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Content
Cognitive Psychology is the branch of psychology that deals with the study of psychological functions such as perception, attention, learning, remembering, reading, speaking, reasoning and decision making. Cognitive psychology examines how these behaviours come about and depend on the circumstances in which they occur. In the lectures, experimental studies are mainly discussed, and some background about the experiment as a method is discussed. The following topics are then discussed:
• Perception: seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling and tasting
• Learning: classical and operant conditioning
• Memory: remembering information in the short and long-term memory and related processes
• Attention, awareness, sleep
• Language: speech and writing
• Thinking, problem solving, insight and other higher cognitive processes
• Emotions.
Experimental Skills practical
Six Experimental Skills practicals are organized during the lecture cycle (start of the 2nd lecture week). The student learns to program a number of simple experiments using the OpenSesame program. In the final part, students (in pairs) prepare an experimental question, program their experiment, test a number of test subjects and process, interpret and present their data. At the end of the practicals series, the student submits a short report about his / her experiment. Further instructions can be found in the manual of the Experimental Skills Practicals.
Classical experiments in cognitive psychology
The student will be introduced to a number of classical experiments from experimental psychology. This involves, among other things, measuring simple reaction times, the waterfall illusion, priming, false memories and a signal detection experiment. Every student acts as a test subject in every experiment. After the individual data have been collected, it is processed and questions are answered about the collected measurement data. Further instructions can be found in the manual for Classical Experiments
Type of instructions
13 x 2 hours lectures and 6 practicals
Type of exams
Written (Multiple Choice) and assignments
Compulsory Reading
- Schacter, D, Gilbert, D., Wegner, D., & Hood, B., Psychology: 2nd European edition, Palgrave, 2016, ISBN 978-1-137-40674-3
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