Required
Optional
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| Instructor: | J. Cooper Cutting |
| Office: | De Garmo 435D |
| Phone: | 438-2999 |
| e-mail: | jccutti@ilstu.edu |
| office hours: | M 1-2 & Th 9-10, and by appointment |
Where and When?
Required |
Optional |
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| Neath and Surprenant (2003). Human Memory, 2 nd Edition. Wadsworth Publishing (N&S) (required) | American Psychological Association. (2001). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (6thEdition.).Washington, DC: Author. (recommended). | ||
| Additional Readings
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Course Description & Objectives.
(1) Understanding of the current theories of the organization of
human memory and how this organization relates to physiological
functioning of the brain.
(2) Knowledge of methodological techniques used in the study of
human memory.
(3) Application of basic principles of psychology to the study of
specific topics in memory research.
(4) Understanding of how principles of memory theories apply to
other areas such as education, neuroscience, human development,
and cognitive science.
(5) Writing skills through short-answer exam questions that
require integration of knowledge of memory and psychology,
experiment reports written in APA style, and article focus
questions.
To view the full list of Psychology Department Course Objectives, click here.
Course Requirements.
Assignments:
(1) Regular attendance of lecture and completion of assignments.
Attendance is your responsibility. Absence is not an excuse for
incomplete assignments. If you must miss a class, you should get
notes from someone who was in class that day.
(2) Three in-class exams:
Exam 1 - 2/15
Exam 2 - 3/28
Exam 3 - Finals schedule will be determined in mid-February
and announced through iCampus
(3) Article Focus Questions
(4) In-class Quizzes
(5) Homework Assignments
(6) Experiment Reports
Exams: The exams will contain multiple choice and short answer questions and will cover material from lectures, labs, and the assigned readings. Exams will be taken in class on the scheduled day and will be closed-book and closed-note exams. Each exam is worth 15% of your final grade in the course. Exams must be taken on the scheduled day. Make-up exams will be given only in the event of a documented emergency or illness and you must notify me of such emergency BEFORE the exam. See Late Policy for more information on make-up exams.
Quizzes: Quizzes will be given during the semester in class. Each quiz is designed to test students' understanding of major concepts for a portion of the course material. Each quiz will contain a short number of multiple choice questions and immediate feedback will be given to help students gauge their understanding of course concepts. Quizzes will occur once every 1-2 weeks. Quizzes cannot be made up or taken late so if you miss class the day a quiz is given, you will miss your opportunity to take the quiz. Extra credit is available (see below) and can help you replace points lost from missing a quiz. Quiz scores will be combined to determine 10% of your final grade in the course.
Homework: Periodic homework assignments will be given to elaborate on concepts covered in class. These will be assigned in lecture and due at the beginning of class on the day they are due. Many of the homework assignments are included on the blackboard website. The homework assignments will comprise 10% of your final grade in the course.
Article Focus Questions: For each of the four required reserve readings on the blackboard reserves web page you will asked to answer a set of focus questions to help you learn important information from the articles. These assignments are also designed to assess your understanding of the assigned scientific papers. Your answers to the questions should be typed and double-spaced. Focus questions for each article can be downloaded from the course web page. Due dates are listed on the assignment and in the schedule below. Each focus question assignment will be worth 5% of your final grade. Combined, the assignments will be worth 20% of your final grade.
Experiment Reports: Experiments will be described in class and are designed to illustrate some of the primary findings in the literature. Students will run subjects through the experiment, collect data, score the data, and write a report describing the purpose and method of the study, the results collected for the class, and the conclusions that can be drawn from these results. Reports should be written in APA style. These reports should be approximately 2-3 pages in length, typed and double-spaced. Materials for the experiments and reports are on your Course Blackboard WebPage. The reports will contribute 15% of your final grade in the course (5% each).
You will be given the opportunity to earn a maximum of 20
points of extra credit by two methods:
(a) You may volunteer to participate as a subject in
psychological research. You may earn 2 extra credit points for
each half hour of participation if you choose to volunteer, for
a maximum of 20 points (5 hours total). Participation as a
research subject is entirely voluntary. To sign up for an
experiment, go to the basement of DeGarmo Hall and sign up on
the sheets posted on the bulletin board. Please respect the
sign-up process by keeping appointments and only signing up for
each experiment once. Please read the participation guidelines
before signing up for an experiment. You will receive a blue
card with your participation time circled. Blue cards may be
used in one class only to earn extra credit. You may turn in the
blue cards on the days of exams (up to 2.5 hours at each exam).
(b) You may write up to five journal article summaries by
completing the article summary form
on the course web page. The articles may be on a topic of your
choice, but must come from the scientific journal Psychological
Science. Summary form responses must be typed with double
spacing. The article must accompany each summary form you hand
in to receive credit. Each summary is equivalent to one hour of
research participation (i.e., 4 pts of extra credit). Summary
forms can be handed in on exam days only (two articles per
exam).
Extra credit will be added to exam scores. Therefore, extra credit that you'd like to add to an exam score must be handed in the day of the exam. Thus, extra credit is due on 2/15, 3/28, and Final's week. You may add a maximum of 10 points of extra credit (i.e., half of the total points available) to any exam. Your grade will not be affected if you do not choose to participate in one of the extra credit options. You may only earn a total of 20 extra credit points by these activities, no matter which option you choose. Extra credit assignments will be held to academic dishonesty standards like any other assignment. If you plagiarize an article for extra credit, you will not earn any points for that summary and your violation of the university conduct code will be reported to the CR&R office (and I check them carefully so be sure to complete summary assignments in your own words).
Grading will be based on the following distribution:
Exam 1 15% 75 pts
Exam 2 15% 75 pts
Exam 3 15% 75 pts
Quizzes 10% 50 pts
Homework 10% 50 pts
Article Focus Questions 20% 100 pts
Experiment Reports 15% 75 pts
____________________________
Total 100% 500 pts
You must earn at least the lowest point total in these ranges to earn a particular grade. No curving or rounding will be done for grading. Extra credit is available if you wish to help boost your point total (see the extra credit section for important information).
Grade records for this course will be kept on a secure web server that you may access during and after the semester to check your grade progress. The grade server may be accessed from the course web page.
Graduate Students: Graduate students are expected to
prepare and present a presentation to the class on a topic in
memory approved by me. The grading scale for graduate students
taking PSY 368 will also be shifted slightly to represent higher
expectations for graduate students. Graduate students will be
graded according to the following scale:
A = 460 and above
B = 420-459
C = 380-419
D = 340-379
F = below 340
Any assignment turned in after the scheduled time it is due, will be counted late and the grade you receive will be adjusted according to the number of days the assignment is tardy. The late policy goes into effect when class ends on the day an assignment is due. Thus, if you bring in an assignment after class on the day it is due, it will be counted as one day late. For written assignments (paper and summaries) 10% of the total possible points will be deducted for each day it is late. Weekends count as one late day. Computer mishaps (e.g., failure to successfully save work, printer problems) are not acceptable excuses for late assignments. It is your responsibility to back up your work and print assignments in time for them to be turned in. No make-up exams will be given unless you contact me and arrange to take a make-up exam BEFORE the exam date. Make-ups will only be given in the case of a documented emergency. Therefore, unless you make special arrangements with me before the due date, any late assignment will have points deducted! Late assignments may be placed in my box in DeGarmo 435. Put my name on the front page and ask the desk clerk to initial the day and time on the front. The office closes at 4:30 pm each day so plan accordingly.
Academic dishonesty such as cheating or plagiarism will not be tolerated. Cheating or plagiarism will result in an F and referral to the Community Rights and Responsibilities (CR&R) Office for disciplinary action. Cheating INCLUDES (but is not limited to): plagiarism of both published and unpublished written work, having another individual take or assist you with an exam, taking an exam for or assisting another individual with an exam, performing or completing a class assignment or quiz for another individual or having another individual perform or complete a class assignment or quiz for you. Cheating is thus defined generally as representing work that is NOT your own as your work or allowing your work to be represented as another's so that individual receives academic credit. You are responsible for understanding what is and isn't plagiarism. More information about plagiarism will be discussed in class and is included in the assignment sheets for written assignments. Violators of this policy will receive a failing grade on that assignment, a possible failing grade for the course, and referral to the CR&R Office for disciplinary action. Your work on assignments must be your own. If you discuss material in written assignments found in another source, you must use your own words. You may NOT lift wording from published works for any assignment in this course. If you have any questions at all about what constitutes plagiarism, please come and talk to me. Do not wait until you are caught plagiarizing to say you didn't understand. It will be too late.
If you have any questions about the syllabus, course, or your progress in the course, please feel free to come talk to me. My office hours are listed above and I am also available for appointments. Attendance is your responsibility. You are still responsible for knowing what occurs during a class, even if you miss it. If you miss a lecture, you should get notes from someone in the class, but I will be happy to answer any questions you may have. Any student in need of a special accommodation should contact 438-5853 (voice) or 438-8620 (TDD).
| Class Dates | Tentative topic calendar | Readings |
Things due |
| WK1 (Jan 18) | Introduction and syllabus review. What is memory? Unknown White Male |
Questions in Packet | |
| WK2 (Jan. 23 & 25) | Unknown White Male Seven Sins of Memory |
N&S: Ch 1 (pp.1-8) | Film Questions Homework |
| WK3 (Jan. 30 & Feb. 1) | Methods, Processes, & Early Memory Research Sensory Memory Experiment #1 (STM) |
Methods of Study Review (BB) Memory Processes Overview (BB) N&S: CH 1 (pp.8-20) N&S: CH 2 |
Methods Homework |
| WK4 (Feb. 6 & 8) | Short-term Memory Working Memory |
N&S: CH 3 N&S: CH 4 |
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| WK5 (Feb. 13 & 15) | Review for Exam 1 Exam 1 (Feb. 15) |
Review Chpts 1, 2, 3, 4 Review sheet |
Experiment Report #1 |
| WK6 (Feb. 20 & 22) | LTM: Processing & Forgetting |
N&S: CH 5 Craik & Lockhart (1972) N&S: CH 6 |
Processing Views
Homework Due Wed Feb 29 |
| WK7 (Feb. 27 & 29) | LTM: Recognition Experiment #2 (SDT) LTM: Signal Detection Theory |
Reading Journal Articles Review (BB) N&S: CH 9 |
Craik & Lockhart (1972) Focus Qs Due Mon Feb 27 |
| WK8 (Mar. 4 & 6) | Implicit Memory and Tasks | N&S: CH 7 & pp. 111-114 Weldon & Roediger (1987) |
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Spring Break |
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| WK9 (Mar. 19 & 21) | Neuropsychology of Memory Amnesia |
N&S: CH 8 | Experiment Report #2 |
| WK10 (Mar. 26 & 28) | Review for Exam Catch-up and review Exam 2 |
Chpts 5, 6, 7, 8, & 9 Review sheet |
Weldon & Roediger (1987) Focus Qs |
| WK11 (Apr. 2 & 4) | Semantic Memory Experiment #3 Reconstructive Memory |
N&S: CH 10 N&S: CH 12 |
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| WK12 (Apr. 9 & 11) | Prospective Memory Reconstructive Memory cont. |
N&S: CH 14 Thomas & Loftus (2002) |
Experiment Data #3 Due Mon, Apr 9 |
| WK13 (Apr. 16 & 18) | Graduate Student Presentations | Experiment Report #3 Due Mon, Apr 16 Thomas & Loftus (2002) Focus Qs Due Wed, Apr 18 |
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| WK14 (Apr. 23 & 25) | Development of Memory Imagery |
N&S: CH 11 Marsh (2007) N&S: CH 15 |
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| WK15 (Apr. 30 & May 2) | Mnemonics Overview: How Can You Improve Your Memory? Review for Final Exam |
Chpts 10, 11, 12, 14, & 15 Review sheet |
Marsh
(2007) Focus Qs Due Wed May 2 |
| Finals Week | FINAL EXAM Wed, May 9 1-3PM Finals schedule |
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If you are interested in obtaining research experience in human memory, take a look at ISU's (Dr. Dawn McBride) Memory Lab page. |