300118 VO Animal Cognition 1 (2006W)

The two-parts course (1st part in winter, 2nd part in summer) provides an introduction into the topics of animal learning, cognition and perception.
The first part "How Animals See the World" provides a comprehensive overview of the sensory and neuronal processes leading to perception, with an emphasis on the functional and higher cognitive aspects of perception. We start and end with the question of how perception leads to experience and how experience guides behavior.
The visual system is discussed in depth, with parallels drawn in subsequent treatments of other sensory systems. The main topics are: basic processes of perception; multi-modal integration; perception of objects; perception of space; color perception; perception of motion. In each case, it begins with the physical stimulus, progresses through the anatomy and physiology, discusses in depth the primary and secondary neuronal processes of perception and memory, and concludes with perceptual phenomenology. Finally, questions of amodal representation and consciousness are discussed.
The course is an introduction to the field, yet contains enough depth and current research to serve the most advanced student of zoology. The second part covers the question of how animals adaptively modify the behavior through learning.