Spring 2007
830:305 – Cognition
Section 01: Tuesdays and Fridays, 10:20 – 11:40 AM, SEC 210

Instructor: Dr. John AckroffTeaching Assistant: Naama Nebenzahl
ackroff@rci.rutgers.edu naamane@eden.rutgers.edu
Tillett 609Psychology 219 (Busch)
Office Hours: Tuesdays, 1:15 - 2:30,Office Hours: Wednesdays, 10:00 - 12:00,
and by appointmentand by appointment

Web Page:

http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~ackroff/Cognition  PowerPoint presentations for each lecture will be available here before each lecture.  Other information may also be found here.

Textbook:



To be available at New Jersey Books, 108 Somerset St., New Brunswick.

About Cognition:

Most people think that cognition is about thinking and learning. In this course, we will take a much broader approach, and look at how our brain and mental processes are involved in almost every aspect of our lives.

Exams and Grading:

There will be three non-cumulative multiple choice exams based on the text and other materials presented in class. You are responsible for bringing pencils with erasers to each exam. Exam scores will be posted in the SAS Gradebook; a link will be available on the course web page. If you have questions about your score on an exam, you must discuss it with your Teaching Assistant before the next exam.

If you have a schedule conflict with an exam, you may be allowed to take the exam before the scheduled date at the discretion of the instructor. If you miss an exam, you will be allowed to take a make-up exam only if you present a note from your Dean's office verifying that you missed the exam due to an excused absence. This note should also indicate a reasonable time frame in which you will be able to make up the exam. You should give this note to the instructor within 1 week of the scheduled date of the exam.

Exams are often given in a different location in order to allow for more room between students. Room changes will be posted on the class web page. If an exam is cancelled or postponed on the day of the exam, there will be a member of the Psychology Department in the room at the scheduled time to make the announement. Notices posted on doors or the blackboard are likely to be hoaxes.

Final grades will be determined by your scores on the exams. The following grades are "guaranteed", although the actual cutoff points will be determined based on the distribution of scores: 90% = A, 80% = B, 70% = C, 60% = D. Extra credit will be added once the cutoff points have been determined.

Practice Exams

will be made available at www.rutgersonline.net. You will need a Rutgers NetID to log in; your password is your date of birth in YYYYMMDD format.

Supplementary Instruction:

Eugene Ruby (eruby@eden.rci.edu) will hold Supplementary Instruction sessions weekly on Tuesdays at 7:40 P.M. in Scott 205.

Extra Credit:

You will have an opportunity to earn up to three extra credit points by taking special forms of the practice exams. This will be explained when the first Practice Exam is made available.

Questions:

I encourage you to ask questions during class. Because of schedule-related issues, I prefer not to answer questions before or after class.

Schedule

DateTopicReading
Tuesday Jan 16Course Introduction; Course Overview
Friday Jan 19 History of Cognition; Organization of the BrainChapter 1
Tuesday Jan 23ActionChapter 2
Friday Jan 26VisionChapter 3
Tuesday Jan 30Recognition and EmotionChapter 5; pp. 108-111
Friday, Feb 2Working Memory and LanguageChapter 5
Tuesday Feb 6Review for Exam 1Chapters 1 - 3 and 5; pp. 108-111
Friday, Feb 9Exam 1Chapters 1 - 3 and 5; pp. 108-111
Tuesday, Feb 13Attention: Divided AttentionChapter 4
Friday, Feb 16Attention: Response Bottleneck and AlertingChapter 4
Tuesday, Feb 20Infant Learning and Language LearningChapter 6
Friday Feb 23Mature LearningChapter 6
Tuesday Feb 27OrganizationChapter 7
Friday Mar 2Anterograde AmnesiaChapter 7
Tuesday Mar 6Categorization and MnemonicsChapter 8
Friday Mar 9Review for Exam 2Chapters 4 and 6 - 8
Tuesday, Mar 13No Class – Spring Break
Friday, Mar 16No Class – Spring Break
Tuesday Mar 20Exam 2Chapters 4 and 6 - 8
Friday, March 23Signal Detection and RetrievalChapter 10
Tuesday Mar 27RecallChapter 9
Friday Mar 30Episodic MemoryChapter 10
Tuesday Apr 3No Class
Friday Apr 6False Memory and Retrograde AmnesiaChapter 10
Tuesday Apr 10False Memory and Retrograde Amnesia continued
Friday Apr 13ReasoningChapter 11
Tuesday Apr 17Reasoning continuedChapter 11
Friday Apr 20Problem SolvingChapter 12
Tuesday Apr 24IntelligenceChapter 16
Friday Apr 27Review for Exam 3Chapters 9 - 12
Thursday May 3Exam 3, 12:00 PMChapters 9 - 12