Syllabus, Spring 2025
Boston University

Logistics

Lectures: MWF 1:25–2:15pm in SAR 101
Discussion sections on Fridays as follows:

Instructor

Joseph T. McGuire, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences
Email: jtmcg@bu.edu
Office location: 111 Cummington Mall, Room 262
Office hours:
- In person on Fridays, 9:30–10:30am
- Individual Zoom meeting slots available through the signup link on Blackboard
- Other times by appointment (email to schedule)

Teaching Fellow

Julia McClellan
Email: juliamcc@bu.edu
Office location: 64 Cummington Mall (see Blackboard for details)
Office hours:
- In person on Mondays, 2:30–4:30pm
- Other times by appointment (email to schedule)

Description and goals

This course is about how the human mind processes information. We have three main learning objectives.

Prerequisite: PS101, General Psychology.

Required readings and materials

We will use the following materials:

Expected work and grading

Overview

Course grades will be calculated as follows:

  • 72%: Five cumulative exams
  • 10%: Discussion section attendance and participation
  • 6%: Lecture attendance and participation
  • 6%: Submission of weekly discussion questions
  • 6%: Completion of CogLab experiments

Overall percentage scores will be converted to course grades as follows: 93.33–100 = A, 90–93.33 = A-, 86.67–90 = B+, 83.33–86.67 = B, etc.

A weekly batch of work, consisting of readings, a CogLab assignment, and discussion questions, is due by 11:00am each Friday. You should complete the readings and assignments throughout the week leading up to the due date.

Lectures

The topics we discuss in class will complement the readings rather than duplicate them, so it’s important to attend class. We will take attendance using a sign-in sheet, and you need to write your name legibly on the sign-in sheet in order to receive credit.

You are automatically allowed up to four absences without penalty. In other words, if there are 34 lectures during the semester, you will receive full attendance credit as long as you attended at least 30. You do not need to notify us or provide an explanation for up to four missed lectures (and two missed discussions). If a situation arises that will cause you to miss more classes than that, please discuss it with us.

Electronic devices are allowed in class for note-taking, but please consider your note-taking strategy carefully. Some cognitive psychology research suggests taking notes on paper leads to better results (it probably varies from person to person and from class to class). If you use a device, please take proactive steps to minimize distractions; for example, suspend notifications and close/hide other apps. Lecture slides will be posted on Blackboard shortly after each class to reduce the need for you to copy down information from the slides.

Exams

We will have five exams, tentatively on the dates listed in the schedule below. The first four exams will take place during class and the fifth exam will take place during our final exam slot, which the university has tentatively scheduled for Friday May 9 at 12pm.

Exams are cumulative and cover topics from lectures, readings, CogLabs, and discussion sections. Your lowest exam score counts for 8% of your final grade and the other four count for 16% each.

Exams will be administered in class as electronic Blackboard exams with a built-in time limit. You will need to bring a charged laptop or similar device to class on exam days. (If that’s a problem, let us know and we can make other arrangements.) The questions will ask you to read graphs, interpret data, and reason about psychological theory and experimental design. Exams will be open-book and open-notes. You are not permitted to communicate or collaborate with others during the exams or to share the exam questions.

Discussion sections

Discussion sections give you a chance to consider the week’s readings and CogLab experiments more deeply and interactively. You are free to attend section at a time other than your enrolled time (we will revisit this policy if it becomes problematic). You may miss up to two section meetings without penalty, but you are still expected to complete the discussion questions and CogLab every week as described below.

Weekly discussion questions

Each week, please come up with two discussion questions related to different topics from the week’s readings or CogLabs. Write 2 to 3 sentences for each question, giving some context for your question and/or considering potential answers.

You have a lot of freedom in what you write your questions about. For example, you could consider any of the following:

  • Something you found confusing or didn’t completely understand.
  • A claim you disagreed with or didn’t find persuasive.
  • New questions raised by the research. What would be a worthwhile follow-up experiment?
  • Ways in which insights from the research could be usefully applied to real-life situations.

The assignment is meant to help you collect your thoughts about what you want to talk about during discussion sections. We encourage you to bring up your questions in class! A secondary purpose is to give us general feedback about what everyone is finding interesting or puzzling. The weekly discussion questions are not the right place for questions that need a direct response from us (such as requests to review specific points or questions about course logistics)—for those kinds of things, please send us an email or ask in class or office hours.

Submit each week’s discussion questions via the Blackboard assignment by Friday at 11:00am, beginning Jan. 31. Questions submitted between 11:00am and 11:59pm Friday are eligible for half credit.

CogLab experiments

The CogLab website gives you hands-on experience with classic cognitive psychology experiments. You can see what the experiment is like, read some background information, view your data, and view data from the whole class and users around the world.

Complete each week’s CogLab assignment by Friday at 11am, starting Jan. 31. The first week’s assignment (Jan. 31) may be submitted up to a week late without penalty. For subsequent weeks, late submissions will not receive credit. However, since CogLabs are covered on exams, you may still find it beneficial to complete the assignment even if the deadline has passed.

Detailed instructions for joining the course’s CogLab group are posted on Blackboard. After you log in to CogLab, you can view the list of assigned labs and due dates by clicking “Access your account” -> “Assignments.” The CogLab server automatically keeps track of your completed assignments and each assignment is graded all-or-none. To receive credit, you must complete the entire experiment, having followed the instructions. If, for some reason, the CogLab server fails to record the completion of an experiment, you must repeat the experiment before the deadline to earn credit.

Academic integrity

You are responsible for adhering to the Boston University Academic Conduct Code. Please make sure you are familiar with that document, as it describes how academic misconduct is defined and how any instances of possible misconduct will be handled. If you become aware of academic misconduct occurring in the course, please bring it to the attention of the instructor or the teaching fellow and we will take it seriously.

Health precautions and class recordings

If you are feeling unwell, please stay home and let us know by email. We’ll work out a way for you to keep up with class activities.

We will try to record lectures for students who may need to miss class for health-related reasons. If a recording is made available to you, please refrain from sharing it outside the class in consideration of your classmates’ privacy.

Maintaining an inclusive classroom environment

Members of the class have a wide range of personal and academic backgrounds and it’s important to us to establish a learning space where everyone experiences a sense of belonging. If you have concerns or suggestions about the inclusivity climate of the course, we would like to hear them. If there is feedback you prefer to send anonymously to Dr. McGuire during the semester, a web submission form is available for that purpose (see Blackboard for the link).

Tentative schedule

Wednesday Jan. 22: Course introduction.

Friday Jan. 24: History and precursors of cognitive psychology.

Monday Jan. 27: Levels of description.

Wednesday Jan. 29: Mental chronometry.

Friday Jan. 31: Human neuroscience methods and terminology.

Monday Feb. 3: Visual perception as inference.

Wednesday Feb. 5: Face recognition.

Friday Feb. 7: Auditory perception.

Monday Feb. 10: Attention.

Wednesday Feb. 12: Visual search.

Friday Feb. 14: Short-term memory.

Tuesday Feb. 18: EXAM #1.

Wednesday Feb. 19: Individual differences in working memory capacity.

Friday Feb. 21: Long-term recognition memory.

Monday Feb. 24: Long-term memory recall.

Wednesday Feb. 26: Amnesia.

Friday Feb. 28: How to remember things better.

Monday Mar. 3: Memory strategies, continued.

Wednesday Mar. 5: EXAM #2.

Friday Mar. 7: Constructive processes in memory.

Spring recess, March 8–16

Monday Mar. 17: Eyewitness memory and the legal system.

Wednesday Mar. 19: Memory consolidation.

Friday Mar. 21: Metacognition and confidence.

Monday Mar. 24: Conceptual knowledge.

Wednesday Mar. 26: Connectionist models.

Friday Mar. 28: Numerical and temporal cognition.

Monday Mar. 31: EXAM #3.

Wednesday Apr. 2: Mental imagery.

Friday Apr. 4: Language.

Monday Apr. 7: Phonology, morphology, and syntax.

Wednesday Apr. 9: Acquiring and losing language abilities.

Friday Apr. 11: Biases in judgment and decision making.

Monday Apr. 14: EXAM #4.

Wednesday Apr. 16: Prospect theory.

Friday Apr. 18: Heuristics for evaluating uncertainty.

Classes do not meet on Monday Apr. 21.

Wednesday Apr. 23: Planning and problem-solving.

Friday Apr. 25: Social cognition.

Monday Apr. 28: Expertise and cognitive control.

Wednesday Apr. 30: Cognitive control; course wrap-up.

Friday May 9 at 12pm: EXAM #5 (pending finalization of BU’s exam week schedule).