2024-2025 Academic Year

Fall 2024

FYSM 100 First-Year Seminar
The First-Year Seminar (FYS) introduces students to Dickinson as a "community of inquiry" by developing habits of mind essential to liberal learning. Through the study of a compelling issue or broad topic chosen by their faculty member, students will: - Critically analyze information and ideas - Examine issues from multiple perspectives - Discuss, debate and defend ideas, including one's own views, with clarity and reason - Develop discernment, facility and ethical responsibility in using information, and - Create clear academic writing The small group seminar format of this course promotes discussion and interaction among students and their professor. In addition, the professor serves as students' initial academic advisor. This course does not duplicate in content any other course in the curriculum and may not be used to fulfill any other graduation requirement.

PSYC 130 Perception, Memory & Thought
This introduction to cognitive psychology will focus on how the mind structures information. The world that we experience is highly processed by our various mental structures. First, perceptual mechanisms lead us to see objects and colors the way we do. Second, memory processes keep some information accessible while discarding other information rather quickly. Third, decision making processes help us solve problems and generate creativity but are also subject to substantial bias. This course will examine the mind by conceptualizing it as an information processor, studying behavioral experiments as a window into the internal workings of the mind and supporting those experiments with research from neuroscience.

PSYC 560 Autobiographical Memory and W

PSYC 560 Stu/Faculty Collaborative Rsch

Spring 2025

PSYC 330 Autobiographical Mem Rsch Meth
Cognitive psychology is the study of how the mind processes information, including vision, attention, memory, and decision making, among others. In this course, students will learn about autobiographical memory, or memory for events in a person’s life that are considered relevant to understanding a sense of self. Although cognitive psychologists use many different methodologies (including experimental methods, reaction time tasks, and even brain imaging), this course focuses on analyzing personal memory narratives to draw conclusions about memory and selfhood. In doing so, methods covered include reliability and validity, experimenter control when studying memory, correlational and quasi-experimental approaches to data, ethics, and real-world applications of research. This intensive lab course will include the design and implementation of an original research project in the area of autobiographical memory. Three hours classroom plus three hours laboratory a week. Prerequisites: 210 & 211; OR NRSC 200.

PSYC 430 Human Memory
In this course, students will gain a deeper understanding of memory processes in the brain and mind. They will evaluate experimental data and consider its implications and applications outside the laboratory. The course will challenge students to think about when and why memory is accurate or inaccurate. One specific application that will be central in the course is considering how memory research can be applied to the eyewitness memory context. Using classroom methods such as ethical case studies, students will consider social and technological influences on memory and their implications for personal lives and legal contexts.