PSYCH 178:
New Methods for Old Questions: Linking Social Cognition and Social Cognitive Neuroscience
Novel technology can fuel new discoveries and generate new questions for future research. For instance, looking-time methods for studying infants or response time (RT) measures in cognitive psychology have been enabled by the use of computers and video cameras. More recently, neuroimaging techniques (such as fMRI) have transformed the field by offering a more direct look into the working human brain. These methods are, in a way, ¿old¿ and ¿new¿ ways of studying what psychologists want to study ¿ mental representations. nnWhat are the promises and challenges of using these methods to study human cognition and its development? What have we learned, where have we fallen short, and why? Most importantly, how can we make the most out of these new methods to bear on our understanding of social cognition and its development? After the first two weeks of lectures on basic methods, each week we will consider a topic that has been extensively studied in cognitive development literature. Topics will include: perception of agency, theory of mind, and morality; on each topic, we will compare two different ways of studying mental representations ¿ the ¿old¿ way (behavior) and the ¿new¿ way (neural response) ¿ to assess their relative benefits and shortcomings, and to discuss the promises and pitfalls for combining the two.nnThis course will be a combination of lectures, presentations, and discussions aimed primarily for upper-class undergraduate students or graduate students who do not have much background in neuroimaging methods, but interested in learning more about neuroimaging methods and think about how these methods can (and cannot) help address questions about social cognition and development. Prerequisite: Psych60 or Psych141, or see instructor
Last offered: Autumn 2015
| Units: 3
