Psychology 258 -- Cognitive Psychology

Instructor:   Alan Kingstone                  Teaching Asst: David Medler
Office:       BSB P-569                       Office:        BSB P-541
Phone:        492-3601                        Phone:         492-5325
E-mail:       alan@psych.ualberta.ca          E-mail:        medler@psych.ualberta.ca
Office Hrs:   Tuesday & Thursday, 2-3 pm      Office Hrs:    Wednesday, 1:30-3:30 pm

The aim of this course is to provide the student witha a broad introductoin to the field of Cognitive Psychology. The topics covered include attention and pattern recognition, memory, knowledge representations, reasoning, and problem solving.

Best, J. B. (1995). Cognitive Psychology (4th ed.). Minneapolis: West.

Coverage: You will be responsible for all of the material in the assigned readings and lectures.

Exams: There will be two midterm exams and a final exam. The midterms will be worth 25% of your grade, and the final 50% of you grade. The first midterm will cover the material presented during the first third of the course, the second will cover the material presented during the second third, and final exam will cover all of the material presented. All three exams will be multiple-choice; there will be 40-50 questions on each midterm, and 80-100 questions on the final. These questions will be aimed at assessing your factual knowledge and your ability to apply the concepts and the theoretical constructs covered in class.

Make-up exams will not be given for missed midterms. If you cannot make one of the midterms for a legitimate reason, you must provide an absence slip signed by the University Helath Service of the Records Division within one week of the exam. In such cases, the percentage weight of that missed exam will be transferred to the final exam.

Grades will be posted for each exam as soon as they are available. Any questions should be discussed with the Teaching Assistant, David Medler.

Final Grade: Based on the scores of previous Psychology 258 classes, it is anticipated that grades will be assigned in the following manner:

Grade 9   90% or better     Grade 6   67% -- 74.9%      Grade 3   40% -- 49.9%
Grade 8   83% -- 89.9%      Grade 5   60% -- 66.9%      Grade 2   30% -- 39.9%
Grade 7   75% -- 82.9%      Grade 4   50% -- 59.9%      Grade 1    0% -- 29.9%

Note: Cut-offs are a guide that may be revised depending on class performance as a whole.

The course schedule indicates the sequence of topics I intend to cover and specifies the reading assignment associated with each topic. It is important to note that this schedule is tentative and subject to change. Changes will be announced in class. You are responsible for keeping up with all the changes, whether or not you are present when they are announced.

No Reading   January   9

Chapter  2   January  11           Attention and Pattern Recognition
             January  16

Chapter  2   January  18           Attention and Pattern Recognition
             January  23

Chapter  3   January  25           Higher Cognitive Processes in Vision
             January  30

Chapter  3   February  1           Higher Cognitive Processes in Vision
             February  6

Midterm  1   February  8           Marks

Chapter  4   February 13           Structural Accounts of Memory
             February 15

Chapter  5   February 27           Human Memory: A Processing View
             February 29

Chapter  5   March     5           Human Memory: A Processing View
             March     7

Chapter  6   March    12           The Structure of Knowledge: A Symbolic Approach
             March    14

Midterm  2   March    19           Marks

Chapter  7   March    21            The Structure of Knowledge: A Connectionist Approach
             March    26

Chapter 11   March    28           Reasoning, Concept Formation, and Conceptual Storage
             April     2

Chapter 12   April     4           Problem Solving
             April     9

Review       April    11

Final Exam   April    19           Marks

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