PSY 200: Introduction to Cognitive Psychology

Fall 2024
MWF 3:30 pm-4:20 pm
Wilmeth Active Learning Center, Room 1055

Breaking news:

• 05 September: One of the TAs, Hailey, is shifting her office hours for the next three weeks. Instead of holding office hours on Tuesday, she will have them on Monday of the same week at 1:00-2:00 pm. She will return to the regular schedule the week of October 30.
• 18 September: The final exam schedule has been released. The final exam for our section is Saturday, December 14, 3:30 - 5:30 pm in Forney Hall of Chemical Engineering (FRNY), Room G150 G140.
• 23 September: Exam 1 has been graded, and you can view your grades. In the file, each row is for a student, identified by their assigned CogLab ID. Note that the attendance score is out of 9 (as of September 9) and that each students gets 6 absences without penalty. Thus, someone has to miss more than 6 absences (score less than 3) to get an attendance % that is less than 100. Scores on the exam were lower than I would like, but they were pretty similar to previous classes. Students usually do better on subsequent exams. An estimated grade is provided, which supposes that your score on future exams is the same as on Exam 1 and that your CogLab and attendance grades are unchanged.
• 25 September: Dr. Francis will be travelling October 4-9. He will not have office hours during that time, and he will not be present during Exam 2 (the TAs will proctor the exam in class, as scheduled). Class will not meet on October 9. Instead, I have posted a recording of that lecture from Fall 2023. You can watch it at your leisure.
• 09 October: Dr. Francis returned a day earlier than expected, so we will have an in-person lecture today. Since the current change is being made on short notice, there will not be an attendance check for today's class. However, you are expected to complete the CogLab assignment as listed on the schedule by 1:00 pm today.
• 16 October: Exam 2 has been graded, and you can view your grades. In the file, each row is for a student, identified by their assigned CogLab ID. On average, scores were worse than for Exam 1, which is not typical. Looking into more details, it seems that quite a few students did better on Exam 2 than on Exam 1, but a lot of students did much worse. The latter students need to be much better prepared for the remaining exams. There is still time to improve your grade quite a bit.
• 17 October: There was a small error in the calculation of the estimated grade. Fixing that error leads to a slight increase in the estimated grade for most students. The grade PDF has been corrected.
• 18 October: There was another error in the scoring of attendance. Fixing that error leads to a slight increase in the estimated grade for some students. The grade PDF has been corrected.
• 07 November: I am a bit concerned about the relatively poor grades for exams 1 and 2. To motivate students to do better on Exam 4, I am giving you the option to partially replace your score on Exam 1 with the score on Exam 4. On the front page of Exam 4 will be a box. If you check the box, your current exam 1 score will be replaced by the average of your old Exam 1 score and the score you earn on Exam 4. Thus, if you think you have done better on Exam 4 than on Exam 1, you should check this box. If you think you have done worse on Exam 4 than on Exam 1, you should leave the box unchecked.
• 08 November: Exam 3 has been graded, and you can view your grades. In the file, each row is for a student, identified by their assigned CogLab ID. On average, scores were better than for Exams 1 and 2.
• 10 November: A few students had argued for some additional points on Exam 2, but they grades were not correctly updated. The updates have been fixed and you can view your grades.
• 20 November: I have decided to do something similar for the final exam as for Exam 4. You will have the option to partially replace your score on Exam 2 with the score on final exam. On the front page of final exam will be a box. If you check the box, your current Exam 2 score will be replaced by the average of your old Exam 2 score and the score you earn on the final exam. Thus, if you think you have done better on the final exam than on Exam 2, you should check this box. If you think you have done worse on the final exam than on Exam 2, you should leave the box unchecked.
• 20 November: I discovered that I made an error for the answer key for Exam 3. We will re-grade the scantrons for Exam 3 and post the revised grades along with the grades for Exam 4. Some students will see a 2 point increase in their Exam 3 score, but some students will see a decrease, and some students will see no change at all.
• 05 December: Exam 4 has been graded, and you can view your grades. In the file, each row is for a student, identified by their assigned CogLab ID. Overall, scores were quite good: there were more scores in the A range than any other letter grade. Nice job!
• 05 December: There was a spreadsheet error, which screwed a the grades of a few people. It has been fixed. Also, the DRC did not provide us with all of the exams, so a few people who took the exam at the DRC have no score for Exam 4. We'll update those grades when we have them (probably on Friday of this week).
• 05 December: The missing exams from the DRC have been graded. Here's an updated grade sheet.
• 10 December: The attendance grades are complete, and I modified the grade sheet with an explicit column for the adjusted Exam 1 score. Here's the updated grade sheet. (There was an error in the attendance column, which has been fixed.)
• 12 December: A few people has incorrectly filled out some attendance scantrons, so they did not receive credit for some classes. We found the corresponding scantrons and updated the attendance score according. Here's the updated grade sheet.
• 16 December: Final exam scores were pretty good. Here's the updated grade sheet. The scale for letter grades is described in the first lecture.

Instructor:

Name	Office	Email	Phone	Office hours
Greg Francis	PSYCH 3186	gfrancis@purdue.edu	494-6934	MWF 2:00 pm-3:00 pm

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 10% of your final class grade. Athletes and other special cases need to contact Dr. Francis.

Class home page: The home page for this course is http://www.psych.purdue.edu/~gfrancis/Classes/PSY200/indexF24.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 Brightspace.

Vodcast recordings of lectures: BoilerCast recordings of the lectures will be available. At the time of syllabus preparation is not clear how the recordings will be distributed, but we will sort it out as the semester goes. 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.

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). Exams 1 through 4 are each worth 15% of your class grade. The final will cover all topics of the course and is worth 15% of your class grade. Exams will be half 30 multiple choice questions (worth 2 points each) and half 4 short-answer questions (worth 10 points each). Extensive study guides are available as links in the class schedule below. You might also find it useful to look at old exams from Spring 2016. However, the course always changes a bit from semester to semester, and your exams will be made of different (but similar) 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 https://coglab.cengage.com. In the schedule below, individual labs are associated with different dates. You must complete each lab by 1:00 pm on the date indicated to get credit (better to do it the night before). You will receive log-in instructions in class.

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
Hailey Arreola	PSYCH 3196	harreola@purdue.edu	Tuesday and Thursday, 8:30-10:00 am
Andy Fordyce	PSYCH 3198	afordyc@purdue.edu	Tuesday, 12-1:30 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.