PSY 200: Introduction to Cognitive Psychology

Fall 2016
MWF 2:30 pm-3:20 pm
Matthews Hall, Room 210

Updates:

• 20 December 2016: The grade sheet has been corrected to reflect a mistakenly entered final exam score.
• 19 December 2016: The grade sheet has been updated to reflect the final exam scores. The class average was pretty good for the final exam (compared to last semester, anyhow). Also listed on the grade sheet is the final class grade and corresponding letter grade. The grade scale is described in the first lecture of the course.
• 05 December 2016: The grade sheet has been updated to reflect all attendance checks up to last Friday. Today's attendance is not yet included.
• 02 December 2016: You can download the grades for exam 4. The grades for attendance, Writing assignments, and CogLab are also updated. (Someone pointed out that the average writing grade did not include the fourth writing assignment. The grade sheet is now updated.)
• 28 November 2016: As announced in class, Dr. Francis will be out of town December 6-16. If you have questions about grades or other issues, you should meet with him before then.
• 28 November 2016: The TA will hold a review session to prepare for Exam 4 during his office hours on Tuesday (10:40 am - noon). The review will be in Grissom Hall, Room 133.
• 07 November 2016: You can download the grades for exam 3. The grades for attendance, Writing assignments, and CogLab are also updated.
• 12 October 2016: You can download the grades for exam 2. The grades for attendance, Writing assignments, and CogLab are also updated.
• 12 October 2016: The final exam for the course is scheduled for Thursday, December 15, 7:00 - 9:00 pm in MATHW 210 (same room as lecture).
• 05 October 2016: The TA will hold a review session to prepare for Exam 2 during his office hours on Thursday (10:30 am - noon). The review will be in Grissom Hall, Room 133.
• 19 September 2016: Dr. Francis has caught the sore throat that is going around and is not up to lecturing this afternoon. Instead, you can watch the lecture that was recorded last semester. Due to a web browser incompatibility, the final demo of that lecture did not work, but it was presented at the beginning of the subsequent lecture.
• 16 September 2016: You can download the grades for exam 1. The first column indicates the assigned CogLab ID for a specific student. The associated grades for the student are then across that row. It also includes the current scores for attendance, the writing assignment, and CogLab. Also provided is an estimated class grade that assumes the current grades are representative of what you will have at the end of the semester (this will surely change, though).
• 12 September 2016: The TA will hold a review session to prepare for Exam 1 during his office hours on Tuesday (10:30 am - 11:45 am). The review will be in Grissom Hall, Room 102.
• 26 August 2016: Due to the project dying mid-slide (the tech person got it working just as the last student left the room), Lecture 3 will be covered by the vodcast recording from last semester. Thus, on Monday, we will move on to lecture 4. Be sure to watch the vodcast over the weekend so that you are prepared.

Instructor:

Name	Office	Email	Phone	Office hours
Greg Francis	PSYCH 3186	gfrancis@purdue.edu	494-6934	MWF 10:30 am-11:30 am

Please contact me (email is best) if you cannot visit during office hours to schedule an alternative time to meet.

Text: There is no textbook. Material for exams will be taken from the lectures. If you want to use a textbook, you can use any cognition text from other (present and past) sections of this course, or you can purchase a textbook online. Class notes will be available on the web (see below). The notes are reduced in size so that six slides fit on a single page. You can either download individual lectures (below) or you can download the entire set of lectures notes in a single file (51 MB). There are also optional readings in the schedule below. These readings may help if you are unsure about something or want to explore a topic further.

Class attendance: Your presence for the lectures is mandatory, and will be checked each class period. Over the course of the semester, each student may miss up to 6 lectures without penalty. Additional absences will proportionally reduce your class attendance score. This score contributes to 5% of your final class grade. Athletes and other special cases need to contact Dr. Francis.

Vodcast recordings of lectures: BoilerCast recordings of the lectures will be available as a vodcast. As they become available, the “vodcast” links in the schedule below will become links to the recordings. It sometimes takes a few days for the vodcast to be uploaded. The recordings are meant to be a (poor) substitute should you miss a lecture and to provide a way to go back and check on topics that you do not fully understand. The vodcast recording system does not always properly capture the lecture, and sometimes the audio is quite poor. Your best option is to attend the lecture itself and use the vodcast as a way to refresh selected topics.

Class home page: The home page for this course is http://www.psych.purdue.edu/~gfrancis/Classes/PSY200/indexF16.html From this page you can download lecture notes, view the class schedule, view current grades, and connect to the various homework laboratory and writing assignments. This course does not use Blackboard.

Examinations: There will be four section exams and one final exam. The section exams will be in-class and the final exam will be given during the final exam period (do not plan to leave campus early, this course's final exam is sometimes scheduled for the last day of exam week). The first two exams are each worth 10% of your class grade. The last two exams and the final are each worth 15% of your class grade. The final will cover all topics of the course. Exams will be all multiple choice questions. Extensive study guides are available as links in the class schedule below. You might also find it useful to look at old exams from Fall 2015. However, the course was structured a bit differently then, a few topics have changed (both added and removed), and the exams for this semester will involve entirely new questions with no short-answer questions and more multiple choice questions. Make-up exams will not be permitted unless you notify Dr. Francis at least 48 hours prior to the scheduled exam date. Missed exams will receive a grade of 0.

CogLab: CogLab is an Internet site that allows students to participate in classic experiments related to cognitive psychology. You will be given lab assignments throughout the semester. These labs are run through the Internet and can be carried out at any computer lab on campus or at a home computer. Your overall lab grade will make up 15% of your class grade. All the labs are on the Cognitive Psychology Online Laboratory (CogLab) web page at http://coglab.cengage.com. In the schedule below, individual labs are associated with different dates. You must complete each lab by 10:00 am on the date indicated to get credit (better to do it the night before). You will receive log-in instructions in class.

Writing assignments: Four times during the semester (the precise dates are listed in the schedule below), you must submit a short (3-5 pages) report related to CogLab assignments or other topics discussed in class. The details of each assignment are provided in the linked documents in the schedule, below. Each report must be typed, single space, and follow the format indicated in the linked document. The report should be free of grammar and spelling errors, and it must address all the topics indicated in the instructions. Each report will be scored on a 10 point scale. The average report score for each student across the semester will make up 15% of your class grade. Reports must by prepared in a word processing program (Microsoft Word or something similar) and be submitted to the TA by electronic mail by the start of class on the date indicated in the schedule, below. Late submissions receive a score of 0. Plagiarism (passing someone else's writing as your own) will not be tolerated. Do not simply copy and paste material from any source. For short reports like this assignment, you should not be quoting text from any source, even with proper attribution. See the Purdue Online Writing Lab for details about plagiarism.

Grading: Grading is on a straight scale, as described in Lecture 1. There is no rounding or curving of grades. There is no possibility of extra credit.

Teaching Assistants:

Name	Office	Email	Office hours
Eddie Christopher	PSYCH 3198	eddietheintrocogta@gmail.com	Tuesday and Thursday, 10:30 am - noon
Jeongho (Johnny) Han	Matthews Hall, Room 326	han202@purdue.edu	Monday, 1:00 pm - 2:30 pm

Schedule:

The links to the optional readings provide some additional background or related information. You do not need to read this material, but if you are interested in the topic, it is a place to start further exploration.