Sensation and Perception Seminar
Psy U668
Syllabus (Fall, 2004).
Northeastern Department of Psychology.
Key # 50748.
Class meets: Tuesday 1:35 - 3:15 p.m. (sequence F) in room 427 Ryder.
Prof. Adam Reeves: phone 373-4708 (leave messages)
My office is 239 LA (enter through NI 2 nd floor).
Mail: 125 NI.
e-mail: reeves@neu.edu
Textbook: there is no required textbook. You will find Goldstein is useful for background material. There
are copies available in the Library in case you did not keep your old copy. Perception by Sekuler and
Blake is another excellent textbook.
Prerequisites: you must have had Sensation or Perception; you need not have had a Lab course.
Purpose of the Course: to meet, discuss, and report on seminal papers in Sensation and Perception. You
will be reading these papers critically, and reporting on them. My aim is to prepare you for reading
research papers in virtually any area of Psychology. You will spend a lot of time each week with one or
two papers, rather than reading summaries of many papers, so this is not like a lecture class.
| Week | Date | Assignment | Topic | Presenter |
| 1 | Sept 10 |
|
Introduction | Reeves |
| 2 |
Sept 13 |
|
Introduction |
Reeves |
| Sept 17 |
Paper 1 |
Attention |
Barber-Davis |
| 3 |
Sept 20 |
Paper 2 |
| " |
Cahill |
| Sept 24 |
Paper 3 |
Infant vision |
Cole |
| 4 |
Sept 27 |
Paper 4 |
" |
Fakunle |
| Oct 1 |
Paper 5 |
" |
Falkler |
| 5 |
Oct 4 |
Paper 6 |
" |
Hill |
| Oct 8 |
Paper 7 |
Infant hearing |
Lobdell |
| 6 |
Oct 11 |
NO CLASS |
(Columbus day) |
| Oct 15 |
NO CLASS |
(note: Rochester) |
| 7 |
Oct 18 |
Paper 8 | "
McMillan |
| Oct 22 |
Midterm exam |
(note: Paris) |
| 8 |
Oct 25 |
Paper 9 |
Infant smell |
Moitozo |
| Oct 29 |
Paper 10 |
" |
Montecinos |
| 9 |
Nov 1 |
Paper 11 |
Inter-sensory |
Moulder |
| Nov 5 |
Paper 12 |
" |
Nguyen |
| 10 |
Nov 8 |
Paper 13 |
" |
Peterson |
| Nov 12 |
Paper 14 |
neural development |
Proulx |
| 11 |
Nov 15 |
Paper 15 |
" |
Reed |
| Nov 19 |
Paper 16 |
Animal perception |
Rubin |
| 12 |
Nov 22 |
Paper 17 |
" |
Senkovitch |
| Nov 26 |
NO CLASS |
(Thanksgiving) |
| 13 |
Nov 29 |
Paper 18 |
" |
Tabtabai |
| Dec 3 |
Paper 19 |
" |
Valois |
| 14 |
Dec 7 |
revision for final |
(last class) |
| |
Dec ? |
final |
|
Dec 17 th; reports must be completed by now.
Dec 20 th; grades due.
Class requirements:
- you will prepare a paper for discussion each class. You will be answering 20 questions on each paper
(this will take an hour or more per paper), and you should formulate at least two questions that you'd like
answered in class (write them down and bring them to class). We'll discuss them.
- You will present one paper yourself, and then hand in a short report covering the paper that you
presented, using feedback from the class when possible. Reports due by Dec 17.
- There will be two written in-class exams, a Midterm and a Final, which will cover issues raised by the
papers you have read.
- Class attendance is required; if you do not attend class, you will lose points and ultimately you may fail
the class. If you attend and participate, you will gain points.
Grading policy.
You will get 20 points for the midterm, 20 points for the final, 20 points for the short report, 15 points
for completing the twenty questions on each paper (that is, 1 point each week plus a bonus for being on
time), 20 points for your presentation, and 5 points for normal class attendance and participation.
The mid-term and final are based on the 20 questions for each paper, so my giving 15 extra points for
completing the 20 questions each week may seem redundant, but the purpose is to help out those students
who work better at home or in the library than they do in the exam room.
Because the work is continuous throughout the semester, I will not give incompletes. If you anticipate a
problem with keeping up, talk to me early on - a W grade is better than a low grade or fail.
Topics:
The topic of the course is the measurement of sensation and perception, in adults but also in infants and
animals with whom communication is indirect. Particular topics revolve around the perceptual effects of
attention; infant vision, hearing, taste and smell; neural development; and animal perception.
Papers:
I have assigned you to a paper ahead of time. However, if you have a burning issue to present, and it fits
in, we will change your paper. Also, you can swap with another student if you want - just let me know.
Papers are available in a class package from Gnomon copy (north side of Huntington Avenue).