Cognition 01:830:305:04

Syllabus Fall 2007

Gretchen Chapman E-mail: gbc (at) rci (dot) rutgers (dot) edu Office: Psychology Building room 215, Busch Campus Office Hours: Thursdays 11:00-12:00 Phone: (732) 445-2640 Fax: (732) 445-2263 Gretchen Chapman is Professor of Psychology and Chair of the Psychology Department at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. Her research focuses on the cognitive mechanisms underlying decision making Teaching Assistant: Corey Grassl E-mail: cgrassl (at) hotmail (dot) com Office: Psychology Building room 219, Busch Campus Office Hours: by appointment

Class time and location

Rutgers University Psychology 01:830:305:04

Fall 2007 semester

Mon & Thurs 1st period (8:40 - 10:00 am)

Livingston Classroom Building room 102 (Livingston Campus)

Course Description

Cognitive processes, including thinking, language, and memory and their development. Prerequisite: 01:830:101 or permission of instructor. The content of this course is highly quantitative. A strong math background is recommended.

Textbook The textbook is available from the Livingston Campus Bookstore Required: Cognitive Psychology -- Douglas L. Medin, Brian H. Ross, & Arthur B. Markman, John Wiley & Sons, 4th Edition, 2005, ISBN 0-471-45820-1 Journal articles: The following journal article reading assignments are provided on-line on the eCompanion course website. Look in the listing for the date on which a particular reading is assigned.

Journal article reading assignments

Date due	Reading assigned
Oct. 8	Loftus, E.F. (2004). Memories of things unseen. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 13, 145-147.
Nov. 1	Newton, A.M. and de Villiers, J.G. (2007). Thinking while talking: Adults fail nonverbal false-belief reasoning. Psychological Science, 18, 574-579
Nov. 19	Baillargeon, R. (2004). Infants' Physical World. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 13, 89-94.
Dec 3	Kahneman, D. (2003).  A perspective on judgment and choice:  Mapping bounded rationality.  American Psychologist, 58, 697-720.
Dec 6	Bastardi, A. & Shafir, E. (2000). Nonconsequentialist reasoning and its consequences. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 9, 216-219.
Dec 10	Greene, J. & Haidt, J. (2002). How (and where) does moral judgment work? Trends in Cognitive Science, 6, 517-523.

Topics and Readings

Date	Topic	Assignments
Thurs Sept 6	Introduction	Chapter 1
Mon Sept 10	Learning	Chapter 2
Thurs Sept 13	Perception	Chapter 3
Mon Sept 17	Attention I	Chapter 4
Thurs Sept 20	Attention II	Chapter 4, cont.
Mon Sept 24	Memory I	Chapter 5
Thurs Sept 27	Exam 1
Mon Oct 1	Memory II	Chapter 6
Thurs Oct 4	Memory III	Chapter 7
Mon Oct 8	Memory IV	Loftus (2004)
Thurs Oct 11	Imagery	Chapter 8
Mon Oct 15	Language I	Chapter 9
Thurs Oct 18	Language II	none
Mon Oct 22	Exam 2
Thurs Oct 25	Concepts and Categories	Chapter 10
Mon Oct 29	Reasoning I	Chapter 11
Thurs Nov 1	Reasoning II	Newton & de Villiers (2007)
Mon Nov 5	Problem Solving	Chapter 12
Thurs Nov 8	Expertise	Chapter 13
Mon Nov 12	Creativity	Chapter 13, cont.
Thurs Nov 15	Exam 3
Mon Nov 19	Cognitive Development	Baillargeon (2004)
Thurs Nov 22	No class – Thanksgiving Break
Mon Nov 26	Intelligence	none
Thurs Nov 29	Judgments of Uncertainty	Chapter 14
Mon Dec 3	Decision Making I	Kahneman (2003)
Thurs Dec 6	Decision Making II	Bastardi & Shafir (2000)
Mon Dec 10	Decision Making III	Greene & Haidt (2002)
Fri Dec 14	Final Exam 4:00 – 7:00 pm

How to reach the professor:

Office Hours: Thursdays 11:00-12:00 in Psychology Building room 215, Busch Campus. Feel free to drop in; no appointment needed. If this time doesn’t work for you, set up a meeting by e-mailing me with 3 suggested times you are available. I am also usually available to talk for a few minutes right before or after class, if you have a quick question.

E-mail: gbc (at) rci (dot) rutgers (dot) edu. E-mail is an excellent way to reach me. I will make every attempt the reply to e-mails within 2 working days. Many times I’ll respond faster, but there are times when I get flooded with e-mail messages. If I don’t respond to your e-mail message within 2 working days, feel free to speak to me before or after class or call me. Please check the course webpage for the answer to your question before you e-mail me. I may not respond to e-mails if the answer to your query is easily found on the course webpage. When sending e-mail to me, use your Rutgers e-mail account. E-mail sent via other ISPs may be categorized as SPAM by my system and consequently would not reach me.

Phone: (732) 445-2640. Feel free to call. But if you don’t reach me and need to leave a message, e-mail is more reliable way to get the message to me.

Exams

There are 4 in-class closed-book time-limited exams. On exam day you must bring your Rutgers photo student ID to class.  Prior to the exam, we will empty out the classroom.  You will then file into the room and receive a seating card that randomly assigns you to a seat.  You must sit in that seat.  Friends are not permitted to sit near each other.  Try to avoid bringing bookbags and backpacks to class.  All books, backpacks, and coats need to be put in the aisles at the edge of the room to keep the seating areas clear.  Do bring several #2 pencils and erasers.  You are not permitted to bring cell phones, pagers, PDAs, calculators, or similar electronic devices into the exam room. If you are seen with such as device, your exam will be taken and you will not be permitted to finish.  When you have completed the exam, hand all your exam materials (question sheet, blue book, etc.) to the professor or a proctor who will at that time check your ID.

What will exams be like?  Exams will consist of a combination of essays and multiple choice questions.  Exam questions will come from the lecture and the readings.  There will be a few questions on material covered in the readings but not in lecture.  Exam questions will test your knowledge of the course content and will also test your reasoning skills.

What if I miss an exam?  Your must take all four exams.  People who miss an in-class exam should take a make-up exam at a date and time scheduled by the Psychology Department.  If you plan to attend a make-up session, you must register one week before the make-up session.  You can register to take a make-up exam using the eCompanion website. Make-up exams use an all-essay format.  The dates and times of these make-up sessions will be announced early in the semester.

Grading Policy

There are 4 exams in this class. Exam 4 is a final exam given in the classroom during final exam period. Grades will be posted on the SAS gradebook. 

Will the final exam be cumulative? Yes and No.  On any exam I will assume that you remember material from all parts of the course.  For example, a question might ask you to contrast decision making (material from a later part of the course) with expertise (material from an early part).  But all exams will have a strong emphasis on material covered in the most recent 25% of the course.

What if I have a question about my exam grade? Answers to essay questions will be posted on the web page after each exam.  If you have a question about your essay grade, please first compare your answer to the posted answer and grading scheme.  If after that you think your essay was not graded properly, please prepare a written statement explaining how you think the essay was misgraded and submit that statement and your bluebook to Dr. Chapman for a re-grade.  If you would like to go over your multiple choice responses, please see Dr. Chapman or the TA during office hours or make a separate appointment.

Are there any extra credit opportunities?  Exams may contain an extra credit questions or two. No other extra credit options are available.

Grading Criteria
Your final grade on the course will be computed as follows:

Final grade = .25(M1) + .25(M2) + .25(M3) + .35(FE) - .10(worst exam),

where M1 = midterm 1 score, M2 = midterm 2 score, M3 =midterm 3 score, FE = final exam score, and worst exam = the exam on which you scored lowest.

Why are we using this confusing grading formula?  This formula gives less weight to your worst score.  This means that if you score poorly on one exam, it will have less impact on your grade than the other exams.  This is similar to a policy of dropping your worst score except that instead of dropping the worst score altogether, (0 weight) we give it reduced weight (.15 instead of .25 for a midterm or .25 instead of .35 for the final).   Consider an example:

	Andrea	Bert
Midterm 1	90	84
Midterm 2	94	85
Midterm 3	65	87
Final Exam	92	82

Andrea gets As on all the exams except Midterm 3, which is her worst score.  Her final grade would be:

final grade = .25(90) + .25(94) + .25(65) + .35(92) - .10(65) = 88, a B+ grade

Note that this is the same as

final grade = .25(90) + .25(94) + .15(65) + .35(92) = 88

which shows that the low score gets less weight than the other exams.  Andrea's final score of 88 is better than the straight (unweighted) average of the four exam scores (85) because the poor score is weighted less.

Bert gets Bs on all the exams.  His final exam score of 82 is his worse score (although it's quite similar to this other scores).   His final grade would be:

final grade = .25(84) + .25(85) + .25(87) + .35(82) - .10(82) = 84.5, a B grade

Bert's final score of 84.5 is about the same as the straight (unweighted) average of the four exam scores.  This is because his four scores are so similar.

So, the points for each exam are:

25	Midterm 1
25	Midterm 2
25	Midterm 3
35	Final Exam
-10	Worst exam score

Grading Scale
The following curve will apply to all exams and the final course grade:

A	90.000 and up
B+	87.000 - 89.999
B	80.000 - 86.999
C+	77.000 - 79.999
C	70.000 - 76.999
D	60.000 - 69.999
F	59.999 and below