PSY 3960: Undergraduate Seminar

The Brain & Cognitive Processes

Course syllabus

Fall 2007

University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

Instructor: Y. V. Jiang

Psychology 3960: Brain & Cognitive Processes (Undergrad Seminar)

What, when, & where

Course number : Psychology 3960: Brain & Cognitive Processes

When : Fall 2007, Wednesday, 9:45am-12:15pm

Where : Elliott Hall 204; TCEASTBANK

Prereq : PSY 1001

Credit : 3 credits

Instructor Info

Professor : Y.V. Jiang (Assistant Professor, Dept of Psychology)

Office : Elliott Hall S251 (75 East River Road)

Email : cogneuro.jiang@gmail.com

Phone : 612-625-7003 (but email is preferred!)

Office hours : immediately after most classes, or by appointment

Course web page : To be announced

Course Description

Welcome to Undergraduate Seminar on Cognitive and Brain Processes! This year’s topic will focus on attention and consciousness as well as perception of human faces. Each class we will discuss readings from the current literature and engage in real-time in-class experiments and data collection. Toward the end of the semester each student should submit an original research proposal related to topics covered in the seminar.

Textbook

No textbook. Readings will be taken from current scientific literature: you'll learn the most recent stuff!

Expected work & grading

1. (20%) Presentation of research articles

Each student will be required to present at least one research article every 2 or 3 weeks. For weeks when multiple articles are assigned, they may be divided between several presenters, as determined on previous weeks.

The presentation should be in Power point format. You should send your Powerpoint slides to Dr. Jiang (cogneuro.jiang@gmail.com) no later than Tuesday noon if you will be presenting during Wednesday’s class.

2. (40%) Written summary of assigned readings and class participation

When reading materials are assigned for discussions, it is essential that you carefully and critically study the readings, even though you are not the presenter. To encourage this, you will be asked to write a short summary that should not be longer than 1 page (single-spaced; do not use tiny font sizes that my poor eyes can’t see). The summary includes: (1) Summary of the study in 2-3 sentences; (2) two things that you like about the article; (3) One thing that you didn’t like and wish the authors had done better; (4) one quiz question that you might ask your classmates; and (5) one research question to pursue in the future. You must turn in your reading homework in person (to S251 Elliot Hall) or via email to Dr. Jiang (cogneuro.jiang@gmail.com) no later than Tuesday at 5pm, for readings to be discussed on Wednesday of that week. The written summary will be graded on a 10 points scale. Late submissions will receive 1 fewer point for every hour that was late. Written summary turned in after 3am on Wednesday will receive no points. Grading guideline and sample written-summaries are attached later.

If you elect to submit homework via email, it is your responsibility to ensure that the file you sent me is free of viruses and can be opened with a pdf reader or Microsoft Word. Delays due to technical problems will be treated the same as late submission. If your file contains a virus you will be barred from turning in assignment electronically for the rest of the semester; you must deliver a printed copy to Dr. Jiang’s office. The best solution to avoid viruses and other technical difficulties is to use a plain text editor. For example, you can cut and paste your response directly into the email body text.

3. (40%) Written research proposal and presentation

Each student will prepare a research proposal (limited to 2000 words & 3 single-spaced pages, including references, figures, tables, and appendices). This proposal must be directly related to topics that we covered. It must be original. That is, it must NOT be (1) a study that has already conducted by you or other researchers, or (2) a study that you have proposed for another course. The proposal should include:

(1) A title (do not exceed 56 characters);

(2) Project Description (3 single-spaced pages. Use Times 12 points and leave 1” margin on each side). It should include: A brief review of the relevant literature, aims and hypotheses, research design and methods, and predicted results and interpretation of possible outcomes. References should be cited where necessary.

The proposed study will not actually be conducted.

Presentation (15%): Each student should give a short 15-min overview of the background and their proposal, followed by a 5-min discussion.

Written Proposal (25%): The entire written proposal is due at 12pm on Friday, December 14^th. A paper copy should be delivered to the instructor's office in S251 Elliott Hall. Late submission will receive ZERO points.

Guideline for written homework

Each week’s homework will be graded on a 10-point scale. Assuming that you turned in your work by the deadline, the following grading policy ensues: 9-10: Exhibit solid understanding of the study; comments are especially thoughtful; 8: exhibit solid understanding of the study; comments are logical and well-reasoned; 6-7: don’t exhibit a solid understanding of the study; comments are too vague; 5: turned in homework, wrote about something related to the assigned reading; 0: did not turn in homework or turned in homework unrelated to the assigned reading.

Common pitfalls:

Too verbose: Unclear if truly central points are understood when so much stuff is written on the page;

Too slim: Not enough words on the page to demonstrate good comprehension of the study.

Too vague: “Cut and paste criterion”: Comments could be cut and pasted into future homework and would easily apply to many science research articles. (e.g., comments such as “I do not like this study because it did not test 100 subjects; I like this study because the article is well-written.”

Sample:

A sample homework (one that received a perfect 10) can be found here.

Preliminary course outline

Here is a preliminary outline of the materials that we’ll cover in this course. The exact timing of these lectures and the exact readings are very subject to changes. We may end up spending more time than is listed here on topics that strike you as especially interesting or difficult.

Week 1: 9/5/2007: Introduction to the course

- An introduction to the topics covered in this class

- In-class experiments

- Organizational meeting: divvy up the presentations

- Course requirement and guideline for projects

Week 2: 9/12/2007: Consciousness 1: Change Blindness

Readings: (written homework required for any 1 of the 3; due 9/11 at 5pm)

(1) Rensink RA, O’Regan JK, Clark JJ (1997). To see or not to see: The need for attention to perceive changes in scenes. Psychological Science, 8, 368-373.

(2) Levin DT, Simons DJ (1997). Failure to detect changes to attended objects in motion pictures. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 4, 501-506.

(3) Kelley TA, Chun MM, Chua K-P (2003). Effects of scene inversion on change detection of targets matched for visual salience. Journal of Vision, 3(1), 1-5.

Week3: 9/19/2007: Consciousness 2: Preserved representation in Change Blindness

Readings: (written homework required for any 1 of the 3; due 9/18 at 5pm)

(1) Simons DJ, Chabris CF, Schnur T, & Levin DT (2002). Evidence for preserved representation in change blindness. Consciousness & Cognition, 11(1), 78-97.

(2) Mitroff SR, Simons DJ, Levin DT (2004). Nothing compares 2 views: Change blindness can occur despite preserved access to the changed information. Perception & Psychophysics, 66(8), 1268-1281.

(3) Hollingworth A (2003). Failures of retrieval and comparison constrain change detection in natural scenes. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, 29(2), 388-403.

Week 4: 9/26/2007: Consciousness 3: Implicit change detection

Readings: (written homework required for any 1 of the 4; due 9/25/ at 5pm)

(1) Mitroff SR, Simons Dj, Franconeri SL (2002). The siren song of implicit change detection. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, 28(4), 798-815.

(2) Fernandez-Duque D, Thornton IM (2003). Explicit mechanisms do not account for implicit localization and identification of change: An empirical reply to Mitroff et al. (2002). Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, 29(5), 846-858.

(3) Rensink RA (2004). Visual sensing without seeing. Psychological Science, 15(1), 27-32.

(4) Simons DJ, Nevarez G, Boot WR (2005). Visual sensing IS seeing: Why “mindsight,” in hindsight, is blind. Psychological Science, 16(7), 520-524.

Week 5: 10/3/2007: Consciousness 4: Brain mechanisms of change detection

Readings: (written homework required for any 1 of the 3; due 10/2/ at 5pm)

(1) Beck DM, Rees G, Frith CD, Lavie N (2001). Neural correlates of change detection and change blindness. Nature Neuroscience, 4(6), 645-650.

(2) Beck DM, Muggleton N, Walsh V, Lavie N (2006). Right parietal cortex plays a critical role in change blindness. Cerebral Cortex, 16(5), 712-717.

(3) Reddy L, Quiroga RQ, Wilken P, Koch C, Fried I (2006). A single-neuron correlate of change detection and change blindness in the human medial temporal lobe. Current Biology, 16(20), 2066-2072.

Week 6: 10/10/2007: Consciousness 5: Inattentional blindness

Readings: (written homework required for any 1 of the 3; due 10/9 at 5pm)

(1) Simons DJ, Chabris CF (1999). Gorillas in our midst: Sustained inattentional blindness for dynamic events. Perception, 28(9), 1059-1074.

(2) Most MB, Simons DJ, Scholl BJ, Jimenez R, Clifford E, Chabris CF (2001). How not to be seen: The contribution of similarity and selective ignoring to sustained inattentional blindness. Psychological Science, 12(1), 9-17.

(3) Cartwright-Finch U, Lavie N (2007). The role of perceptual load in inattentional blindness. Cognition, 102(3), 321-340.

Week 7: 10/17/2007: Consciousness 6: Preserved representation in inattentional blindness

Readings: (written homework required for any 1 of the 3; due 10/16 at 5pm)

(1) Rees G, Russell C, Frith CD, Driver J (1999). Inattentional blindness versus inattentional amnesia for fixated but ignored words. Science, 286, 2504-2507.

(2) Moore CM, Egeth H (1997). Perception without attention: Evidence of grouping under conditions of inattention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, 23(2), 339-352.

(3) Todd JJ, Fougnie D, Marois R (2005). Visual short-term memory load suppresses temporo-parietal junction activity and induces inattentional blindness. Psychological Science, 16(12), 965-972.

Week 8: 10/24/2007: Learning 1: Training of attention and working memory

Readings: (written homework required for any 1 of the 3; due 10/23 at 5pm)

(1) Green CS, Bavelier D (2003). Action video game modifies visual selective attention. Nature, 423, 534-537.

(2) Green CS, Bavelier D (2006). Enumeration versus multiple object tracking: The case of action video game players. Cognition, 101(1), 217-245.

(3) Green CS, Bavelier D (2006). Effect of action video games on the spatial distribution of visuospatial attention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, 32(6), 1465-1478.

Week 9: 10/31/2007: Learning 2: Critical Period in vision

Readings: (written homework required for #1 or #2; due 10/30 at 5pm)

(1) Gregory RL, Wallace JG (1967). Recovery from Early Blindness. Experimental Psychology Society Monograph, No. 2 1963.

(2) Ostrovsky Y, Andalman A, Sinha P (2006). Vision following extended congenital blindness. Psychological Science, 17(12), 1009-1014.

(3) Le Grand R, Mondloch CJ, Maurer D, Brent HP (2001). Neuroperception. Early visual experience and face processing. Nature, 2001, 410.

Week 10: 11/7/2007: Perception of faces and scenes 1: Attention dependency

Readings: (written homework required for any 1 of the 3; due 11/6 at 5pm)

(1) Li FF, VanRullen R, Koch C, Perona P (2002). Rapid natural scene categorization in the near absence of attention. Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences, USA, 99(14), 9596-9601.

(2) Evans KK, Treisman A (2005). Perception of objects in natural scenes: Is it really attention free? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, 31(6), 1476-1492.

(3) Reddy L, Reddy L, Koch C (2006). Face identification in the near-absence of focal attention. Vision Research, 46(15), 2336-2343.

Week 11: 11/14/2005: Perception of faces and scenes 2: Brain activity and attention

Readings: (written homework required for any 1 of the 3; due 11/13 at 5pm)

(1) Tong F, Nakayama K, Vaughan JT, Kanwisher N (1998). Binocular rivalry and visual awareness in human extrastriate cortex. Neuron, 21(4), 753-759.

(2) O’Craven KM, Kanwisher N (2000). Mental imagery of faces and places activates corresponding stimulus-specific brain regions. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 12(6), 1013-1023.

(3) Jiang Y, Costello P, Fang F, Huang M, He S (2006). A gender- and sexual orientation-dependent spatial attention effect of invisible images. Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences, 103(45), 17048-17052.

Week 12: 11/21/2007: Perception of faces and scenes 3: domain specificity

Readings: (written homework required for any 1 of the 2; due 11/20 at 5pm)

(1) Moscovitch M, Winocur G, Behrmann M (1997). What is special about face recognition? Nineteen experiments on a person with visual object agnosia and dyslexia but normal face recognition. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 9, 555-604.

(2) Duchaine B, Nakayama K (2005). Dissociations of face and object recognition in developmental prosopagnosia. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 17(2), 249-261.

Week 13: 11/28/2007: Perception of faces and scenes 4: Distributed or localized brain activity

Readings: (written homework required for any 1 of the 3; due 11/27 at 5pm)

(1) Haxby JV, Gobbini MI, Furey ML, Ishai A, Schouten JL, Pietrini P. (2001). Distributed and overlapping representations of faces and objects in ventral temporal cortex. Science, 293(5539), 2425-2430.

(2) Spiridon M, Kanwisher N (2002). How distributed is visual category information in human occipito-temporal cortex? An fMRI study. Neuron, 35(16), 1157-1165.

(3) Downing PE, Chan AW, Peelen MV, Dodds CM, Kanwisher N (2006). Domain specificity in visual cortex. Cerebral Cortex, 16(10), 1453-1461.

Weeks 14-15 (12/5, 12/12): Students’ Final Project Presentation:

Each week up to ?? students will present, each for a max of 20 minutes, of their final project proposal.

Final draft of the project proposal due Friday at 12noon on Dec 14, 2007 to S251 Elliott Hall.

University-wide policies

Standards: The official University grading standards are as follows:

A: Achievement that is outstanding relative to the level necessary to meet course requirements.

B: Achievement that is significantly above the level necessary to meet course requirements.

C: Achievement that meets the course requirements in every respect.

D: Achievement that is worthy of credit even though it fails to meet fully the course requirements.

S: achievement that is satisfactory, which is equivalent to a C- or better (achievement required for an S is at the discretion of the instruction but may be no lower than a C-).

F (or N): Represents failure (or no credit) and signifies that the work was either (1) completed but at a level of achievement that is not worthy of credit or (2) was not completed and there was no agreement between the instructor and the student that the student would be awarded an I.

I (Incomplete): Assigned at the discretion of the instructor when, due to extraordinary circumstances, e.g., hospitalization, a student is prevented from completing the work of the course on time. Requires a written agreement between instructor and student.

Misconduct:

Academic dishonesty in any portion of the academic work for a course shall be grounds for awarding a grade of F or N for the entire course. The College of Liberal Arts has broadly defined scholastic dishonesty as any act violating the rights of another student in academic work or involving misrepresentation of your own work. Scholastic dishonesty includes, but is not necessarily limited to, cheating on assignments or examinations; plagiarizing, which is misrepresenting as your own work any part of work done by another; submitting the same work, or substantially similar works, to meet the requirements of more than one course without the approval and consent of all instructors concerned; depriving another student of necessary course materials; or interfering with another student's work.

Board of Regents policy includes: “Scholastic dishonesty means plagiarizing; cheating on assignments or examinations; engaging in unauthorized collaboration on academic work; taking, acquiring, or using test materials without faculty permission; submitting false or incomplete records of academic achievement; acting alone or in cooperation with another to falsify records or to obtain dishonestly grades, honors, awards, or professional endorsement; or altering, forging, or misusing a University academic record; or fabricating or falsifying of data, research procedures, or data analysis.” (see http://www1.umn.edu/regents/policies/academic/StudentConductCode.html)

Miscellaneous:

Students are responsible for all information disseminated in class and all course requirements, including deadlines and examinations.

A student is not permitted to submit extra work in an attempt to raise his or her grade.

Students with disabilities that affect their ability to participate fully in class or to meet all course requirements are encouraged to bring this to the attention of the instructor so that appropriate accommodations can be arranged. Further information is available from Disabilities Services(180 McNamara Alumni Center, 612-626-1333).

University policy prohibits sexual harassment as defined in the December 1998 policy statement, available at the Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action. Questions or concerns about sexual harassment should be directed to this office, located in 419 Morrill Hall.

Workload:

For undergraduate courses, one credit is defined as equivalent to an average of three hours of learning effort per week (over a full semester) necessary for an average student to achieve an average grade in the course. For example, a student taking a three credit course that meets for three hours a week should expect to spend an additional six hours a week on coursework outside the classroom.