Universität Wien

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

Fundamental Topics in Cognitive Science + Colloquium

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

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

PLEASE NOTE: This course is not "Memory-related aspects of vibrotactile perception".

The course title/concept will be "Fundamental Topics in Cognitive Science + Colloquium"

  • Friday 08.03. 15:00 - 16:30 Hörsaal F Psychologie, Liebiggasse 5 1. Stock
  • Friday 15.03. 15:00 - 16:30 Hörsaal F Psychologie, Liebiggasse 5 1. Stock
  • Friday 22.03. 15:00 - 16:30 Hörsaal F Psychologie, Liebiggasse 5 1. Stock
  • Friday 12.04. 15:00 - 16:30 Hörsaal F Psychologie, Liebiggasse 5 1. Stock
  • Friday 19.04. 15:00 - 16:30 Hörsaal F Psychologie, Liebiggasse 5 1. Stock
  • Friday 26.04. 15:00 - 16:30 Hörsaal F Psychologie, Liebiggasse 5 1. Stock
  • Friday 03.05. 15:00 - 16:30 Hörsaal F Psychologie, Liebiggasse 5 1. Stock
  • Friday 10.05. 15:00 - 16:30 Hörsaal F Psychologie, Liebiggasse 5 1. Stock
  • Friday 17.05. 15:00 - 16:30 Hörsaal F Psychologie, Liebiggasse 5 1. Stock
  • Friday 24.05. 15:00 - 16:30 Hörsaal F Psychologie, Liebiggasse 5 1. Stock
  • Friday 31.05. 15:00 - 16:30 Hörsaal F Psychologie, Liebiggasse 5 1. Stock
  • Friday 07.06. 15:00 - 16:30 Hörsaal F Psychologie, Liebiggasse 5 1. Stock
  • Friday 14.06. 15:00 - 16:30 Hörsaal F Psychologie, Liebiggasse 5 1. Stock
  • Friday 21.06. 15:00 - 16:30 Hörsaal F Psychologie, Liebiggasse 5 1. Stock
  • Friday 28.06. 15:00 - 16:30 Hörsaal F Psychologie, Liebiggasse 5 1. 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 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.

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. In the beginning of the session, students will present the assigned reading in short and should raise important questions pertaining to the topic. These will then be discussed in the remainder of the unit.

The presentation will be assessed in detail on the following criteria: completeness, creativity and critical thinking (see template of the evaluation form). The feedback will be provided on the following week after the presentation was held.

Minimum requirements and assessment criteria

Attendance at class sessions (max 2 missed sessions) AND listening to assigned podcasts mandatory
Presentation of the assigned reading is mandatory.

Grading:
a) Active participation --> 40%
b) Presentation of the paper and discussion --> 40%
c) Attendance on colloquium (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 slight change):
Week 1: Introduction, overview of class, syllabus

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

Session 1: Summary of Social Science (Meehl, 1990)
Session 2: Generalizability of findings, external validity (Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan, 2010)
Session 3: Naming the mind (Danziger, 1997)
Session 4: Digital memory, History of memory (Draaisma, 2000)
Session 5: AI (Turing, 1950)
Session 6: Psychology (James, 1890)
Session 7: Threats of statistical procedures (Bennet et al. 2010, Fiedler, 2011).
Session 8: QRP (Simmons, 2011; Benjamin, 2017)
Session 9: Replication (Zwaan et al. 2018)
Session 10: Scientific Utopia III. (Uhlmann et al., 2019)

Reading list

Assigned in class.

Association in the course directory

Last modified: Fr 08.03.2024 14:26