Psychology 3912G-001
Psychology and the Arts
If there is a discrepancy between the outline posted below and the outline posted on the OWL course website, the latter shall prevail.
1.0 CALENDAR DESCRIPTION
This course will consider a range or questions relating to art that are of interest to
psychologists, organized into broad sections: art and mental illness; philosophical issues;
and applied topics. Readings will be drawn from a range of sources, including empirical
articles, case studies, reviews and books by eminent thinkers.
Antirequisite: Psychology 3990G if taken in 2013/14 or 2014/15
Antirequisites are courses that overlap sufficiently in content that only one can be taken for credit.
So if you take a course that is an antirequisite to a course previously taken, you will lose credit for
the earlier course, regardless of the grade achieved in the most recent course.
Prerequisites: Psychology 2820E or both Psychology 2800E and 2810
Unless you have either the prerequisites for this course or written special permission from your
Dean to enrol in it, you may be removed from this course and it will be deleted from your record.
This decision may not be appealed. You will receive no adjustment to your fees in the event that
you are dropped from a course for failing to have the necessary prerequisites.
3 seminar hours, 0.5 course
2.0 COURSE INFORMATION
Instructor: Dr. Patrick Brown
Office and Phone Number: SSC 7328 / Ext. 84680
Office Hours: Wednesdays 1:30 – 3:30 and by appointment
Email: brown5@uwo.ca
Teaching Assistant: Helen Sokolowski
Office: TBA
Office Hours: TBA
Email: hsokolow@uwo.ca
Time and Location of Classes: Thursday, 3:30 – 6:30 / SSC 3120
If you or someone you know is experiencing distress, there are several resources here at Western to assist you. Please visit: http://www.uwo.ca/uwocom/mentalhealth/ for more information on these resources and on mental health.
Please contact the course instructor if you require material in an alternate format or if you require any other arrangements to make this course more accessible to you. You may also wish to contact Services for Students with Disabilities (SSD) at 519-661-2111 ext 82147 for any specific question regarding an accommodation.
3.0 TEXTBOOK
There is no textbook for this course. Instead, there will be readings from various literatures.
4.0 COURSE OBJECTIVES
This course will consider a range of questions relating to art that are of interest to psychologists,organized into three broad sections: art and brain; philosophical issues as they intersect with
psychological concerns; and applied topics. Readings will be drawn from a variety of sources –
recent empirical studies; case studies; reviews; and books by eminent thinkers.
4.1 STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES
Outcome Evaluation
Access, interpret, and critically evaluate
appropriate research in the psychology of
creating and experiencing artistic works
Seminar presentation; essays; final exam
Articulate the concepts and current states of
knowledge in relevant natural and social science
aspects of the psychology of creating and
experiencing artistic works
Seminar presentation; essays; final exam
Evaluate the appropriateness of different
methodological approaches to address a specific
research question relating to the psychology of
creating and experiencing artistic works
Seminar presentation; essays; final exam
Engage in a critical scholarly discussion or debate
on a topic related to the psychology of creating
and experiencing artistic works
Seminar presentation; essays; final exam
Communicate orally accurately, clearly and
logically, using the discourse of the discipline of
psychology
Seminar presentation
Communicate in writing accurately, clearly and
logically, using the discourse of the discipline of
psychology
Essays; final exam
Demonstrate behavior consistent with academic
integrity and social responsibility
Seminar presentation review
5.0 EVALUATION
Final grades in this course will be based on four components:
Component Weight in final course grade
Two essays 15% each = 30% total
Oral presentation 25%
Oral presentation review 5%
Final exam 40%
Essays
The first essay will be due on Thursday, February 7th and the second one on Thursday, March
7th. A list of essay topics will be posted on the course Sakai website during the second week of
the Winter term. Students are required to write a minimum of 2500 words for a one term essay
course, excluding exams. Essays should be approximately 5 pages long (not counting title page or
references), roughly 1250 words each, to meet the 2500-word requirement for an essay course.
Essays must be uploaded to Turnitin.com through the course Sakai site no later than the day of
the submission deadline. Note, however, that if you want the opportunity to revise your paper in
response to the Turnitin.com report, you should upload it sooner than the deadline date.
Oral presentations
Oral presentations will be done in pairs (in exceptional circumstances a student may be allowed
to do her presentation alone), with two 1.5-hour presentations per day in the later part of the
course (that is, two pairs of students will present each day). Each student will also be required to
review and evaluate one presentation. Each presentation will be reviewed by two students and
presentation grades will be based on the averaged evaluation (though the instructor reserves
the right to alter an averaged grade that he considers unfair and to adjudicate between two
reviewed grades for a given presentation when those grades are very discrepant). Reviewers will
be supplied with a grading form. Review dates will be assigned to students, with their
preferences considered. A student who fails to appear for their assigned date to review a
presentation will get 0 for their review and lose 5% from their own presentation grade. In
exceptional cases – and only in exceptional cases involving illness or other compassionate
grounds – a student who cannot make their assigned review date and communicates this to the
instructor before that day will be allowed to review a presentation on a different day.
Final exam
The final exam will be a take-home exam. The exam will present a set of questions, which will be
posted on OWL. Students will respond to one question of their choice. Further information about
the final exam and what is expected in responses will be given closer to the date the questions
are posted.
PLEASE NOTE: Because this is an essay course, as per Senate Regulations, you must pass the
essay component to pass the course. That is, the average mark for your written assignments
must be at least 50%.
Although the Psychology Department does not require instructors to adjust their course grades to conform to specific targets, the expectation is that course marks will be distributed around the following averages:
70% 1000-level and 2000-level courses
72% 2190-2990 level courses
75% 3000-level courses
80% 4000-level courses
The Psychology Department follows Western's grading guidelines, which are as follows (see http://www.uwo.ca/univsec/pdf/academic_policies/general/grades_undergrad.pdf):
A+ 90-100 One could scarcely expect better from a student at this level
A 80-89 Superior work that is clearly above average
B 70-79 Good work, meeting all requirements, and eminently satisfactory
C 60-69 Competent work, meeting requirements
D 50-59 Fair work, minimally acceptable
F below 50 Fail
6.0 TEST AND EXAMINATION SCHEDULE
The final exam will be a take-home exam. Questions will be posted on the course OWL site on the last day of classes (April 9). Exam papers must be submitted to the instructor no later than Friday, April 26, 2019. Late papers will be accepted only with permission from the Dean’s office.
7.0 CLASS SCHEDULE
January 10 – Introduction to the course. Embodied cognition.
January 17 – Scene construction and active cognition
• Hassabis, D., & Maguire, E. A. (2009). The construction system of the brain.
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 364(1521),
1263-1271.
• Oatley, K. (2016). Fiction: Simulation of social worlds. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 20
(8), 618 – 628. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2016.06.002
January 24 – Art and empathy
• Coplan, A. (2004). Empathic engagement with narrative fictions. The Journal of
aesthetics and art criticism, 62(2), 141-152.
• Freedberg, D., & Gallese, V. (2007). Motion, emotion and empathy in esthetic
experience. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 11(5), 197-203.
• Molnar-Szakacs, I. (2017). Music: The language of empathy. In Music and Empathy
(pp. 97-123). Routledge.
January 31 – The paradox of fiction
• Hick, D. H., & Derksen, C. (2017). The problem of tragedy and the protective frame.
Emotion Review, 9(2), 140-145.
• Radford, C. (1975). How can we be moved by the fate of Anna Karenina? Proceedings
of the Aristotelian Society, supplemental volume, 49, 67-80.
February 7 – Can we have a science of music?
• Avanzini, G. (2012). Neuroscience and music. Rendiconti Lincei, 23(3), 295-304.
• Malloch, S., & Trevarthen, C. (2009). Musicality: Communicating the vitality and
interests of life. Communicative musicality: Exploring the basis of human
companionship, 1, 1-10.
• Overy, K., & Molnar-Szakacs, I. (2009). Being together in time: Musical experience
and the mirror neuron system. Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 26(5),
489-504.
February 14 – Cinema: is it real or reel?
• Gallese, V., & Guerra, M. (2012). Embodying movies: Embodied simulation and film
studies. Cinema: Journal of Philosophy and the Moving Image, 3, 183-210.
• Ghazanfar, A. A., & Shepherd, S. V. (2011). Monkeys at the movies: what evolutionary
cinematics tells us about film. Projections, 5(2), 1-25.
• Hasson, U., Landesman, O., Knappmeyer, B., Vallines, I., Rubin, N., & Heeger, D. J.
(2008). Neurocinematics: The neuroscience of film. Projections, 2(1), 1-26.
February 21 – Reading Week – no class
March 7 – April 4 – student presentations
8.0 STATEMENT ON ACADEMIC OFFENCES
Students are responsible for understanding the nature and avoiding the occurrence of plagiarism and other scholastic offenses. Plagiarism and cheating are considered very serious offenses because they undermine the integrity of research and education. Actions constituting a scholastic offense are described at the following link: http://www.uwo.ca/univsec/pdf/academic_policies/appeals/scholastic_discipline_undergrad.pdf
As of Sept. 1, 2009, the Department of Psychology will take the following steps to detect scholastic offenses. All multiple-choice tests and exams will be checked for similarities in the pattern of responses using reliable software, and records will be made of student seating locations in all tests and exams. All written assignments will be submitted to TurnItIn, a service designed to detect and deter plagiarism by comparing written material to over 5 billion pages of content located on the Internet or in TurnItIn’s databases. All papers submitted for such checking will be included as source documents in the reference database for the purpose of detecting plagiarism of papers subsequently submitted to the system. Use of the service is subject to the licensing agreement, currently between Western and Turnitin.com http://www.turnitin.com
Possible penalties for a scholastic offense include failure of the assignment, failure of the course, suspension from the University, and expulsion from the University.
9.0 POLICY ON ACCOMMODATION FOR MEDICAL ILLNESS
Western’s policy on Accommodation for Medical Illness can be found at:
http://westerncalendar.uwo.ca/PolicyPages.cfm?Command=showCategory&PolicyCategoryID=1&SelectedCalendar=Live&ArchiveID=#Page_12
Students must see the Academic Counsellor and submit all required documentation in order to be approved for certain accommodation:
http://counselling.ssc.uwo.ca/procedures/medical_accommodation.html
10.0 OTHER INFORMATION
Office of the Registrar web site: http://registrar.uwo.ca
Student Development Services web site: http://www.sdc.uwo.ca
Please see the Psychology Undergraduate web site for information on the following:
http://psychology.uwo.ca/undergraduate/student_responsibilities/index.html
- Policy on Cheating and Academic Misconduct
- Procedures for Appealing Academic Evaluations
- Policy on Attendance
- Policy Regarding Makeup Exams and Extensions of Deadlines
- Policy for Assignments
- Short Absences
- Extended Absences
- Documentation
- Academic Concerns
- 2018 Calendar References
No electronic devices, including cell phones and smart watches, will be allowed during exams.
