EXPERIMENTAL
COGNITION
Ph. D. PROGRAM IN PSYCHOLOGY
PSYC.
80103
Seminar in Special Topics:
The Synaptic Self
Thursday 6:00-8:30 p.m.
Prof. Antrobus
Brief Description
Our limited knowledge of how our mind-brain computes our fears, desires, values, and emotions, stands in stark contrast to the enormous advances in our understanding of how it processes information. Research in cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience over the past 50 years has told us a great deal about how the mind-brain perceives, remembers, and responds, but much less about how and why it selects what to perceive, what to remember, and what to do. The new research emphasis on the study of emotions and motives makes it possible to integrate these two efforts so that we can construct a unified theory of the person, the self. This effort is very much a work in progress, and this course is designed to help the student contribute to this effort. In the course of doing so, it will also provide the student with a selective introduction to cognitive neuroscience, neuroanatomy, neural networks, neural development, Hebbian, Pavlovian and supervised learning, perception, memory, and psychopathology.
Prerequisites and permissions: None, but one prior or concurrent course in cognition, and one in neuroscience, is recommended. This course satisfies one course of the three cognitive neuroscience courses required of the Experimental Cognition Subprogram.
Click here to see pdf of syllabus.
Texts.
LeDoux, J. (2002) Synaptic Self: How our brains become who we are. N.Y.: Penguin.Click here for LeDoux Lab
Woolsey, T.A., Hanaway, J., & Gado, M.H. (2003) The brain atlas, 2nd ed., Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley
For students who wish to do computational models, add: O'Reilly et al.,(2000). Computational explorations in cognitive neuroscience. Cambridge: MIT.
