Fall Semester

Human Learning and Memory (syllabus)

This lecture course introduces the student to the basic concepts, theories, and controversies associated with the scientific investigation of human memory. The aim of the course is to provide the student with an understanding of modern memory theory within its historical content and background. Theories such as short-term memory, long-term memory, forgetting, implicit memory, amnesia, autobiographical memory, and eyewitness testimony, will be discussed. As theoretical ideas are discussed during lecture, some experimental evidence related to them will be surveyed and analyzed.

Comparative Cognition (syllabus)

This seminar will focus upon comparative research investigations of animal and human cognition. The aim of the course is to provide the student with an understanding of current experimental animal and human studies on issues such as explicit and implicit memories, language, consciousness, and metacognition. Topics will assess whether certain cognitive processes exist only in the human species, or whether they exist as well in non-verbal animals. Much of the class sessions will be spent critically discussing prior experimental work, and brainstorming new experimental methods in which to test basic human cognitive processes in non-human animals.

Spring Semester

Cognitive Psychology (syllabus)

The purpose of this lecture/lab course is to introduce you to cognition: our ways of coming to know about the world and about each other. This course will concentrate on the classic and up-to-date topics in human cognition: pattern recognition, knowledge representation, attention, memory, language, problem solving, reasoning, decision-making, and consciousness.  Additionally, the course will cover chapters on cognitive development, on the biological foundations of cognitive development, and on the breakdown of cognitive processes. The goals of this course are to introduce students to the workings of the mind, that is, how the mind processes sensations and perceptions, how the mind categorizes information, how creativity complements thinking and problem solving, the nature of consciousness, etc. At the end of the semester, students will have gained insight on how research in cognitive psychology is conducted, on how normal brain functioning works, and on how abnormal brain functioning affects daily life.