Experimental cognitive psychology I
HUM-403 / 3 crédits
Enseignant: Mohr Christine
Langue: Anglais
Remark: Une seule inscription à un cours SHS+MGT autorisée. En cas d'inscriptions multiples elles seront toutes supprimées sans notification.
Summary
The media frequently report on trendy studies that have been conducted in experimental cognitive psychology, and which inform the public on "human functioning" and its causes. We teach students basic skills and requirements when performing, understanding and comprehending such studies.
Content
Performing an empirical study in cognitive psychology
Cognitive psychology covers all aspect of our mental world, whether it is perception, attention, memory, language, mental imagery, emotion, concept formation, problem solving, creativity, decision making, reasoning, etc. To assess cognitive functioning, psychologists working in this field have traditionally applied experimental scientific methods.
In this course, we will elaborate research questions that are closely linked to those of the respective project supervisor. By accounting for the recent published scientific literature, students will elaborate the study questions determined with their respective project supervisor, and will develop their own research activities performed in groups of max 4 students. After having read the relevant literature and decided on a hypothesis (autumn term), students will refine their method (autumn term), test participants (data collection) (spring term), treat the data for statistical analysis (spring term), and write a final scientific report (spring term).
Keywords
experimental psychology, cognition, scientific methods, empirism, statistics, hypothesis testing, reading scientific articles, writing scientific article, testing human subjects, data collection - input - analysis, colour and affect, conservation psychology, belief in lie detection abilities.
POLY-perspective :
- creative perspective
- citizen perspective
https://www.epfl.ch/schools/cdh/cdhs-vision/
Learning Outcomes
By the end of the course, the student must be able to:
- Identify important research questions based on the published scientific literature
- Formulate a study question and hypothesis.
- Analyze the previous research findings
- Interpret the previous research findings
- Assess / Evaluate the tacit and technical skills involved in the production of knowledge.
- Critique constructively the previous research accounts and outcomes
- Construct an argument
Transversal skills
- Assess progress against the plan, and adapt the plan as appropriate.
- Set objectives and design an action plan to reach those objectives.
- Evaluate one's own performance in the team, receive and respond appropriately to feedback.
- Negotiate effectively within the group.
- Assess one's own level of skill acquisition, and plan their on-going learning goals.
- Manage priorities.
- Write a scientific or technical report.
Teaching methods
Group work
Expected student activities
Attending weekly meetings, contributing to team work, communicating reliably and responsibly with group members and project supervisor, find research articles, read research articles, understand research articles, share knowledge with group members, write your own research report
Assessment methods
Independent evaluation at the end of both the autumn and spring term (grade associated to 3 ECTS).
Autumn term: Knowledge acquisition and elaboration of a project plan. Determination and set up of research method. Evaluation of written introduction and method section to the research report
Spring term: Experiment is performed, data collected, data input, data analysis. Evaluation of the final written research report consisting of a title page, abstract, introduction, method section, result section, discussion and bibliography.
Supervision
| Office hours | No |
| Assistants | Yes |
| Forum | No |
| Others |
Resources
Bibliography
Research articles, depend on the project to be performed. Information and skills to find the literature in the course of the autumn term
Moodle Link
Dans les plans d'études
- Semestre: Automne
- Nombre de places: 60
- Forme de l'examen: Pendant le semestre (session d'hiver)
- Matière examinée: Experimental cognitive psychology I
- Cours: 2 Heure(s) hebdo x 14 semaines
- Projet: 1 Heure(s) hebdo x 14 semaines