Main Page

This is the course wiki for PSY243 "Cognitive Psychology: from experiments to interpretations". If you are registered on the course you can log in to edit this wiki. Your username is your university username (e.g. pca10aa) in lower case letters and the password is your date of birth in the form dd/mm/year (e.g. 01/01/1995).

The Course

Over 12 weeks we will explore cognitive psychology, through critical analysis of scientific papers that report experiments on how the mind works. For each paper you will have a chance to check your understanding of the background cognitive psychology, practice producing a written analysis and see a model answer. The course also provides opportunities for feedback, peer review and questions and answers during the weekly lectures. The course is assessed by coursework, which will be an analysis of one of a selection of papers which will be released a week before the coursework is due.

If you have any questions, please look at the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Although each lecture involves reading a single paper, the papers are arranged so that we will cover the major topics of cognitive psychology and thematically cover the essential practical skills and habits of a cognitive psychologist. See the Overview

You can read some feedback from students who took the course in previous years here: StudentFeedback. You can read about why the course is the way it is, and why it covers what it does, in CourseMotivation

The Lectures

• Lectures: Thursday @ 1pm, Richard Roberts Auditorium.
• Read the paper before the lecture
• Discuss the paper in the google group
• Some resources are in this google drive folder, but anything important will be directly linked from this wiki

Week 1	Memory : effective study Pre-lecture revision quiz Lecture 1: slides and prezi	Karpicke, J. D., & Roediger, H. L. (2008). The critical importance of retrieval for learning. science, 319(5865), 966-968.
Week 2	Memory 2: writing a critical review Lecture 1 Model Answer Note the Answer Guide [Lecture 2 slides]	Karpicke & Roediger (2008) again.
Week 3	Perception: Can glass shape control your beer drinking speed? Pre-lecture revision quiz Email Tom an answer on this week's paper by Thurday at 1pm to get individual feedback use inline text, no attachments, please use subject line "PSY243 practice answer" Lecture Video: Walkthrough of Attwood et al (2012) and slides Lecture 3 Model Answer	Attwood, A. S., Scott-Samuel, N. E., Stothart, G., & Munafò, M. R. (2012). Glass shape influences consumption rate for alcoholic beverages. PloS one, 7(8), e43007.
Week 4	Learning: Wiki editors get higher exam scores Concept checking quiz on learning Lecture 4 slides Professional reviews of the paper before it was published: WikiPaperReviews Good 2i review, example 1 & Good 2i review, example 2	Stafford, T., Elgueta, H., Cameron, H. (2014). Students’ engagement with a collaborative wiki tool predicts enhanced written exam performance. Research in Learning Technology, 22, 22797. doi:10.3402/rlt.v22.22797
Week 5	Performance: Seeing red - performance enhancing colours Swop week: arrange to swop your practice review with another student on the course Lecture overheads concept checking quiz on learning Lecture 5: Model Answer	Hagemann, N., Strauss, B., & Leißing, J. (2008). When the referee sees red…. Psychological Science, 19(8), 769-771.
Week 6	Social influence: Did the eyes really stare down bicycle crime in Newcastle? Concept checking quiz on social cognition Lecture 6 slides Lecture 6: Model Answer Video: writing an answer	Nettle, D., Nott, K., & Bateson, M. (2012) “Cycle Thieves, We Are Watching You”: Impact of a Simple Signage Intervention against Bicycle Theft. PloS one, 7(12), e51738.
READING WEEK	No lecture Submit analysis of "Sight over sound in the judgment of music performance" (week 8 paper) by 11th Nov access via PSY243 MOLE, Details: Peer review
Week 8	Judgement & Decision making: Are classical music competitions judged on looks? Submit Peer reviews, via MOLE, by 18th Nov Concept checking quiz on judgement & decision making Week 8 Lecture Slides Week 8: Model Answer mindhacks.com post on the difference between testing differences vs contributions	Tsay, C. J. (2013). Sight over sound in the judgment of music performance. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110(36), 14580-14585.
Week 9	Numerical cognition: Could brain stimulation make you better at maths? Concept checking quiz on cognitive neuroscience lecture slides Week 9 model answer	Snowball, A., Tachtsidis, I., Popescu, T., Thompson, J., Delazer, M., Zamarian, L., Zhu, T., Cohen Kadosh, R. (2013). Long-Term Enhancement of Brain Function and Cognition Using Cognitive Training and Brain Stimulation. Current Biology, 23, 987–992. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2013.04.045Ed
Week 10	Unconscious thought: Does the unconscious know when you are being lied to? No lecture! Email Tom for a discussion appointment No concept checking quiz Week 10 Model Answer	ten Brinke, L., Stimson, D., & Carney, D. R. (2014). Some Evidence for Unconscious Lie Detection. Psychological science, 25(5), 1098-1105.
Week 11	Q&A and course overview Week 11 slides	please bring your questions or email me them by Tuesday the 8th
Week 12	writing the coursework Download instructions and coversheet I cannot answer questions received after 9am on Wednesday the 16th of Dec	select 1 paper from those announced in week 11

The core readings are all on the University Google Drive (if you are logged in with your @sheffield account). The pre-lecture concept checking quizes are available here PreQuizzes

Final Assessment

The course is assessed by coursework. The coursework task is to write, in less than 1000 words, a critical analysis on one of a choice of papers similar to those covered by the course. The selection is released a week before the deadline.

Helpful advice

You have approximately 5 hours study time per week for each 10 credit module. I suggest this, 1 hour of study per day:

Monday: re-read the week's paper, read around the topic, organise your notes, discuss on the forum, email me questions

Tuesday: write an answer using the Answer Guide

Wednesday: compare your answer to the Answer Guide, revise your answer

Thursday: come to the lecture

Friday: read next week's paper

essential documents

• Answer Guide for PSY243

• Download all the core papers for this course (via Google Drive, only accessible within the University)

useful links

Organising

• advice on how to write good emails
• A 3 minute video introducing this wiki

Reading

• Target questions for when reading articles (via Google Drive)

Understanding graphs

• Pew Research: The art and science of the scatterplot
• Wikipedia Anscombe's Quartet
• Open University: Working with charts, graphs and tables
• BBC Skillshare: Graphics and charts
• Effect size visualisation

Critical thinking

• 900 words on: what it means to be critical
• 10 minute video: Robert Sapolsky on how to critically assess a study (from 09:24 to 29:36 of the whole lecture)
• Common errors in interpreting research
• Paul Graham's hierarchy of disagreement

Writing

• 6 clear writing tips for exam success
• Help with writing clearly: The Up-Goer Six text editor
• Tim Radford's A manifesto for the simple scribe – my 25 commandments for journalists - useful for everyone who wants to write clearly
• The Secret to Good Writing: It's About Objects, Not Ideas

Getting started with wikis

• Consult the User's Guide for information on using the wiki software.
• Back at the dawn of time, I wrote an article on what wikis are and how to use them What Is a Wiki (and How to Use One for Your Projects)
• Configuration settings list
• MediaWiki FAQ
• MediaWiki release mailing list
• Localise MediaWiki for your language