Psychology 3185F-001

Research in Cognitive Psychology

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

Cognitive theorists face a unique problem: the understanding of mental structures and processes that are not directly observable. A variety of methods used to address this problem will be surveyed, by introducing research questions of enduring interest. Students will be expected to use the techniques learned. Cognitive domains to be examined include attention, memory, problem-solving, and thinking.

Prerequisites: Psychology 2800E, 2810 and one of Psychology 2115A/B, 2134A/B or
2135A, plus registration in third or fourth year Honours Specialization in Psychology or
Honours Specialization in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience.

Third or fourth year Psychology Majors and Psychology Special Students who receive
70% or higher in Psychology 2820E (or 60% or higher in Psychology 2800E and 2810), plus 60% or higher in one of Psychology 2115A/B, 2134A/B or 2135A/B also may enrol in this course.
2 lecture hours, 2 laboratory hours, 0.5 course.

Unless you have either the prerequisites for this course or written special permission from your Dean to enroll 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.

2.0    COURSE INFORMATION

Instructor:    Dr. Patrick Brown
Office and Phone Number:    SSC 7328 / 661-2111 Ext. 84680
Office Hours:    Tuesdays 1:30 – 3:30
Email:    brown5@uwo.ca

Teaching Assistant:    Hamad Alazary Office:    See lab outline Office Hours:    See lab outline Email:    halazary@uwo.ca

Time and location of Lab meetings:    Monday 4:30 – 6:30 / SSC 3120
Time and location of Lectures:    Wednesday 4:30 – 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.

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

In lieu of a textbook we shall read recent papers from the cognitive psychology literature, listed below.

4.0    COURSE OBJECTIVES

By the end of the course students should have:
•   Knowledge of the fundamental concepts in human cognition.
•   Extensive exposure to human cognition research paradigms.
•   Hands-on experience in designing research projects (including one experiment), data collection and analysis, and preparing research reports on human experimental research.

5.0     EVALUATION


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 the University of Western Ontario grading guidelines, which are as follows (see http://www.uwo.ca/univsec/handbook/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

Final course grades will be based on two major components – lab grades and exam grades. The
 
lab component, which is described in detail in the lab outline, will be worth 50% of the final course grade. The other 50% will be based on two exams, a midterm and a final exam, each worth 25% of the final course grade. The midterm exam will feature a combination of short answer and essay questions. The final exam will be a take-home exam featuring essay questions. Questions will be posted on the course OWL site on Thursday December 10. Exam papers will be due in the Instructor’s office no later than 5:00 pm on Tuesday December 22nd. Exam papers must also be uploaded to the course OWL site for Turnitin.com analysis.

6.0  TEST AND EXAMINATION SCHEDULE

Midterm exam    Wednesday November 4 – covers readings and lectures up to October 28.
Final exam    Exam questions will cover all readings for the whole term and will be posted on the course OWL site on Thursday, December 10. Papers are due no later than 5:00 p m on Tuesday, December 22nd.

7.0   CLASS SCHEDULE

Section A – The Western Connection

23 September

Bowes, A. & Katz, A. (2015). Metaphor creates intimacy and temporarily enhances theory of mind. Memory & Cognition, 43, 953 – 963. DOI 10.3758/s13421-015-0508-4.

30 September

Weisberg, S.M., Schinazi, V.R., Newcombe, N.s., Shipley, T.F., & Epstein, R.A. (2013). Variations in cognitive maps: Understanding individual differences in navigation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition, 40 (3), 669 – 682. DOI: 10.1037/a0035261 [NOTE: Dr. Newcombe will be visiting the Department and will give a talk on this research on Friday October 2 at 3:00 pm in UCC 41. All students in this class are encouraged to attend Dr. Newcombe’s talk.]

October 7

Lilienfield, S.O., Ritschel, L.A., Lynn, S.J., Cautin, R.L., & Latzman, R.D. (2014). Why ineffective psychotherapies appear to work: A taxonomy of causes of spurious therapeutic effectiveness. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 9(4), 355–387. DOI: 10.1177/1745691614535216 [NOTE: Dr. Lilienfield will be visiting the Department and will give a talk on his research on Friday, October 30 at 3:00 pm in UCC 41. All students in this class are encouraged to attend Dr. Lilienfield’s talk.]
 
Section B – A Debate in the Current Literature

October 14

Masson, M.E.J. (2015). Toward a deeper understanding of embodiment. Canadian Journal of
Experimental Psychology, 69 (2), 159 – 164. DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/cep0000055

Mahon, B.Z. (2015). The burden of embodied cognition. Canadian Journal of Experimental
Psychology, 69 (2), 172 – 178. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/cep0000060

Glenberg, A.M. (2015) Response to Mahon: Unburdening cognition from abstract symbols. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 69 (2), 181 – 182. DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/cep0000057

October 21

Glenberg, A.M. (2015). Few believe the world is flat: how embodiment is changing the scientific understanding of cognition. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 69 (2), 165 – 171. DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/cep0000056

Mahon, B.Z. (2015). Response to Glenberg: Conceptual content does not constrain the representation format of concepts. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 69 (2), 179 –
180. DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/cep0000059

Section C – Old Problems

October 28

Open Science Collaboration (2015). Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science. Science, 349 (6251). DOI: 10.1126/science.aac4716. [This article is preceded by a Research Article Summary, Science, 349 (6251), 943. It may help you to read this summary first.]

November 4

Midterm Exam – covers all readings and lectures from September 23 to October 21. November 11

Steegen, S., Dewitte, L. Tuerlinckx, F., & Vanpaemel, W. (2014). Measuring the crowd within again: a pre-registered replication study. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, Article 786. doi:
10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00786. Corrigendum for this paper: DOI 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00238. [NOTE: This paper was included in the Open Science Framework Reproducibility Project, as a registered replication of Vul & Pashler, Psychological Science, 2008, and also published in Frontiers in Psychology’s Research Topic “Replication Attempts of Important Results in the Study of Cognition.” (http://journal.frontiersin.org/researchtopic/1461/replication-attempts-of-important-results-in-the-study-of-cognition)]

Section D – New Technologies

November 18

Chorley, M.J., Colombo, G.B., Allen, S.M., & Whitaker, R.M. (2015). Human content filtering in Twitter: The influence of metadata. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 74, 32–
40. DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2014.10.001

November 25

Henkel, L.A. (2014). Point-and-Shoot memories: The influence of taking photos on memory for a museum tour. Psychological Science, 25 (2), 396 – 402. DOI: 10.1177/0956797613504438

Keightley, E. & Pickering, M. (2014). Technologies of memory: Practices of remembering in analogue and digital photography. New Media & Society, 16 (4), 576 – 593. DOI:
10.1177/1461444814532062

December 2

Kramer, A.D.I., Guillory, J.E., & Hancock, J.T. (2014). Experimental evidence of massive- scale emotional contagion through social networks.. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA. 111 (24), 8788–8790. DOI 10.1073/ pnas.1320040111

Verma, I.M. (2014). Editorial expression of concern. Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences of the USA, 111 (29). 10779. http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1412469111

Simonite, T. (2012). What Facebook knows. MIT Technology Review, June 13 2012. Downloaded from http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/428150/what-facebook-knows/

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

The University of Western Ontario’s policy on Accommodation for Medical Illness can be found at:
http://www.westerncalendar.uwo.ca/2015/pg117.html

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
- 2015 Calendar References

No electronic devices, including cell phones, will be allowed during exams.