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Instructor: |
Bruce Walker |
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Office: |
Room 230, Psychology Building (Coon Building) |
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Telephone: |
(404) 894-8265 |
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Email: |
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Course web page: |
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Office Hours: |
After class and by appointment |
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Teaching Assistant: |
Lisa Mauney (kint16@yahoo.com) |
Schiffman, H. R. (2001). Sensation and perception: An integrated approach (5th ed.). New York: Wiley. (ISBN: 0-471-24930-0)
Note: Several additional readings will be required. They will be made available for copying. It is the student's responsibility to obtain and read all required readings before the class in which they are discussed.
We will examine how humans (and in some cases, other animals) sense and perceive the world around us. First we will consider the philosophical questions that humans have long posed about perception, and study the methods and techniques scientists use to try to answer them. We will study the sensory pathways, fundamental perceptual processing, and higher-level meaning-making. We will start with the perception of time, followed by audition, vision, the orienting senses, skin senses, and chemical senses. We will consider sensation and perception from several perspectives: physiological, psychophysical, ecological, motivational, and computational. This diversity of viewpoints also allows us to look at multi-sensory perceptual processes. Part of the course will be in lecture format and part will be in seminar format. There will be quizzes, short papers, a term paper or research proposal, and a final exam. Class participation will also be important in the grading.
I believe that advanced undergraduate graduate level courses and all graduate level courses should focus on discussion and integration with other courses. However, in order to have a meaningful discussion in this topic area, there are a lot of facts to learn first: historical dates; the parts and functioning of the perceptual systems; neural pathways and brain regions; theories; processes; functions; etc. Students will be left to learn many of the more straightforward facts through the required reading, private study groups, or discussion outside of class. You may be tested on material that is not covered in class. Where necessary, more complex material will be taught, and examples worked, in class. As much time as possible will be reserved for discussion, much of it led by students. However, there is a lot to learn, so in order to get the chance to discuss, we may move quickly through basic material. You are expected to have read the required material before class, and be prepared to contribute to an integrative and meaningful discussion.
Students are expected to do their own work at all times and to follow the university's codes of academic conduct and honor code. Cases of suspected inappropriate collaboration or cheating will be immediately forwarded to the Dean of Student Affairs, and will be pursued to resolution. This is an unpleasant process for all involved, so please do not put yourself in this situation.
Students are expected to conduct themselves in a professional manner--this entails handing assignments in on time and showing up for exams at the appointed time. Late assignments will not be accepted, and make-up exams will not be given. If some form of prior commitment prevents a student from taking an exam at the given time, PRIOR arrangements (including documentation where appropriate) should be made with the instructor.
Extra work, after the semester, is not allowed to "bring up" a grade. A student's grade shall be earned from their performance solely on the semester's work.
Grading is determined by a semester-long accumulation of points, weighed in percentage as summarized below. Determinations of the individual category breakdowns will be determined by looking for gaps or clumps in the final averages.
Short Paper - 50 points (Details, in PDF Format)
Midterm Exam I - 50 points
Midterm Exam II - 50 points
Final Exam - 100 points
Final Research Proposal (Students in PSYC 3041 and 6014, only) - 100
points
TOTAL: 250 points undergrads; 350 points grad students
There will be two midterms and one final exam, intended to assess learning on mostly (but not exclusively) factual information. The midterms will be held during a class period, and the final will be in the regularly scheduled Final Exam time period, as determined by the registrar. The material covered in the quizzes may include any of the assigned reading, in addition to anything presented or discussed in class. Note that just because it is not covered in class does not mean it will not be on a midterm or the final! As stated above, there will be no make-up exams.
There will be one short paper, early in the term. You will select the topic from a list supplied by the instructor. The topics will be related to history, philosophy, and techniques of research in perception, as well as everyday perceptual issues and challenges.
The paper will be submitted before the start of class on the due date, in APA format and style, and is not to exceed 8 pages (double-spaced, with APA margins and font size). An abstract will not be required, but references will be required. References are not included in the page limit. Late papers will not be accepted.
Note on APA format: This is a psychology course, and papers in psychology are nearly always written according to the American Psychological Association (APA) guidelines. There is a whole book (the APA Style Guide) devoted to the APA Style. It is assumed that your paper will comply with the APA style, so you will not earn points for getting it right. However, while we will not be specifically checking for picky details, you can lose points if your paper deviates too far from the guidelines. If APA Style is new to you, consider leaving extra time for getting up to speed with it, and for formatting your paper, references, etc.
Here is a Web site on APA format from Purdue University. You can also check out the APA Web site on APA Style. Or buy the book, perhaps from Amazon.com.
Note on sources and citing: The key product or "deliverable" in an essay or paper or term paper in this class is your own opinions and views and conclusions and thoughts. These should be arrived at after careful reading of other works, the views of other people, and a range of sources. For historical facts and methodological details, it is often quite straightforward to report what are considered "the facts". Appropriate paraphrasing, integration of multiple sources, and citations are still required. However, on other parts of the paper, it can often be a challenge to get the right balance between restating other people's views and synthesizing them into your own opinions. This is a skill, and is one of the reasons we assign this paper in a Psychology class. However, please note that the highest standards for ethics and integrity will be upheld in this class, including issues of plagiarism and failure to cite other authors when appropriate. See the supplemental reading on Plagiarism (from Prof. Zenzi Griffin's Research Methods class) for more thoughts on this. (Download PDF)
Also note that while they may be very useful starting points, Wikipedia and other similar anonymous encyclopedia-style sources (online or not) may not be cited. See the supplemental reading entitled, "Why you can't cite Wikipedia in my class" by Neil L. Waters, for more thoughts on this. (Download PDF)
For the psych majors and graduate students (anyone registered for PSYC 3041 or PSYC 6014), the final paper must be a research proposal. It should clearly identify an area generally related to sensation and perception, indicate a topic worthy of experimental investigation, provide sufficient but concise background information to frame the problem, propose an experiment that could be conducted to study the problem, pose hypotheses, and then discuss what you might conclude from the various potential outcomes. The page limit is 15 pages (in APA format, as described above), not including references. Hopefully you will be able to find an area of your own research or subject area that connects with sensation and perception, so this exercise can have added relevance to your graduate studies.
An optional one or two paragraph outline may be handed in for feedback no later than three weeks before the due date. This outline will not be graded but it will, however, elicit useful feedback, which in turn is highly likely to help you with your final proposal.
Reminder, students in PSYC 3040 are not required to submit a final paper.
Please, above all, be respectful and considerate of others in the class. It should go without saying, but this includes showing up on time for classes, meetings, exams, etc. Please turn your cell phone, pager, PDA, or any other alarms and ringers off while you are in class. If you disturb the class, including incoming phone calls and messages, you may be asked to leave.
Additional readings, typically research articles and book chapters, will be required. Those readings will be made available for copying. Students will be responsible for obtaining and reading all materials before the class in which they are to be discussed.
Water, Neil L. (2007). Why you can't cite Wikipedia in my class. Communications of the ACM, Volume 50 ,Ê Issue 9, pp. 15-17, Ê(September 2007). DOI: http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1284621.1284635. (Download PDF)
Lippstreu, Michael, & Griffin, Zenzi M. (2005). Class Handout on Plagiarism, for Georgia Tech Psychology 2010, Research Methods. Available as additional background material in PSYC 3040 by permission from Prof. Griffin. (Download PDF)
Carlson, N. R. (2001). Physiology of behavior (7th ed.). Needham, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
Chapter 3: Structure of the nervous system. (Download PDF, 3.6MB)
Chapter 6: Vision (Download PDF, 5.4MB)
Chapter 7: Audition, the body senses, and the chemical senses. (Download PDF, 8.2MB)
Chapter 9: Sleep and biological rhythms. (section on biological clocks, pp. 296-303) (Download PDF, 4.9MB)
Chapter 16: Human communication. (section on speech, pp. 496-514) (Download PDF, 4.6MB)
Stevens, S. S. (1961). To honor Fechner and repeal his law. Science, 133, 80-86. (Download PDF, 1.1MB)
Bregman, A. S. (1993). Auditory scene analysis: Hearing in complex environments. In S. McAdams & E. Brigand (Eds.), Thinking in sound: The cognitive psychology of human audition. New York: Clarendon Press/Oxford University Press. (pp. 10-36). (Download PDF, 3.2MB)
Deutsch, D. (2002). The puzzle of absolute pitch. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 11(6), 200-204. (Download PDF, 700kB)
Finke, R. A. (1990). Mental imagery and the visual system. In I. Rock (Ed.) The perceptual world. New York: Freeman and Co. (pp. 179-190). (Download PDF, 1.2MB)
Poggio, T. (1990). Vision by man and machine. In I. Rock (Ed.) The perceptual world. New York: Freeman and Co. (pp. 81-96). (Download PDF, 1.7MB)
Hubel, D. H. and Wiesel, T. N. (1990). Brain mechanisms of vision. In I. Rock (Ed.) The perceptual world. New York: Freeman and Co. (pp. 3-24). (Download PDF, 2.4MB)
Rigden, Christine. (1990). 'The eye of the beholder' - Designing for colour-blind users. British Telecommunications Engineering, 17, 2-6. (Download PDF, 240kB)
Burns, Simon (2005). Backlash Brews Over Blue LEDs. Downloaded Sept 2006 from http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,67574,00.html . (Download PDF)
[This list is subject to change, including additions and deletions.]