Cognitive Science Program
at the University of Virginia

Cognitive Science Current Approved Courses
for Spring 2006

Cognitive Psychology | Philosophy | Linguistics | Neuroscience

 

Previously Approved Courses by Semester

| Spring 2007|
Fall 2006 | Spring 2006 | Fall 2005 | Spring 2005 | Fall 2004 |
| Spring 2004 | Fall 2003 | Spring 2003 | Fall 2002

 

Back to Current Courses

Cognitive Psychology

PSYC 215: Introduction to Cognition

Cognition is the activity of knowing: the acquisition, organization, and use of knowledge. Emphasizing fundamental issues, this course introduces such basic content areas in cognitive psychology as perception, memory, language, cognitive development, and philosophy of science.
*If course is full through ISIS: A waiting list will be maintained through the psychology website. Do not contact the professor.

Instructor: Daniel Willingham

Important Note about PSYC 305 and 306

It is important for you to attend the first PSYC 305 or 306 lecture. You will sign an attendance sheet and be given instructions for completing an online form to confirm your lab registration. If you do not attend class you will be dropped from lecture and the lab. Coming to class late is not an excuse for missing this information. If you are unable to attend, you must contact the Director of Undergraduate Studies before the lecture. The purpose of the online form is to change your lab section if you are not happy in your current lab. The Director of Undergraduate Studies is the only person who can add or change your lab assignment. There are no Course Action forms for lab changes. The order of priority for lab changes are based on the number of alternate labs you select. If your lab is not changed you will be responsible for making the required adjustments to your schedule to accommodate a lab that still has space. Lab changes should be final by the afternoon of the first Friday (if not sooner) of the semester. After that time, you may change to any lab that is open via ISIS, but at the end of the first full week of classes the lab assignments will be locked. Please do not make a special appeal to the instructor, lab T.A., or the Director of Undergraduate Studies if you do not get the lab section you want. You are responsible for checking ISIS to confirm your lab section. All labs begin the first full week of classes. Failure to attend the lab in which you are registered may result in a penalty in your lab grade.

PSYC 305: Research Methods & Data Analysis I
* Prerequisites: Psyc 101 or any 200-level Psyc course

Introduction to research methods in psychology, integrating statistical analysis. Emphasis on descriptive statistics and non-experimental research methods. Use of computers for data analysis, experimentation, and report writing. This course is required for majors and is the first part of a two-part series (305-306).
*If course is full through ISIS: A waiting list will be maintained through the psychology website. Do not contact the professor.

Instructor: Nancy Weinfield

PSYC 306-1: Research Methods & Data Analysis II
* Prerequisites: Psyc 305 ( with C- or better)

Second part of a two-part series required for psychology majors. Emphasis on inferential statistics (t-tests and ANOVA) and issues in experimentation.
*If course is full through ISIS: A waiting list will be maintained through the psychology website. Do not contact the professor.
**Course May Meet Second Writing Requirement**

Instructor: James Freeman

PSYC 306-2: Research Methods & Data Analysis II
* Prerequisites: Psyc 305 ( with C- or better)

Second part of a two-part series required for psychology majors. Emphasis on inferential statistics (t-tests and ANOVA) and issues in experimentation.
*If course is full through ISIS: A waiting list will be maintained through the psychology website. Do not contact the professor.
**Course May Meet Second Writing Requirement**

Instructor: Karen Schmidt

PSYC 402: Memory Distortions:

Although memory is generally accurate, some illusions and distortions in remembering are unavoidable. The consequences of these memory problems range from relatively benign tip-of-the-tongue experiences to untrustworthy eyewitness testimony. This class will review a variety of different memory distortions with the goal of advancing our understanding of memory.

Instructor: Chad Dodson

PSYC 403: Pleasures of the Mind:

A reexamination of the concept of pleasure, this course will focus on the pleasure we take when we go through episodes in our lives. We will discuss theories of emotion, motivation, and esthetics with the goal of gaining an understanding of this complex notion.

Instructor: Michael Kubovy

PSYC 405: The Science of Illusion:
*Prerequisite: PSYC 305 and 306

Students and scientists alike are often amazed by optical illusions. The world as it appears is revealed to be different from the world as it actually is. This course extends this sense of surprise into the study of illusions in several fields of cognitive and social psychology. In each field, we will study how these 'illusions' occur, and what they tell us about the psychological process involved. The definition of illusion for this course is an instance in which what we see, remember, think or feel does not correspond with the actual state of the world. In exploring illusions as so defined, students will embark on a tour of important research findings and the philosophy that guides them. The course will chart illusions through perceptual, developmental, cognitive and social psychology. The units include: perceptual illusions (both visual and other), developmental illusions, memory illusions, illusions of judgment and decision making, social illusions (such as conscious will and affective forecasting) and the illusions of being (artificial intelligence) and being there (virtual reality).

Instructor: Cedar Riener

PSYC 411 Psycholinguistics

This course will discuss how linguistic models help us to understand the psychology of language. We will focus on the emergence of language in children, acquisition and development of language, language disorders and neurolinguistics, sociolinguistics, and bilingualism.

Instructor: Filip Loncke

PSYC 412: Psychology Of Reading:
*Prerequisite: PSYC 101 or 215 or instructor permission.

For those of us who study the psychology of reading, it sometimes amazes us that most people do not think much about the reading process. If you ask the typical person about how reading works, a typical response is that it just does. You just look at words on a page and then the sounds come out of your mouth. Under certain circumstances, however, a deeper level of evaluation is forthcoming and people report that it is a very complicated process. I don't know how I do it, but for as long as I can remember I could do it. When we listen to someone who has some type of reading impairment, when we observe young children as they are learning to read, when we are unsure about the meaning of a passage (Did the main character insult a minor character or was it the other way around?), when we debate the pronunciation of a word (greasy, Roanoke, Staunton, theater, insurance) or when we read a passage in a second language, we are making evaluations/decisions during the reading process. For the most part, we feel that we just “read”. The focus of this class, Psychology of Reading, is the study of the reading process; what happens when we process the squiggles on the page to meaningful information that we can use. This includes word processing, sentence processing, speed-reading, text comprehension, etc. All of this is related to how we think. We will read basic/historical information from texts, review recent psychological experiments that address reading data from bottom-up processing models, top-down processing models, and interactive models, and consider some hands-on experiences related to the reading process. The psychology of reading is an interesting mix of experimental & cognitive psychology and structural linguistics. But as you will see, it is also related to neurology, phonetics, anthropology, sociology, education, and so on.

Instructor: Beverly Adams

NESC 533: Neural Networks:
*Instructor permission

Introduces, from an elementary but somewhat mathematical viewpoint, the newly developing field of neural networks. Examines the basic principles of neural network theory as it relates to biological neural networks.

Instructor: William Levy

 

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Philosophy

PHIL 242: Introduction to Symbolic Logic

A basic introduction to the concepts and techniques of modern formal logic. The aim of this course is to give the student a working knowledge of both sentential and quantifier logic. The emphasis is on developing an ability to carry out proofs within these systems and on developing an ability to translate sentences of natural language into symbolic notation. The course will acquaint the student with the concepts of formula, proof, interpretation and validity. Students will use logic software that will allow them to develop greater expertise with the material.

Instructor: Jonathan Stoltz

PHIL 334: Philosophy of Mind

What is the nature of the mind and why do we find its nature so puzzling? We shall critically examine various theories about the nature of the mind; we shall also discuss the nature of particular kinds of mental states and events, such as beliefs, desires, feelings, sensory experiences, and others.
We shall be especially concerned with the relations between the mind and the body, and, more generally, between the mental and the physical. Most of the readings will be by contemporary philosophers

Instructor: Brie Gertler

PHIL 547:Philosophy of Mathematics
* Prerequisite: Some familiarity with quantifier logic (PHIL 242) or permission of instructor.

A comparison of various schools in the philosophy of mathematics (including logicism, formalism, and conceptualism) and their answers to such questions as "Do numbers exist?" and "How is mathematical knowledge possible?"

 Instructor: James Cargile

 

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Linguistics

MDST 311:Computers And Languages

This course surveys contemporary research issues in computers and language. Topics to be studied include the linguistics of programming languages; how computers are used in linguistics, including fieldwork, archiving, and analysis; the development of computer-based corpora and methods for their analysis; and the impact of the World Wide Web and other associated technologies on world languages. We will look in particular, and in some detail, at contemporary research projects that attempt to make computers speak something like human language. Our focus will be primarily conceptual and analytic, trying to understand what these research programs take the nature of language and mind to be. Students will write two brief (4-5pp.) and one longer (8-10pp.) paper. Satisfies second writing requirement and the linguistics requirement for Cognitive Science.

Instructor: David Golumbia

PSYC 411 Psycholinguistics

This course will discuss how linguistic models help us to understand the psychology of language. We will focus on the emergence of language in children, acquisition and development of language, language disorders and neurolinguistics, sociolinguistics, and bilingualism.

Instructor: Filip Loncke

PSYC 412: Psychology Of Reading:
*Prerequisite: PSYC 101 or 215 or instructor permission.

For those of us who study the psychology of reading, it sometimes amazes us that most people do not think much about the reading process. If you ask the typical person about how reading works, a typical response is that it just does. You just look at words on a page and then the sounds come out of your mouth. Under certain circumstances, however, a deeper level of evaluation is forthcoming and people report that it is a very complicated process. I don't know how I do it, but for as long as I can remember I could do it. When we listen to someone who has some type of reading impairment, when we observe young children as they are learning to read, when we are unsure about the meaning of a passage (Did the main character insult a minor character or was it the other way around?), when we debate the pronunciation of a word (greasy, Roanoke, Staunton, theater, insurance) or when we read a passage in a second language, we are making evaluations/decisions during the reading process. For the most part, we feel that we just “read”. The focus of this class, Psychology of Reading, is the study of the reading process; what happens when we process the squiggles on the page to meaningful information that we can use. This includes word processing, sentence processing, speed-reading, text comprehension, etc. All of this is related to how we think. We will read basic/historical information from texts, review recent psychological experiments that address reading data from bottom-up processing models, top-down processing models, and interactive models, and consider some hands-on experiences related to the reading process. The psychology of reading is an interesting mix of experimental & cognitive psychology and structural linguistics. But as you will see, it is also related to neurology, phonetics, anthropology, sociology, education, and so on.

Instructor: Beverly Adams

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Computer Science

All CS courses are acceptable except CS 110, CS 120, and CS 182.
ECE 200 will count for credit, but does not fill CS area requirement.

The most common intro-level CS courses for Cognitive Science majors are:

CS 101: Introduction to Computer Science
CS150: From Ada and Euclid to Quantum Computing and the World Wide Web
CS 202: Discrete Mathematics

**For many computer science courses above the 200 level instructor permission is required for students in the College of Arts and Sciences.

 

Neuroscience

PSYC 220: Intro to Psychobiology

After an overview of brain structure and organization, the course examines what we know about the biological bases of perception, learning and memory, emotion and psychopathology, as well as the regulatory behaviors: sleep, thirst, eating, sex, and those associated with psychoneuroimmunology.
*Includes Optional Review Session

Instructor: Kurt Illig

PSYC 420: Neural Mechanisms of Behavior
* Prerequisite: PSYC 220 or 222, or instructor permission; prior or concurrent enrollment in PSYC 321 is highly recommended

Lectures and discussion on molecular and cellular aspects of neural mechanisms as they relate to behavior. Topics will include neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, neurotransmitters and receptors, neuropharmacology, cortical organization and function, plasticity and neurodegenerative diseases.

Instructor: Alev Erisir

** OR- BIOL: 408 CAN COUNT FOR THIS REQUIREMENT. BOTH WILL NOT COUNT TOWARD THE MAJOR **

PSYC 520: Sensory System Development and Plasticity
* Prerequisite: PSYC 220, 222 or 420

A survey of sensory systems and plasticity. Organizational principles common for sensory systems, and mechanisms of plasticity will be discussed.

Instructor: Alev Erisir

NESC 533: Neural Networks:
*Instructor permission

Introduces, from an elementary but somewhat mathematical viewpoint, the newly developing field of neural networks. Examines the basic principles of neural network theory as it relates to biological neural networks.

Instructor: William Levy

BIOL 427: Animal Behavior Laboratory:
*BIOL 325 recommended

Provides direct experience in approaches used to study animal behavior. Each lab concentrates on a particular aspect of behavior. Student experiments relate to central nervous systems; sensory perception; sign stimuli, feeding behavior; social behavior; reproductive behavior; biological timing; and animal observation in the laboratory and field.

Instructor: Masashi Kawasaki

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