PSYS-363 Cognitive Psychology
- Week 1- Introduction
- Week 2- Cognitive neuroscience
- Week 3- Sensation and Perception
Sensation and Perception
The topics of sensation and perception are among the oldest and most important in all of psychology. People are equipped with senses such as sight, hearing and taste that help us to take in the world around us. Amazingly, our senses have the …Vision
Vision is the sensory modality that transforms light into a psychological experience of the world around you, with minimal bodily effort. This module provides an overview of the most significant steps in this transformation and strategies tha…
- Week 4- Attention
- Week 5- When attention fails
- Week 6 Memory
- Week 7- Memory
- Week 8- Memory
Eyewitness Testimony and Memory Biases
Eyewitnesses can provide very compelling legal testimony, but rather than recording experiences flawlessly, their memories are susceptible to a variety of errors and biases. They (like the rest of us) can make errors in remembering specific d…Forgetting and Amnesia
This module explores the causes of everyday forgetting and considers pathological forgetting in the context of amnesia. Forgetting is viewed as an adaptive process that allows us to be efficient in terms of the information we retain.
- Week 8- Knowledge & Learning
- Week 9- Spring break
- Week 10- Intelligence
- Week 11- Creativity
Creativity
An idea or solution is considered creative if it is original, useful, and surprising. However, depending on who actually judges these three criteria, we must distinguish personal “little-c creativity” from consensual “Big-C Creativity.” In an…Theory of Mind
One of the most remarkable human capacities is to perceive and understand mental states. This capacity, often labeled “theory of mind,” consists of an array of psychological processes that play essential roles in human social life. We review …
- Week 12- Language
- Week 13- Decision-making and cognitive biases
Judgment and Decision Making
Humans are not perfect decision makers. Not only are we not perfect, but we depart from perfection or rationality in systematic and predictable ways. The understanding of these systematic and predictable departures is core to the field of jud…Social Cognition and Attitudes
Social cognition is the area of social psychology that examines how people perceive and think about their social world. This module provides an overview of key topics within social cognition and attitudes, including judgmental heuristics, soc…
- Week 14- Cognitive development in childhood
Cognitive Development in Childhood
This module examines what cognitive development is, major theories about how it occurs, the roles of nature and nurture, whether it is continuous or discontinuous, and how research in the area is being used to improve education.Culture
Although the most visible elements of culture are dress, cuisine and architecture, culture is a highly psychological phenomenon. Culture is a pattern of meaning for understanding how the world works. This knowledge is shared among a group of …
- Appendices