Cognitive psychology refers a general branch of psychology that investigates internal mental processes such as problem solving, memory, and language. Courses will also address issues of logic, cause and effect thinking, and symbolic thinking. The rating represents the breadth of material available, the effectiveness of the lecturer, and the accessibility of the website and lecture topics in general. If you have comments or suggestions, feel free to email me at eric@psychlectures.com. Enjoy!
Cognitive Neuroscience
Prof. Terry Jernigan, Spring 2009 – UCSD podcasts
[mp3 audio]
Learning, Memory, and Attention
Prof. Sarah Creel, Spring 2009 – UCSD podcasts
[mp3 audio]
Scientific Approaches to Consciousness
John F. Kihlstrom, Spring 2009 – UC Berkeley Webcasts
[mp3 audio]
Introduction to Cognitive Psychology
Prof. David Peterzell, Spring 2009 – UCSD podcasts
[mp3 audio]
Cognitive Neuroscience
Richard Ivry, Fall 2008 – UC Berkeley Webcasts
[mp3 audio]
Cognitive Neuroscience
Prof. Suzanne Corkin, Spring 2006 – MIT OpenCourseWare
“This course explores the cognitive and neural processes that support attention, vision, language, motor control, navigation, and memory. It introduces basic neuroanatomy, functional imaging techniques, and behavioral measures of cognition, and discusses methods by which inferences about the brain bases of cognition are made. We consider evidence from patients with neurological diseases (Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, Balint’s syndrome, amnesia, and focal lesions from stroke) and from normal human participants.”
[syllabus] – [required readings] – [assignments] – [study materials] – [downloadable content]
Introduction to Computational Neuroscience
Prof. Sebastian Seung, Spring 2004 – MIT OpenCourseWare
“This course gives a mathematical introduction to neural coding and dynamics. Topics include convolution, correlation, linear systems, game theory, signal detection theory, probability theory, information theory, and reinforcement learning. Applications to neural coding, focusing on the visual system are covered, as well as Hodgkin-Huxley and other related models of neural excitability, stochastic models of ion channels, cable theory, and models of synaptic transmission.”
*Special software is required to use some of the files in this course: .mat, and .m.
[syllabus] – [calendar] – [required readings] – [lecture notes] – [assignments] – [downloadable content]
Cognitive Processes
Prof. Mary C. Potter, Spring 2004 – MIT OpenCourseWare
“This undergraduate course is designed to introduce students to cognitive processes. The broad range of topics covers each of the areas in the field of cognition, and presents the current thinking in this discipline. As an introduction to human information processing and learning, the topics include the nature of mental representation and processing, the architecture of memory, pattern recognition, attention, imagery and mental codes, concepts and prototypes, reasoning and problem solving.”
[syllabus] – [calendar] – [lecture notes] – [laboratory guides] – [downloadable content]
Computational Cognitive Science
Prof. Joshua Tenenbaum, Fall 2004 – MIT OpenCourseWare
“This course is an introduction to computational theories of human cognition. Drawing on formal models from classic and contemporary artificial intelligence, students will explore fundamental issues in human knowledge representation, inductive learning and reasoning. What are the forms that our knowledge of the world takes? What are the inductive principles that allow us to acquire new knowledge from the interaction of prior knowledge with observed data? What kinds of data must be available to human learners, and what kinds of innate knowledge (if any) must they have?”
[syllabus] – [calendar] – [required readings] – [lecture notes] – [projects] – [study materials] – [downloadable content]
Foundations of Cognition
Prof. Lera Boroditsky & Prof. Joshua Tenenbaum, Spring 2003 – MIT OpenCourseWare
“Advances in cognitive science have resolved, clarified, and sometimes complicated some of the great questions of Western philosophy: what is the structure of the world and how do we come to know it; does everyone represent the world the same way; what is the best way for us to act in the world. Specific topics include color, objects, number, categories, similarity, inductive inference, space, time, causality, reasoning, decision-making, morality and consciousness. Readings and discussion include a brief philosophical history of each topic and focus on advances in cognitive and developmental psychology, computation, neuroscience, and related fields. At least one subject in cognitive science, psychology, philosophy, linguistics, or artificial intelligence is required. An additional project is required for graduate credit.”
[syllabus] – [calendar] – [required readings] – [assignments] – [examinations] – [related resources] – [downloadable content]
Probability and Causality in Human Cognition
Prof. Joshua Tenenbaum, Spring 2003 – MIT OpenCourseWare
“An introduction to the use of probability theory to capture aspects of cognitive processes. Emphasizes history of probability theory and computational approaches to probabilistic and causal inference. This class is suitable for advanced undergraduates or graduate students specializing in cognitive science, artificial intelligence, and related fields.”
*Prerequisites: A course in cognitive science, and a course in probability or statistics.
[syllabus] – [calendar] – [required readings] – [assignments] – [related resources] – [downloadable content]
Cognitive Neuroscience of Remembering: Creating and Controlling Memory
Prof. Anthony Wagner, January 2002 – MIT OpenCourseWare
“Memory provides a bridge between past and present. Through memory, past sensations, feelings, and ideas that have dropped from conscious awareness can be subsequently recovered to guide current thought and action. In this manner, memory allows us to locate our car in the parking lot at the end of the day or guides us to avoid retelling the same joke to the same friend. This seminar will focus on how memories are created and controlled such that we are able to remember the past. Recent insights from non-human electrophysiological and human brain imaging research will be emphasized.”
[syllabus] – [calendar] – [required readings] – [related resources] – [downloadable content]
Object and Face Recognition
Prof. Pawan Sinha, Spring 2001 – MIT OpenCourseWare
“Provides a comprehensive introduction to key issues and findings in object recognition in experimental, neural, computational, and applied domains. Emphasizes the problem of representation, exploring the issue of how 3-D objects should be encoded so as to efficiently recognize them from 2-D images. Second half focuses on face recognition, an ecologically important instance of the general object recognition problem. Describes experimental studies of human face recognition performance and recent attempts to mimic this ability in artificial computational systems.”
[syllabus] – [calendar] – [lecture notes] – [assignments] – [study materials] – [downloadable content]
Special Topics in Brain and Cognitive Sciences
Prof. Anthony Wagner, Fall 2001 – MIT OpenCourseWare
“Memory is not a unitary faculty, but rather consists of multiple forms of learning that differ in their operating characteristics and neurobiological substrates. This seminar will consider current debates regarding the cognitive and neural architectures of memory, specifically focusing on recent efforts to address these controversies through application of functional neuroimaging (primarily fMRI and PET).”
[syllabus] – [calendar] – [required readings] – [assignments] – [related resources] – [downloadable content]
