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TEACHING
Topics in Psychology - Flexible Thinking: Psychological Perspectives - PSY 5960 syllabus (pdf) Spring 2008 This seminar course will examine recent research findings from psychology and cognitive neuroscience to arrive at a better understanding of the conditions that foster, or impede, flexible thinking. Two key questions will be examined throughout. First, what are the relative roles of predominantly controlled or deliberate modes of cognitive processing versus more automatic (or spontaneous) processes in enabling and sustaining creatively adaptive thinking? Second, how do mental representations at differing levels of specificity--highly abstract versus highly specific--contribute to flexible thinking? Psychology of Human Learning and Memory: PSY 5014 syllabus (pdf) Spring 2006; Spring 2007; Spring 2008 A fundamental characteristic of memory is that it in some way repeats or copies something that occurred previously to an organism. However, there is clear variability in the extent to which what is recalled actually matches or echoes what was originally experienced. Further, although this variability is often viewed as a problem, as it may result in errors of memory, such variability, in other contexts, is linked to sought after forms of thinking and expression, with implications for the transfer of learning, creativity, problem-solving, how we classify objects and events, and modes of thinking such as analogy and metaphor. A goal of this course is to understand how we adaptively use memory (episodic, semantic, procedural) in both exact and variable ways. We also will seek to relate behaviorally observed variability in memory to specific brain processes. Prerequisite: PSY 3011 (Introduction to Learning and Behavior) or PSY 3051 (Introduction to Cognitive Psychology), except for honors/graduate students. Research Lab in Memory, Thinking, and Judgment: PSY 5993 Fall and Spring 2005-2008 Directed study and cognitive neuroscience research in memory, thinking, and judgment. If you are a student interested in gaining directed research experience in our lab, please e-mail me to learn more about this option. PAST COURSES Flexible Thinking: Cognitive Neuroscience Perspectives (HSEM 3060H) Spring 2007 This seminar course will examine recent research findings from the cognitive, brain, and social sciences to arrive at a better understanding of the conditions that foster, or impede, flexible thinking. A recurrent theme will be that creatively adaptive thinking depends both on automatic (intuitive/perceptual) mental processes and more controlled or deliberate processes and most often emerges from a combination of these two modes of processing. Representative topics will include: the search for evidence and jumping to conclusions, including research on delusional thinking, and automatic thinking; the effects of reinforcing variable rather than habitual behavior; the role of goals, and adaptive changes in goals, in the creative development of ideas; the need for both highly specific and more abstract ways of accessing our knowledge and memory for experiences; the ways in which emotions may enhance or impair flexibility in thought; and the importance of mentally stimulating environments in adaptive cognitive and behavior, and the brain changes that both accompany, and support, flexible thinking. We will read original research papers from several disciplines and multiple methodologies so as to arrive at a broad, integrated, and empirically informed view of flexible thinking. Fall 2004; Fall 2005; Fall 2006 Although disorders of memory, belief,
and judgment are often considered separately, several
neuropsychological and psychopathological phenomena seem to involve
disruptions in a combination of these areas. This course will
examine findings and accounts of phenomena that -- to varying degrees
-- involve disorders of memory, belief, and judgment, and examine
implications for understanding normal cognitive function. Topics
will include: confabulation; deja vu; reduplicative paramnesia
for place (involving the belief that places have exact or nearly exact
duplicates); delusional misidentification (e.g., Capgras syndrome, the
belief that familiar people, such as parents or siblings, have been
replaced by look-alike imposters); anosognosia (unawareness of a
deficit or illness); confidence, certainty, and biased belief; and
magical ideation and bizarre beliefs. The course will take a
cognitive neuroscience approach; contributions from motivation,
emotion, and learning, and the need to explain the specific content of
beliefs, also will be considered. This is an intensive seminar course
based on readings of empirical research articles and review papers from
several perspectives, including neuropsychology, psychopathology,
psychiatry, neurology, and philosophy. The course also explores
multiple methodologies, including clinical case studies, neuroimaging
methods, neurological procedures, as well as laboratory-based
experiments typical of those conducted in cognitive psychology and
cognitive neuropsychology.
Scientific study of human
behavior. Problems, methods, findings of modern psychology. BACK |
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