PSYC208-10S2 (C) Semester Two 2010

Cognition

22 points

Details:
Start Date: Monday, 12 July 2010
End Date: Sunday, 14 November 2010
Withdrawal Dates
Last Day to withdraw from this course:
  • Without financial penalty (full fee refund): Sunday, 25 July 2010
  • Without academic penalty (including no fee refund): Sunday, 10 October 2010

Description

An introductory course in cognitive psychology covering the basic mechanisms governing human intelligence. Topics include object recognition, attention, imagery, memory, reasoning, problem solving, and language comprehension.

What is required to have more computing power than a billion PCs, is readily portable, and weighs less than 1.5kgs?  How does this magnificent machine comprehend language and make inferences, such as for example that the previous sentence refers to the human brain?  How do we so speedily and accurately recognise objects and faces, in poor light, and even when they are partly obscured?  What is known about how the brain stores information from scenes and our environs, our past experiences, and general world knowledge so that the right information is conveniently available just when you need it, except in a test or exam?  What is attention and why does it appear to be so selective?  Do we ever process information unconsciously?  In our everyday thinking does the brain lead us to follow logical rules and rational procedures or has evolution provided us with outher modes of thought more suited to the uncertainties of our social and physical worlds?  Clever experiments coupled with newly emerging methods for tracking activity in the brain are rapidly enhancing knowlege of human cognition and its underlying processes.  You should find this course fundamental preparation for your later studies in almost any area of psychology and particularly in social, industrial-organisational, abnormal, clinical, forensic, and developmental psychology.  Every student considering postgraduate study in psychology should include the study of human cognition in his or her undergraduate programme.

Prerequisites

PSYC104, or
PSYC105 and PSYC106, or
with the approval of the HOD, a pass in a professional year of Engineering, or
in approved courses in Computer Science, Linguistics, or
Philosophy

Course Coordinator / Lecturer

Ewald Neumann

Lecturer

Paul Russell

Assessment

Assessment Due Date Percentage 
Laboratory Exercises 16%
Test 19 Aug 2010 20%
Research Report 10 Sep 2010 24%
Final Exam 40%


2010 ASSESSMENT TO BE ADVISED

Textbooks / Resources

Required Texts

John R. Anderson; Cognitive Psychology and its Implications ; 7th Ed; Worth Publishers, 2010.

Recommended Reading

O'Shea, Robert P. , Moss, Simon A., McKenzie, Wendy A; Writing for psychology ; 5th ed; Thomson, 2006 (Earlier editions also helpful).

Indicative Fees

Domestic fee $917.00

International fee $4,124.00

* All fees are inclusive of NZ GST or any equivalent overseas tax, and do not include any programme level discount or additional course-related expenses.

For further information see Psychology .

All PSYC208 Occurrences

  • PSYC208-10S2 (C) Semester Two 2010