made up on the final exam and assignments must be made up within 5 days (by Sunday night) for any credit (credit is reduced 20% per day late).

The overall intention of the marking system is to have occasions to encourage student learning and provide meaningful feedback on progress.  There are five components of the grading system which are intended to promote specific competencies.  The online discussions are intended to help students develop the skills future teamwork and to show how they are thinking about the course material.  The computer based assignments are intended to provide some hands-on experiential learning of both psychological and artificial intelligence concepts.  The quizzes are really intended to promote spaced practice style of learning complex material while the Question&Answer emails are intended to encourage students select and express important learnings from the course so that they may be available as long term memories.  The term project is intended to engage the student in an exploration of psychology in the context of Anderson's Theory of the Mind.  Lastly, the midterm and final examinations are intended to provide an opportunity for students to demonstrate their knowledge of Cognitive Psychology and also to make up for misunderstandings or absences on quizzes that may have during the term.


15% Online Contributions to discussions
05% Computer based assignments (virtual labs & Protothinker)
20% Quizzes and Q&A emails on Assigned Readings

10% Midterm Examination
20% Term Project (minus 20% for each day of missed deadline)
30% Closed Book Comprehensive Final Exam both in-class (25%) and personal Q&A parts (5%)

General weekly structure (10 tasks)

               Check course site and course calendar for upcoming events
               Review of materials in preparation for in-class final exam (25%)
                               Q&A for personalized in-class final exam (5% on final)
                               email Complete essay Questions and Answers (10% in total)
               Occasional Assignments and Online reports
               Study Reading Assignments
               Preview class presentation online
               In-class Quiz (for a total of 10% in total)
               In-class presentation/video/discussion participation and notes
               After class discussion assignment (1.5% per for a total of 15%)
               Work on Term Project (Final version 20% for paper)

Optional weekly activities (5 tasks)
Remediate skill deficits
Collaborate with other students
Ask questions in online discussion forums
Answer questions in online discussion forums
Update personal concept map for cognitive psychology