Psychology 2115A-001
Introduction to Sensation and Perception
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
An introduction to the study of the human senses and higher order perceptual processes. Data gathered from psychophysical research and studies of the nervous system in both humans and other animals will be discussed. The course will review the mechanisms and principles of operation of vision, hearing, touch, taste and smell.
Antirequisite(s): Psychology 2015a/b and the former Psychology 215a/b
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.
Prerequisite(s): At least 60% in a 1000 level Psychology course.
Unless you have either the prerequisite for this course or written special permission from your Dean to enrol in it, you may be removed from the 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. Your attention to this matter will not only help protect your academic record but will ensure that spaces are available for students who require this course for graduation.
2.0 COURSE INFORMATION
Instructor: Stephen Lupker Teaching Assistant: Ysabel Domingo
Office: 7324 SSC Office: 7307 SSC
Phone: 661-2111, Ext. 84700 E-mail: bdomingo@uwo.ca
E-mail: lupker@uwo.ca Office Hours: 10:00-11:00 (Th)
Office Hours: 11:00-12:00 (T)
11:00-12:00 (W)
2:30-4:20 p.m. Monday 2024 SSC
2:30-4:20 p.m. Wednesday 2024 SSC
Course Overview:
This course is a survey of most of the basic issues in sensation and perception. Any student who successfully completes it should have the background to take any other undergraduate course in these areas.
Marking:
There will be 3 quizzes and a final exam. All will have a short answer format. The topics in this course fit nicely into four main areas: psychophysics, the sense organs, classical issues in perception and issues in attention/development. The first quiz will come at the end of the first section on psychophysics. The second quiz will come at the end of the second section on the sense organs and it will cover only that section. The third quiz will come at the end of the third section on classical issues in perception and cover only that section. There will be no makeup or early quizzes, however, students can be excused from quizzes if they have a legitimate, documented excuse, which is to be presented to an Academic Counsellor in their home faculty. The final exam will be scheduled by the Registrar’s Office and will be held during the final examination period. It will cover the entire course. The material on the final exam will, however, be drawn mainly from the final section of the couse.
The weighting of these tests in determining your final mark will be as follows:
Each quiz 20%
Final exam 40%
The purpose of the quizzes and final exam is to evaluate your ability to accurately answer specific questions about topics covered in the lectures and the text book. They are not intended to be speeded exams. Thus, although students will have 2 hours for each quiz, the expectation is that most of you will finish well before the time limit has expired. No electronic devices, including cell phones, will be allowed during quizzes and exams.
Policy Regarding Missed Exams:
Although, as noted, there will be no make-up mid-term quizzes, students are entitled to be excused from quizzes for legitimate medical or compassionate reasons. In all cases, it is the student's responsibility to inform the instructor in a timely fashion and to provide acceptable documentation to an Academic Counsellor in their home faculty to support a medical or compassionate claim or risk his or her claim being denied. These documents must indicate that the student was unable to attend the quiz at the time it was given. Statements indicating simply that the student visited a doctor at some point in time are insufficient. In the case of a missed Final Examination, the student must arrange for a Special Examination or an Incomplete through their Dean's office, for which the student will, of course, be required to provide acceptable documentation.
Western’s policy on Accommodation for Medical Illness can be found at:
http://www.westerncalendar.uwo.ca/2016/pg117.html
Students must see the Academic Counsellor of their home faculty and submit all required documentation in order to be approved for certain accommodation:
http://counselling.ssc.uwo.ca/procedures/medical_accommodation.html
If you feel that you have a medical or personal problem that is interfering with your work, you should contact your instructor and the Faculty Academic Counselling Office as soon as possible. Problems may then be documented (and submitted to the Academic Counselling Office) and possible arrangements to assist you can be discussed at the time of occurrence rather than on a retroactive basis. In general, retroactive requests for grade revisions on medical or compassionate grounds will not be considered.
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
Coren, S., Ward, L. & Enns, J.T. (2004). Sensation and Perception (sixth edition). Wiley.
4.0 COURSE OBJECTIVES
4.1 STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES
The goal of this course is to enable students to demonstrate that they know:
- how to explain theories about perceptual and sensory processes
- how to evaluate data in assessing the proposed theories of perceptual and sensory processes
- how to describe the experimental techniques involved in data collection when examining perceptual and sensory processes
- how to communicate the results of the important experiments
The ways in which students will be assessed in order to evaluate the extent to which they have achieved these goals will include quizzes and a final exam and these will need to be completed within the times specified by the instructor.
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/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
7.0 CLASS SCHEDULE
Course Outline and Reading Assignments:Sequence of Topics Readings
Introduction Chapter 1
Psychophysics Pages 13-18, 25-28
Signal Detection Pages 18-25
Scaling Pages 30-37
September 28 QUIZ
The Ear Pages 116-131 and 154-161
The Eye Pages 50-61 and 80-109
The Other Senses Chapter 7 (not 182-184, 190-195, 196-200 and 204-207)
October 24 QUIZ
Space Perception Pages 258-280 and 149-153
Form Perception Pages 216-218, 231-254, 313-319 and 341-343
The Constancies Pages 298-313
Time and Motion Perception Pages 346-359, 365-372 and 381-384
Speech Perception Pages 168-178
November 21 QUIZ
Auditory Attention (classical) Pages 398-404 and 417-419
Visual Attention (classical)
Visual Attention (modern) Pages 404-411
Perceptual Development Pages 287-290, 455-459 and 477-487
December 10-21 FINAL EXAMINATION PERIOD
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://www.westerncalendar.uwo.ca/2016/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
- 2016 Calendar References
No electronic devices, including cell phones, will be allowed during exams.
