Introduction

• PSYC 213: Cognition
• Topic for Today


  January 4, 2024
• Review of the course
• What is Cognition?
• Ways to study Cognition
• Your Instructor


  • Dr. Signy Sheldon, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology
  • Former pole vaulter, often dog walker, and memory researcher
• What do I research?
• Why do two people remember the same event so differently?
• Memories are not static records but are mental 'representations' that are flexibly created each time we remember
• Why is our memory system set up this way?
• To form novel imagined events for planning, problem solving and many other tasks, thus our memory is about the past AND future
• Your Instructor's Office Hours

  • Thursday 230pm – 330pm
  • Rm 756, 2001 McGill College Avenue
• Your TAs
• Your course mascot: The Cog Dog
• Prerequisites (not needed)
• Course components


  • Lectures
  • MyCourses
  • TA tutorials
  • Top Hat textbook and resource
• MyCourses for content clarification
• TA tutorials
• Top Hat textbook and resource


  • https://app.tophat.com/e/008104/lecture/
  • McGill Cognition - Winter 2024
  • Join: 008104
• Testing TopHAT: What's your crunch?
• Grades


  • Two non-cumulative in-person midterm exams (best grade 45%)
  • One cumulative in-person final exam (55%)
• Bonus marks
• Top Hat top up (THTU) activities


  • Jan 11, 18, 31
  • Feb 20, 27
  • Mar 26
  • April 9
• Flexible grading


  I will drop your lowest midterm grade (I will take your highest midterm grade) or take the grade of the midterm you do (if you only take one of them)
• Course objectives


  • Have a better understanding of models and controversies within research areas of cognitive psychology
  • Understand how to use research methods to study human thought
  • Learn how experimental findings can inform models and theories of Cognition
  • Gain critical thinking skills for evaluating scientific findings and articles about Cognition
• Science is not stable
• The schedule
• Cognitive function, our thoughts and actions, is regulated by brain activity
• Emerges from the connections of over 100 billion nerve cells in the brain
• Primarily concerned with understanding the processes that produce complex behaviors even though separate abilities are studied
• Hot Take: Cognitive abilities are studied separately but are not separable in reality
• Types of cognitive research

  • Basic Research
  • Applied Research
• Basic Research


  • Goal is to try to understand the world and its phenomena without regard to a specific end-use of this knowledge
  • Understand how we perceive information, remember, reason and solve problems
• Applied Research


  • Research with the end-goal of developing a solution to a problem
  • Improving education
  • Understanding changes to the mind from diseases and disorders
• Class Activity: Basic vs Applied research
• Hypothesis vs Phenomenon guided research
• General approaches to Cognition
• Hypothesis guided research


  • We have a theory
  • A hypothesis must be testable against evidence
• Phenomenon-based research


  • When an "effect" is discovered, and follow-up research examines the nature of the effect
  • Placebo effect
• General approaches to study cognition

  • Cognitive psychology
  • Neuroscience
  • Computational modeling