PSYC2050 Learning objectives

Lecture 1
Topics
1. History of psychology of learning and cognition
2. Scientific approaches to learning and cognition
3. Definitions of learning
4. What comprises cognitive psychology
5. Overview and rationale of this course

Learning objectives
1. to recount the basic historical stages and key contributions

2. to outline the information processing approach to cognition

Lecture 2
Topics
1. Ivan Pavlov, dogs and bells
2. Elements of Pavlovian conditioning
3. Phases of a typical conditioning experiment
4. Learning processes during acquisition
5. Learning processes during extinction
6. Pavlovian conditioning designs: The effect of time

Learning objectives
1. understand the basic logic of learning via association
2. identify the main parts of the prototypical Pavlovian conditioning experiment
3. distinguish the different learning processes that can occur within a Pavlovian
conditioning experiment and the nature of these processes
4. identify the design factors that influence Pavlovian conditioning and to be able to
describe how they do so

Lecture 3
Topics
1. Some Pavlovian conditioning phenomena
2. Why formal models of associative learning
3. The Rescorla-Wagner model
3. Pavlovian conditioning: Research examples
4. Pavlovian conditioning: Applied examples

Learning objectives
1. identify and describe the experimental procedures of some Pavlovian conditioning
phenomena and to explain their implications for Pavlovian conditioning
2. understand how psychological research uses formal models to explain behaviour
3. understand the Rescorla-Wagner model, and the predictions it makes
4. understand how Pavlovian conditioning is used in research
 5. understand how Pavlovian conditioning can be applied to everyday life and in clinical
settings.

Lecture 4
Topics
1. Shaping
2. Classification of consequences:
a) Positive and negative reinforcement, punishment.
b) Primary, secondary, and generalised reinforcers.
3. Schedules of reinforcement:
a) Continuous and intermittent (ratio and interval; fixed and variable).
b) Partial reinforcement extinction effect.
4. Reward Variables: Drive, magnitude, and delay.
5. Stimulus Control

Learning objectives
1. understand the basis of operant conditioning
2. understand the classification of consequences
3. understand the link between schedules of reinforcement and different rates of
learning
4. understand the various reward variables that affect reinforcement

Lecture 5
Topics
1. Theories of reinforcement: drive reduction and behaviour regulation
2. The Premack Principle & response deprivation theory
3. Avoidance and punishment
4. Learned helplessness
5. Behavioural therapy
6. Functional analysis

Learning objectives
1. understand the nature of different theories of how reinforcement works
2. understand the nature of punishment and its limitations
3. understand the concept of learned helplessness and its relationship to
psychopathology
4. understand how psychological professionals apply the principles of behavioural
therapy to clients

Lecture 6
Topics
1. The cocktail party effect and the early history of attention research.
2. Structure vs. capacity theories of attentional limits, effects of practice
3. Objects, locations; change and inattention blindness
4. Features and feature conjunctions in visual search
5. Rapid serial visual presentation and the Attentional Blink (AB)
Learning objectives
1. Describe attention and the early vs. late selection issue
2. Outline structural and capacity ideas about limits on attention
3. Differentiate feature and conjunction search and outline Feature Integration Theory
4. Describe evidence for the endogenous control of attention in visual cuing tasks
5. Give the rationale of rapid visual presentation, describe the AB, and evaluate some
popular theoretical explanations of the effect.

Lecture 7
Topics
1. Cognitive control in the task switching paradigm
2. Automaticity and controlled processes
3. Attentional control and working memory
4. The central executive and the components of Baddeley’s model.
5. Later conceptions of working memory

Learning objectives
1. Describe key results in task switching and their implications for the source of costs:
Task preparation vs. disengaging from a prior task.
2. List the characteristics of automaticity and describe the situations that produce
automatic vs. controlled processes.
3. Describe how the central executive of the Baddeley and Hitch model is involved in
attentional control and the function of working memory.
4. Outline Baddeley’s working memory model and its components.
5. Outline slots vs. resource models of VSTM and related findings.
6. Describe key experiments evaluating the model and recent ideas about the
limitations of the model.

Lecture 8
Topics
1. Characterising memory, the episodic vs. semantic distinction
2. Long term and short term (working) memory; the “modal model” and its problems
3. Memory tasks in the laboratory; implicit vs. explicit tests of memory.
4. Forgetting – decay vs. interference
5. False memories, and the controversy about inhibition of memories.

Learning objectives
1. Distinguish episodic and semantic memories
2. Describe recency and primacy effects and how they relate to short- and long term
memory
3. Evaluate the modal memory model
4. Describe typical memory tasks and distinguish explicit and implicit tests of memory
5. Describe possible causes of forgetting and explain how experiments have shed light
on forgetting, false memories and the possibility of memory inhibition.

Lecture 9
Topics
 1. Encoding and depth of processing effects
2. Retrieval cues and how they work
3. Encoding-retrieval interactions and transfer appropriate processing (TAP)
4. Contrasting processing theories with memory systems analyses of memory tasks.
5. Applications - learning at university.

Learning objectives
1. Explain what is meant by encoding, retrieval and encoding-retrieval interactions
2. Describe evidence about depth of processing and emotion in memory encoding
3. Indicate what the evidence suggests about retrieval processes and retrieval cues
4. Discuss evidence for the Transfer Appropriate Processing framework vs. the idea of
memory systems
5. Summarise the benefits of repeated tests of learning and suggest other applications
of memory research to learning at university.

Lecture 10
Topics
1. Mental imagery
2. Dual code theory
3. Conceptual-propositional hypothesis
4. Functional equivalence hypothesis

5. Nature and development of foresight

Learning objectives
1. to describe the three theories of imagery and evidence for them
2. to provide empirical reasons for the claim that imagery involves similar processes as
perception
3. to explain the findings of mental rotation studies
4. to describe links between memory and foresight
5. to debate the claim the mental time travel is uniquely human

Lecture 11
Topics
1. History
2. Tool use & causal reasoning
3. Social intelligence
4. Language
5. Self-recognition
6. Phylogenetic reconstruction

Learning objectives
1. describe historical approaches to comparative cognition
2. explain the Clever Hans phenomenon
3. outline the ecological and the social intelligence hypotheses.
4. describe the key findings of the ‘ape-language projects’
 5. report the results of research on Mirror Self Recognition
6. explain the argument by homology (phylogenetic reconstruction)

Lecture 12
Topics
1. Properties
2. Phonology
3. Speech perception
4. Morphology
5. Syntax
6. Pragmatics
7. Neuroscience
8. Acquisition
9. Evolution

Learning objectives
1. explain the special characteristics of human language
2. describe the hierarchies of linguistic components
3. explain the McGurk effect
4. identify violations of Gricean maxims
5. name brain areas associated with language
6. provide reasons for the idea of a language instinct