PSYC 3485: Cognitive and Emotional Control: Syllabus
Schedule * Assignments * Projects * Grading
PSYC 3485: Cognitive and Emotional Control: SyllabusSchedule * Assignments * Projects * Grading |
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Class time will be devoted to the presentation and discussion of book chapters and empirical papers. The readings are intended to both provide background knowledge on relevant functional brain anatomy and present original research for discussion and evaluation. Each student does an individual project and participates in a group project. One or two students will present a summary of their individual project (work to date) each week.
Section 1. Drives and Homeostatic systems
Overview and syllabus
Reading: Final paper from last class.
Valenstein, E.S. (1973). Brain Control: A Critical Examination of Brain Stimulation and Psychosurgery (pp 87-114). New York: Wiley-Interscience Publication.
The brain as a homeostatic mechanism
Reading:
Woods, S. C., & Ramsay, D. S. (2000). Pavlovian influences over food and drug intake. Behav Brain Res, 110(1-2), 175-182.
Presentation ideas:
Homeostasis and higher brain regulation of eating
Control systems in engineering and applications to brain function
FEB 6
Motivational states (motivation concepts)
Reading:
Berridge, K. C. (2004). Motivation concepts in behavioral neuroscience. Physiol Behav, 81(2), 179-209.
Presentation ideas:
The neurobiology of addiction
Neural pathways for natural reward and their relationship to addiction
Subtypes of reward: one system or many?
Updating and storing value in the brain
FEB 13
Predictive control: Dopamine and prediction errors
Reading:
Schultz, W., Dayan, P., & Montague, P. R. (1997). A neural substrate of prediction and reward. Science, 275(5306), 1593-1599.
Presentation ideas:
Prediction errors in human appetitive and aversive systems
The relationship between reward prediction errors and errors in cognitive tasks
Prediction in cognitive control
FEB 20
Value and short vs. long-term gains
Reading:
McClure, S. M., Laibson, D. I., Loewenstein, G., & Cohen, J. D. (2004). Separate neural systems value immediate and delayed monetary rewards. Science, 306(5695), 503-507.
Presentation ideas:
Cognitive and social correlates of delay of gratification
Neural correlates of value
FEB 27
Priming motivations (exogenous control over motivation)
Reading:
Bargh, J. A., & Chartrand, T. L. (1999). The unbearable automaticity of being. American Psychologist, 54(7), 462-479.
Presentation ideas:
Unconscious motivation and emotion
Measurement of unconscious attitudes
Section 2. Cognitive control
MAR 6
Control over perception: The power of attention
Kanwisher, N., & Wojciulik, E. (2000). Visual attention: insights from brain imaging. Nat Rev Neurosci, 1(2), 91-100.
Presentation ideas:
Effects of attention: Facilitation or inhibition?
Early selection in attention
Conscious awareness and neural synchrony
Computational models of control processes and attention
MAR 20
Control over attention and working memory: current concepts in executive function
Baddeley, A. (2003). Working memory: looking back and looking forward. Nat Rev Neurosci, 4(10), 829-839.
Presentation ideas:
Sources of attentional control in the brain
Types of cognitive control processes
Relationship between working memory and long-term memory
Free will. What is the role of voluntary choice (will) in guiding behavior, and what cognitive and motivational processes can be affected by it?
MAR 27
Motivational control over attention (simple decision making)
Reading:
O'Doherty, J., Critchley, H., Deichmann, R., & Dolan, R. J. (2003). Dissociating valence of outcome from behavioral control in human orbital and ventral prefrontal cortices. J Neurosci, 23(21), 7931-7939.
Project ideas:
The relationship between motivation and control: the actor-critic model
Ability vs. motivation in cognitive performance
Animal models of perceptual decision making
Emotional priming: Effects of motivated attention
APR 3
Cognitive regulation of emotion
Gross, J. J. (1998). The emerging field of emotion regulation: An integrative review. Review of General Psychology: Special Issue: New directions in research on emotion., 2(3), 271-299.
Project ideas:
Brain damage and emotion regulation
Neuroimaging studies of cognition-emotion interaction: Evidence for inhibition of "emotional" brain structures?
Costs and benefits of suppressing emotion
Relationship between control of attention and control of emotion
APR 10
Cognitive regulation of pain
Fields, H. (2004). State-dependent opioid control of pain. Nat Rev Neurosci, 5(7), 565-575.
Wager, T. D. (2005). The neural bases of placebo effects in pain. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 14(4), 175-179.
Project ideas:
Placebo effects in pain
Effective cognitive strategies for managing pain (and their brain correlates)
APR 17
Cognitive regulation of fear
Reading:
Quirk, G. J., & Gehlert, D. R. (2003). Inhibition of the amygdala: key to pathological states? Ann N Y Acad Sci, 985, 263-272.
Ventromedial prefrontal regulation of fear and stress
Role of the prefrontal cortex in social competence
APR 24
Cognitive influences over sensory plasticity
Reading:
Kilgard, M. P., & Merzenich, M. M. (1998). Cortical map reorganization enabled by nucleus basalis activity. Science, 279(5357), 1714-1718.
Project ideas:
The relationship between reward, motivation, and sensory plasticity
The relationship between attention and sensory plasticity
MAY 1
Self-control and well being: Review of strategies
Reading:
Selections from: The Enchiridion, the Bhagavad Gita
Project ideas:
- The hedonic treadmill: Learning, culture, and happiness
- Spiritual values as an aid to cognitive control of motivation and emotion
- Positive emotions and health
- Self-regulation in social psychology
When you come to class each week, please have the following ready:
* Read the assigned papers.
* Bring a 1/2 page summary and personal reaction to the paper assigned for the day
* Bring 3 discussion questions about the readings and/or relating readings to your topic. Deep questions are good, as long as they're shallow enough to be discussable.
You will undertake two projects during the course. The first is an individual project. Each student picks a topic of interest related to cognitive and/or emotional control. Each week, the student should find at least one appropriate article related to their topic, and come prepared to discuss the article and how it relates to current topics of class discussion. During the second half of the semester, the students write a term paper, due on April 20. The 8 - 10 page paper should take the form of a critical review paper that addresses the student's topic of interest.
The second project is a class review paper, in which students are expected to condense and integrate their individual papers into a single review of cognitive and affective control processes. The class will be graded as a group for this project.
Final individual paper (outline, appropriate references, writing): 30%
Discussion skills (peer and instructor eval): 20%
Class presentation (group leader): 20%
Weekly preparation for class (quizzes, questions, reaction papers): 20%
Final group paper (collective grade) 10%