Psychology 5123 Advanced Cognitive Psychology James Lampinen Spring 2003 http://comp.uark.edu/~lampinen/PSYC5123.html

Overview:  This is a graduate level course in cognitive psychology.  In any class like this there is a necessary trade off between breadth and depth.  Because you are Ph.D. students depth of knowledge is quite important.  A person with a doctorate in psychology should have more than just a superficial understanding of psychology.  However, this class is also meant to cover the entire field of cognitive psychology as best we can in a single semester.  For that reason breadth of coverage is also important.

To meet these twin goals, this class involves a two pronged approach.  For breadth we will be reading Payne and Wenger's Cognitive Psychology text book.  This is a really good advanced undergraduate text book.  There's lots of cool stuff in there that you won't find in many undergraduate texts, so the chapters will provide broad coverage of cognitive psychology and will probably provide you with information you haven't previously encountered in classes you took as an undergrad.  For depth, we will focus in on one key issue regarding each topic by reading influential and important journal articles and book chapters.

Course Requirements:

Grades will be distributed on the following scale: 97-100 (A+); 92-97 (A); 90-92 (A-); 87-90 (B+); 82-87 (B); 80-82 (B-); 77-80 (C+); 72-77 (C); 70-72 (C-); etc..  These grades will be based on the following requirements:

• Reaction papers will be due at the end of each topic (e.g. long term memory).  The articles assigned for each topic will focus on a particular question or dispute within cognitive psychology.  So one good use of the reaction papers will be to provide your own reasoned opinion on the topic or dispute.  Reaction papers should integrate the articles, provide your opinion and back up that opinion with reasoned argument and evidence.  Merely summarizing the articles will, of course, not be sufficient.  You can look here to see how your reaction papers will be graded.  Reaction papers should be at least a page and a half single spaced and at most three pages single spaced.  I will not grade past three pages. (20%)

• Homework. A few times during the semester I will assign homework based on the topics we discussed.  This will usually be in those cases where we go over something a little mathy. My goal here isn't to turn you into a math modeler.  But to really have a firm grasp of cognitive psychology you should appreciate that some (not all) cognitive psychologists work with formal models and you should have a sense of how these kinds of models operate and are used.  And this is the kind of thing that you can't truely understand until you've played around with them a little. So in the homework I will attempt to walk you step by step through some simplified versions of the models we're talking about.  In the process I hope I can demystify them for you somewhat.  (20%)

• Preparation for Class Discussion. You are expected to come to each and every class prepared to discuss the assigned materials.  For this reason you should have at least three written comments for every article or chapter we discuss (including the Payne and Wenger chapters).  These comments can be hand-written and they needn't be long.  But the comments should be substantive and apt.  By substantive I mean that the comments should be about the ideas expressed in the article not the writing style. By apt, I mean the comments should bear directly on that particular article, they shouldn't be so broad that they could be about any article.  They also shouldn't be the kind of thing you could have come up with by reading the abstract alone or the first couple of sentences.  Examples of reasonable comments include critiques of the article, things you liked about the article, research ideas generated by the article, relationships between the article and something else you've read in this class or another class. Be prepared to talk about your comments with the class and to argue for and defend your ideas.  I will not collect written comments every class, but I may do so at any time.  If I do collect them, failure to have an adequate set of comments prepared will result in a deduction of 5 points (out of the 10 possible) from your grade (i.e. half of a full letter grade from your total class grade). Come to class prepared for class discussion.  (10%)

• Take home final exam.  The take home final will include essay questions based on the material we've covered.  This can include information from articles, homework, class discussion and the text. Responses to the take home questions should be typed and single spaced.  The exam questions will be emailed to you on April 30th after class.  Your typed answers will be due Tuesday, May 6 at the end of the business day.(30%)

• Power Point Pedagogical Presentation. Most of you will spend some of your careers standing up in front of students and teaching.  For that reason, each student in this class will develop and deliver to class two lectures based on the Payne and Wenger chapters (Other students still need their comments on the chapter).  Each lecture should be presented in Powerpoint.  It should be well organized, thoughtful, interesting, and make good use of examples, demonstrations and illustrations. Try to have fun with it too because you'll be at your best as an instructor when you're having fun with what you're doing.  Treat the presentations as if you were presenting them to a class of smart, advanced, undergraduate students.  I would even recommend practicing them a time or two especially if you get nervous speaking in public or if you are unsure about fitting it all into an hour.  Feel free to show me early drafts of your presentations, walk me through the examples or demonstrations you're going to use, ask for advice, or let me know if you're having difficulty with anything that Payne and Wenger present. Plan this out carefully and think of me as a resource to help you.  (15%)

• Post hoc Power Point Pedagogical Presentation. After your presentations your fellow students will provide you with constructive written feedback that you will see but that I won't see. You should then revise your presentation based on their feedback. I will provide you with feedback too. In your revision, you should also work in material from some of the articles we talked about on the topic. After you've revised the presentation make an appointment with me to go over the changes you've made.  You won't actually have to re-deliver the presentation, but do bring the new and improved powerpoint file and be prepared to discuss other changes you plan on making (e.g. new examples or demonstrations you would use, etc). Revisions will be due, at the latest, one week after that section of the class has concluded. Your grade on this part will be a function of improvement. Don't assume that if you got a high grade on the first presentation that you don't need to change a thing.  Your grade on this section will take into account that you've been given feedback and an opportunity to improve (5%)

Schedule of Events

Topic 1: Introduction to Cognitive Psychology
In Depth: What alternative ways are there for thinking about mind?  Which is the best approach?

(Jan 13) Payne & Wenger Chapter 1: Introduction to Cognitive Psychology
(Jan 15) Simon, H.A. (1996). Computational theories of cognition. In W. O'Donohue & R.F. Kitchener (Eds). The Philosophy of Psychology. (pp. 160-172). Thousand Oaks, CA, US: Sage Publications, Inc.

· Remembering Herb Simon, APS Observer

· A discussion of Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

(Jan 17) Pinker, S. (1997). How The Mind Works. NY: Norton. (59-93)

• About the Turing Test
• Ye Olde Turing Machine
• The Steam Powered Turing Machine
• A nice discussion of Searle's "Chinese Room" thought experiment

(Jan 22) Pinker, S. (1997). How The Mind Works. NY: Norton. (93-148)
(Jan 24) Skinner, B.F. (1986). Why I am not a cognitive psychologist. In T.J. Knapp & L.C. Robertson (Eds.). Approaches to cognition: Contrasts and controversies. (pp. 79-90). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
(Jan 27) Chomsky, N. (1959). A review of Skinner's "Verbal Behavior". Language, 35, 26-58.
(Jan 29) Neisser, U. (1978). Memory: what are the important questions? In M.M. Gruneberg, P.E. Morris, & R.N. Sykes (Eds.), Practical Aspects of Memory (pp. 3-24). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
(Jan 31) Banaji, M.R. & Crowder, R.G. (1989). The bankruptcy of everyday memory. American Psychologist, 44, 1185-1193.
(Feb 3) Glenberg, A.M. (1997). What memory is for. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 20, 1-55.

· Glenberg will be providing a colloquium here at the U of A on Febuary 28th!

Topic 2: Attention and Working Memory
In Depth: Is working memory a seperate system or  merely temporarily activated long term memory?

(Feb 5) Payne & Wenger Chapter 5: Attention (NANCY)
(Feb 7) Payne & Wenger Chapter 6: Memory in the Short Term (ALICIA) -- First Homework Assigned
(Feb 10) Baddeley, A.D. (1982). Is working memory working? Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 44A, 1-31.
(Feb 12) Cantor, J., & Engle, R. W. (1993). Working memory capacity as long-term memory activation: An individual differences approach. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 19, 1101-1114.

Topic 3: Long Term Memory
In Depth: Is long term memory one thing or more than one thing?  Single process, dual process, and multiple system accounts of long term memory.

(Feb 14) Payne & Wenger Chapter 7: Memory in the Long Term: Episodic Memory (JULIANA)
(Feb 17) Payne & Wenger Chapter 8: Memory in the Long Term: Semantic Memory (KAREN)
(Feb 19) Signal Detection Theory: No Reading -- Second Homework Assigned
(Feb 21) Arndt, J. & Hirshman, E. (1998). True and false recognition in MINERVA2: Explanations from a global matching perspective. Journal of Memory and Language, 39, 371-391.
(Feb 26) Schacter, D.L. (1990). Perceptual representation systems and implicit memory: Toward a resolution of the multiple memory systems debate. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 608, 543-571.
(Feb 28) Roediger, H.L., Weldon, M.S., & Challis, B.H. (1989).  Explaining dissociations between implicit and explicit measures of retention: A processing account.  Chapter in H.L. Roediger & F.I.M. Craik (Eds.), Varieties of memory and consciousness: Essays in honour of Endel Tulving. (pp. 3-39). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
(Mar 3) Gardiner, J.M. (2000). On the objectivity of subjective experiences of autonoetic and noetic consciousness. In Tulving, Endel (Ed). Memory, consciousness, and the brain: The Tallinn Conference. (pp.159-172 ) Philadelphia, PA, US: Psychology Press. pp. 159-172.
(Mar 5) Jacoby, L.L., Yonelinas, A.P. & Jennings, J. (1997). The relation between conscious and unconscious (automatic) influences. A declaration of independence. In J. Cohen & J.W. Schooler (Eds.), Scientific Approaches to Consciousness (pp.13-47). Mahweh NJ: Erlbaum. Third Homework Assigned

Topic 4: Mental Imagery
In Depth: Does mental imagery involve a special kind of representation?

(Mar 7) Kosslyn, S.M. (1980). Imagery and Mind. Harvard University Press: Cambridge MA. (Chap 3)
(Mar 10) M.J. Farah (1997). The neural bases of mental imagery. In M.S. Gazzaniga (Ed.). The Cognitive Neurosciences. MIT Press: Cambridge MA.
(Mar 12) Pylyshyn, Z. (2002). Mental imagery: In search of a theory. Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

Topic 5: Similarity and Categories
In Depth: What causes asymmetries in the judgment of similarity?  And how useful is similarity anyway as an explanation of behavior?

(Mar 14) Payne & Wenger Chapter 13: Categorization and Concept Formation
(Mar 17-21) SPRING BREAK.
(Mar 24) Tversky, A. (1977). Features of similarity. Psychological Review, 84, 327-352.
(Mar 26) Bowdle, B.F. & Gentner, D. (1997). Informativity and asymmetry in comparisons. Cognitive Psychology, 34, 244- 286. {{Imagery reaction paper due today}}
(Mar 28) Aguilar, C. M., & Medin, D. L. (1999). Asymmetries of comparison. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 6, 328-337.
(Mar 31) Medin, D.L., Goldstone, R.L., & Gentner, D. (1993). Respects for similarity. Psychological Review, 100, 254-278.
(April 2) Roese, N. J., Sherman, J. W., & Hur, T. (1998). Direction of comparison asymmetries in relational judgment: The role of linguistic norms. Social Cognition, 16, 353-362.
(Apr 2) Catrambone, R., Beike, D. R., & Niedenthal, P. M. (1996). Is the self-concept a habitual referent in judgments of similarity? Psychological Science, 7, 158-163.
(Apr 4) Murphy, G. L. & Medin, D. L. (1985). The role of theories in conceptual coherence. Psychological Review, 92, 289-316.

Topic 6: Language
In Depth: Bottom up versus top down approaches to discourse comprehension.

(Apr 7) Payne & Wenger Chapter 10: Language Comprehension
(Apr 9) Swinney, D.A. (1979). Lexical access during sentence comprehension: (Re)consideration of context effects. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 18, 645-660.
(Apr 11) Kintsch, W.(1988). The role of knowledge in discourse comprehension: A construction-integration model. Psychological Review, 95, 163-182. (Read up to page 169). Fourth Homework Assigned
(Apr 14) Glenberg, A.M., Meyer, M. & Lindem, K. (1987). Mental models contribute to foregrounding during text comprehension. Journal of Memory & Language, 26, 69-83.
(Apr 16) McKoon, G. & Ratcliff, R. (1995). The minimalist hypothesis: Directions for research. Discourse comprehension: Essays in honor of Walter Kintsch. (pp. 87-116). Hillsdale, NJ, England: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
(Apr 18) Singer, M., Graesser, A.C. & Trabasso, T. (1994). Minimal or global inference during reading. Journal of Memory & Language, 33, 421-441.
(Apr 21) Zwaan, R.A. & Radvansky, G.A.(1998). Situation models in language comprehension and memory. Psychological Bulletin, 123, 162-185.

Topic 7: Problem Solving and Decision Making
In Depth: How do formal and informal reasoning differ?

(Apr 23) Payne & Wenger Chapter 12: Judgment and Decision Making
(Apr 25) Payne & Wenger Chapter 14: Mental Expertise and Problem Solving
(Apr 28) Voss, J.F., Blais, J., Means, M.L., Greene, T.R. & Ahwesh, E. (1989). Informal reasoning and subject matter knowledge in the solving of economics problems by naive and novice individuals. In Resnick, L.B. (Ed). Knowing, learning, and instruction: Essays in honor of Robert Glaser. (pp. 217-249). Hillsdale, NJ, England: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
(Apr 30) Chapman, M. (1993). Everyday reasoning and the revision of belief. In Puckett, J.M. &  Reese, H.W. (Eds). Mechanisms of everyday cognition. (pp. 95-113). Hillsdale, NJ, England: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.