200252 SE Advanced Seminar: Mind and Brain (2024S)

Aims: Through discussions, in English, centered on the reading of target research papers, we aim to foster critical thinking in the area of the Psychology and the Cognitive Sciences. After taking this course, attendees should be especially able to reflect on the “bigger picture” underlying academic discussions, to approach scientific communications and ideas critically. We do this by focusing, unlike many other courses which target specific empirical study papers, targeting seminal papers or book chapters in Cognitive Sciences which provide the framework and context for much Psychology and Cognitive Science work itself. Where do our terms, our problems, or solutions in Psychology come from, and why is this so?

Second, we aim to train skills in participating in such discussions in English—a skill that is a growing, ever-present reality for life as a postgraduate—in a “safe space” with minimal pressure.

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 practice and scientific utopia etc.. Though the topics raise fundamental issues in psychology, the discussions also 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.