Universität Wien
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200143 SE Advanced Seminar: Mind and Brain (2024W)

Fundamental Topics in Cognitive Science

4.00 ECTS (2.00 SWS), SPL 20 - Psychologie
Continuous assessment of course work

Dieses Vertiefungsseminar kann für folgende Schwerpunkte absolviert werden:

Geist und Gehirn
Klinische Psychologie und Gesundheitspsychologie

Vertiefungsseminare können nur fürs Pflichtmodul B verwendet werden! Eine Verwendung fürs Modul A4 Freie Fächer ist nicht möglich.
Moodle

Registration/Deregistration

Note: The time of your registration within the registration period has no effect on the allocation of places (no first come, first served).

Details

max. 20 participants
Language: English

Lecturers

Classes (iCal) - next class is marked with N

  • Monday 07.10. 13:15 - 14:45 Hörsaal G Psychologie, Liebiggasse 5, 2. Stock
  • Monday 14.10. 13:15 - 14:45 Hörsaal G Psychologie, Liebiggasse 5, 2. Stock
  • Monday 21.10. 13:15 - 14:45 Hörsaal G Psychologie, Liebiggasse 5, 2. Stock
  • Monday 28.10. 13:15 - 14:45 Hörsaal G Psychologie, Liebiggasse 5, 2. Stock
  • Monday 04.11. 13:15 - 14:45 Hörsaal G Psychologie, Liebiggasse 5, 2. Stock
  • Monday 11.11. 13:15 - 14:45 Hörsaal G Psychologie, Liebiggasse 5, 2. Stock
  • Monday 18.11. 13:15 - 14:45 Hörsaal G Psychologie, Liebiggasse 5, 2. Stock
  • Monday 25.11. 13:15 - 14:45 Hörsaal G Psychologie, Liebiggasse 5, 2. Stock
  • Monday 02.12. 13:15 - 14:45 Hörsaal G Psychologie, Liebiggasse 5, 2. Stock
  • Monday 09.12. 13:15 - 14:45 Hörsaal G Psychologie, Liebiggasse 5, 2. Stock
  • Monday 16.12. 13:15 - 14:45 Hörsaal G Psychologie, Liebiggasse 5, 2. Stock
  • Monday 13.01. 13:15 - 14:45 Hörsaal G Psychologie, Liebiggasse 5, 2. Stock
  • Monday 20.01. 13:15 - 14:45 Hörsaal G Psychologie, Liebiggasse 5, 2. Stock
  • Monday 27.01. 13:15 - 14:45 Hörsaal G Psychologie, Liebiggasse 5, 2. Stock

Information

Aims, contents and method of the course

Aims: Through discussions, in English, centered on the reading of target research papers, we aim to foster critical thinking in the area of Psychology and the Cognitive Sciences. After taking this course, attendees should be especially able to reflect on the “bigger picture” underlying academic discussions and to approach scientific communications and ideas critically. Unlike many other courses which target specific empirical study papers, we will be focusing on seminal papers, ideas, or book chapters in Cognitive Science which provide the framework and context for much of Psychology and Cognitive Science's activity itself––Where do our terms, our problems, our solutions in Psychology come from? Why is this so? How did we all get here? Where do we want to go? If you are interested in some of these questions, and also want a chance to read on some topics that, while important, you may not yet have been exposed to. This might be the class for you.

Second, we aim to train skills in participating in discussions in English—in a “safe space” with minimal pressure (i.e., no evaluations will be made regarding correctness of language, rather the emphasis is on discussion and collaboratively unpacking course topics).

Contents: The seminar involves reading, presenting, and discussing seminal papers or book chapters in Cognitive Sciences. This includes topics such as Artificial Intelligence, Psychology as a Science, how research findings can be generalized, the replication crisis, Philosophy of Mind, research practices, diversity in psychology (i.e., should we only be studying WEIRD populations?), etc. Our discussions will also (hopefully) regularly touch relevant topics of everyday life, such as the future of science, consequences of digitalization, cultural dependence on psychological concepts, development of language, truth, or free will.

Methods: Student presentation of a paper/book chapter, student-guided discussion of the text in the seminar, presentation and listening to topic-related podcasts.

Assessment and permitted materials

Assessment is based on participation and contributions to the discussion in class. In each unit, a specific paper/book chapter will be discussed. Each week, one student or student team will present the assigned reading and should raise important questions pertaining to the topic. These will then be discussed by the class.

The presentation will be assessed in detail on the following criteria: completeness, creativity and critical thinking. Feedback will be provided in written or oral form.

Minimum requirements and assessment criteria

Attendance at class sessions (max 2 missed sessions)
Listening to podcasts and reading papers/book chapters every week mandatory
One presentation of an assigned reading.
Grading:
a) Active participation --> 40%
b) Presentation of the paper and discussion --> 40%
c) Listening to podcasts --> 20%
Please note that active participation (40% of the total grade) is a major determinant of the grade. We would like to point out that missing a session results in no participation for this session.

Examination topics

Tentative plan (Note, may be subject to change):

Session 1: Introduction, overview of class, syllabus

Session 2: Example Session (Matthew Pelowski): Mindless statistics (Gigerenzer, 2004)

Session 3: Summary of Social Science (Meehl, 1990)
Session 4: Weirdest people in the world (Henrich et al., 2010, 4-19)
Session 5: Naming the mind (Danziger, 1997)
Session 6: Digital memory, History of memory (Draaisma, 2000)
Session 7: AI (Turing, 1950)
Session 8: Principles of Psychology (James, 1890)
Session 9: Neural correlates of interspecies perspective taking in the post-mortem Atlantic salmon (Bennet et al., 2010; Fiedler, 2011)
Session 10: QRP (Simmons, 2011; Benjamin, 2017)
Session 11: Replication (Zwaan et al. 2018)
Session 12: Non-statistical Reviewers (Friston, 2012)
Session 13: TBA

Reading list

Assigned in class.

Association in the course directory

Last modified: We 04.09.2024 09:26