Description and contextualization of the subject

Experimental and Cognitive Psychology: A brief history; The human information processing approach; Perception & psychophysics; Memory & attention; Categorization and semantic memory; Decision making, motivation, and reward.

Temary

This course offers an overview of Cognitive Psychology and the mechanisms and neural correlates of main cognitive processes.

It is oriented to psychologists, biologists and psycholinguists interested in understanding the cognitive mechanisms underlying brain functions. Perception, attention, consciousness, emotion, learning and memory, will be the highlighted topics to be discussed within this course. Students will be introduced to different methodological approaches used in in cognition, such as behavioral, electrophysiological and neuroimaging methods, including brain stimulation. Through the analysis and discussion of previous empirical evidence, students will learn how these processes operate in the brain and how it is possible to assess these processes in healthy and pathological human subjects experimentally.

Bibliography

Compulsory materials

There is no textbook for this class, but the following manual can be used as a guide:



Goldstein, E. B. (2008, 2011). Cognitive Psychology. Wadsworth, USA.



Gazzaniga, Michael S.; Ivry, Richard B.; Mangun, George R. (2009). Cognitive Neuroscience: The Biology of the Mind (3rd ed.). New York: W.W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-92795-5.



A list of readings selected from scholarly articles and book chapters will be provided as well at the beginning of the course.

Basic bibliography

Anderson, J. R. (1995). Learning and Memory: An integrated approach. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Anderson, M. C., & Neely, J. H. (1996). Interference and inhibition in memory retrieval. In E. L. Bjork, & R. A. Bjork (Eds.), Handbook of perception and memory, Vol. 10: Memory (pp. 237-313). San Diego: Academic Press.

Craik, F. I. M., & Tulving, E. (1975). Depth of processing and the retention of words in

episodic memory. J Exp Psychol Gen, 104, 268-294.

Cowan, N. (2005). Working memory capacity. New York: Psychology Press.

Craik, F. I. M., & Tulving, E. (1975). Depth of processing and the retention of words in

episodic memory. J Exp Psychol Gen, 104, 268-294.

Cowan, N. (2005). Working memory capacity. New York: Psychology Press.

Crowder, R. G. (1976). Principles of Learning and Memory. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Dosher, B. A. (1979). Empirical approaches to information processing: Speed-accuracy tradeoff functions or reaction time. Acta Psychologica, 43, 347-359.

Lachman, R., Lachman, J. L., & Butterfield, E. C. (1979). Cognitive Psychology and information processing: An introduction. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Macmillan, N. A., & Creelman, C. D. (2005). Detection Theory: A User's Guide (2nd ed.). Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Murphy, G. L. (2002). The big book of concepts. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Rayner, K., & Pollatsek, A. (1989). The psychology of reading. New York: Prentice-Hall.

Shipley, T. (1961) Classics in Psychology. New York: Philosophical Library.

Styles, E. A. (2005). Attention, Perception, and Memory: An integrated introduction. New York: Psychology Press.

Tulving, E. (1972). Episodic and semantic memory. In E. Tulving & W. Donaldson (Eds.), Organization of Memory (pp. 382-402). New York, NY: Academic Press, Inc.

Tulving, E., & Thomson, D. M. (1973). Encoding specificity and retrieval processes in episodic memory. Psychological Review, 80(5), 352-373.