Overview
Simply put, cognitive psychology is the study of how the mind works. In this unit we look at how people attend to and perceive items in our world, how we remember short term and long term information, how we use language and how we make decisions. The unit presents historical and cutting-edge research in cognitive psychology, exploring some of the key debates and controversies in this area. It is a requirement of this enrolment that students have access to the CQU website via the Internet.
Details
Pre-requisites or Co-requisites
Pre-requisite: Minimum of 30 credit points in Level 2 Psych Units for CC43, 24 credit points for CA10 & CF59.
Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework).
Offerings For Term 1 - 2018
Attendance Requirements
All on-campus students are expected to attend scheduled classes – in some units, these classes are identified as a mandatory (pass/fail) component and attendance is compulsory. International students, on a student visa, must maintain a full time study load and meet both attendance and academic progress requirements in each study period (satisfactory attendance for International students is defined as maintaining at least an 80% attendance record).
Recommended Student Time Commitment
Each 6-credit Undergraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 12.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 150 hours for the unit.
Class Timetable
Assessment Overview
Assessment Grading
This is a graded unit: your overall grade will be calculated from the marks or grades for each assessment task, based on the relative weightings shown in the table above. You must obtain an overall mark for the unit of at least 50%, or an overall grade of ‘pass’ in order to pass the unit. If any ‘pass/fail’ tasks are shown in the table above they must also be completed successfully (‘pass’ grade). You must also meet any minimum mark requirements specified for a particular assessment task, as detailed in the ‘assessment task’ section (note that in some instances, the minimum mark for a task may be greater than 50%). Consult the University’s Grades and Results Policy for more details of interim results and final grades.
All University policies are available on the CQUniversity Policy site.
You may wish to view these policies:
- Grades and Results Policy
- Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework)
- Review of Grade Procedure
- Student Academic Integrity Policy and Procedure
- Monitoring Academic Progress (MAP) Policy and Procedure – Domestic Students
- Monitoring Academic Progress (MAP) Policy and Procedure – International Students
- Student Refund and Credit Balance Policy and Procedure
- Student Feedback – Compliments and Complaints Policy and Procedure
- Information and Communications Technology Acceptable Use Policy and Procedure
This list is not an exhaustive list of all University policies. The full list of University policies are available on the CQUniversity Policy site.
Feedback, Recommendations and Responses
Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.
Feedback from Course Feedback
I appreciated Chris taking the time to do BB Collaborates before the assignment and exam just to make sure that everyone was on track and understood what was expected
The virtual tutorials should continue.
Feedback from Course feedback
Having the lectures broken up into smaller short videos made it easier to stay focused.
Retain the short video lecture format
Feedback from Course Feedback
What aspects of your course are most in need of improvement? The echo 360 delivery of lectures.
Technical issues with Echo 360 will be discussed with ITD.
- Explain the underlying foundations of cognitive psychology, such as: how we attend to and perceive things in our world; how we remember short-term and long-term information; how we use language and how we make decisions.
- Communicate an understanding of the major psychological concepts and theories of cognitive psychology in an objective way.
- Apply research methods used to study cognitive psychology.
Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Learning Outcomes
| Assessment Tasks | Learning Outcomes | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| 1 - Examination - 55% | |||
| 2 - Written Assessment - 40% | |||
| 3 - Practical Assessment - 5% | |||
Alignment of Graduate Attributes to Learning Outcomes
| Graduate Attributes | Learning Outcomes | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| 1 - Communication | |||
| 2 - Problem Solving | |||
| 3 - Critical Thinking | |||
| 4 - Information Literacy | |||
| 5 - Team Work | |||
| 6 - Information Technology Competence | |||
| 7 - Cross Cultural Competence | |||
| 8 - Ethical practice | |||
| 9 - Social Innovation | |||
| 10 - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultures | |||
Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Graduate Attributes
| Assessment Tasks | Graduate Attributes | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | |
| 1 - Examination - 55% | ||||||||||
| 2 - Written Assessment - 40% | ||||||||||
| 3 - Practical Assessment - 5% | ||||||||||
Textbooks
Cognitive Psychology: A Students Handbook
Edition: 7th ed. (2015)
Authors: Eysenck, M.W. & Keane, M. T.
Psychology Press.
Hove Hove , UK
Binding: Paperback
Publication manual of the American Psychological Association
Edition: 6th (2009)
Authors: American Psychological Association
American Psychological Association
Washington Washington , DC , USA
ISBN: 978-1-4338-0561-5
Binding: Other
IT Resources
- CQUniversity Student Email
- Internet
- Unit Website (Moodle)
All submissions for this unit must use the referencing style: American Psychological Association 6th Edition (APA 6th edition)
For further information, see the Assessment Tasks.
c.bearman@cqu.edu.au
Module/Topic
Approaches to Human Cognition
Chapter
1
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Introduction to Visual Perception
Chapter
2
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Object & Face Recognition
Chapter
3
Events and Submissions/Topic
Virtual Tutorial on the Research Report Assignment.
Module/Topic
Attention
Chapter
5
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Short Term Memory
Chapter
6
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Chapter
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
No topic this week. A chance for you to work on your research report.
Chapter
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Long Term Memory
Chapter
7
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Everyday Memory
Chapter
8
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Reading & Speech Perception
Chapter
9
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Language Comprehension & Production
Chapter
10 & 11
Events and Submissions/Topic
Virtual Tutorial on the Exam
Module/Topic
Problem Solving & Decision Making
Chapter
12 & Research Papers on Moodle
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
No topic this week. A chance to catch up on the interactive exercises.
Chapter
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Chapter
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Chapter
Events and Submissions/Topic
1 Written Assessment
The primary aim of this assessment item is to enable you to design, conduct and communicate a research project in psychology. You will be provided with a research activity that describes a basic experiment in cognitive psychology. Your task is to extend this basic study (based on your review of the literature), collect data from at least 16 friends and family (who are over 18), appropriately analyze the data and write up your findings in an academic journal style report.
Week 7 Monday (23 Apr 2018) 9:00 am AEST
Assignments submitted by the deadline will be returned by the 11th May. Assignments submitted up to a week late will be returned by 18th May. Assignments submitted up to 2 weeks late will be returned by 25th May.
You should write a journal style report, between 2000 (minimum) and 2500 (maximum) words, excluding references and appendices, but including in-text citations and figure labels etc. In other words, everything from the beginning of the title to the end of the discussion is included in the word count. Your assignment should be double spaced and should mirror the form of an academic journal article. Journal articles are typically structured in the following format: title, abstract, introduction, method, results, discussion and references, and your report should follow all aspects of the APA publication style.
What am I looking for? The following illustrates the marking criteria that will be used to assess this assignment…
Title: 2 marks
Concise yet meaningful.
Abstract: 8 marks
Around 200 words.
Clearly and concisely written with flowing text.
Contains key information: brief background, the problem you're investigating, participant details, essential features of the method, what you found and what your findings mean.
Introduction: 20 marks
Not more than 1/3 of the word count.
No repetition or redundancy in expression.
Clear, flowing and concise writing, building up from general ideas towards specific hypotheses.
Integration of ideas from different studies, not a series of linked ‘abstracts’.
Citations always used to support statements or descriptions of previous studies.
Hypotheses and rationale: 5 marks
Hypotheses emerge logically from the preceding sections of the introduction.
No heading or sub-heading or bullet point, or other separation from the body of the introduction, just a short and concise
sentence or couple of sentences embedded in the final paragraph of the introduction.
Clearly, accurately and simply stated.
Method: 15 marks
Clear and detailed enough so that someone else can easily replicate your study.
Divided into sub-sections (see the APA guide for more information). Subsections should include at least: Participants, Design, Materials and Procedure.
Well conceived method that can examine the hypothesis.
Results: 15 marks
Presents an analysis that appropriately tests the hypotheses.
Statistics used are appropriate and correctly carried out.
Discussion: 30 marks
Begins with recap of results (no numbers necessary).
Reports how results relate to hypothesis (supportive or not).
Considers findings in relation to previous literature on the topic.
Includes citations when reporting other studies.
Reports any unexpected findings and suggests explanations.
Discusses limitations of the study, including any possible confounds and how these might be overcome.
Makes recommendations about further research on the topic.
Clear, flowing and concise writing.
Referencing: 5 marks
Includes full references in APA format for all references presented in the paper.
General
Throughout all these sections, the following criteria will be assessed: grammar, spelling, punctuation, APA format,
coherence of arguments, justification of arguments, use of literature, critical analysis, written style, structure of report
and length of report.
N.B. In line with the Psychology Program Student Assessment and Referencing Guidelines and Procedures,
an assignment which fails to adhere to the word count (i.e. exceeds 2500 or is less than 2000), will be subject to
-a word count penalty of 10% of the total possible grade, i.e. 10 marks.
-an assignment that is submitted late will attract a 5% penalty per day
- Explain the underlying foundations of cognitive psychology, such as: how we attend to and perceive things in our world; how we remember short-term and long-term information; how we use language and how we make decisions.
- Communicate an understanding of the major psychological concepts and theories of cognitive psychology in an objective way.
- Apply research methods used to study cognitive psychology.
- Communication
- Problem Solving
- Critical Thinking
- Information Literacy
- Ethical practice
2 Practical Assessment
The goal of this assessment is to encourage participation in a number of cognitive psychology research activities. These provide more information about concepts and methods in the unit. The interactive exercises are flash player files that can be found under the content weeks on the moodle page. To pass this assessment you need to complete all of the following
Week 1 - Connectionist Networks
Week 2 - Muller-Lyer
Week 3 - Bruce & Young
Week 4 - Automatic Processes
Week 5 - Encoding in STM
Week 5 - Duration in STM
Week 8 - Flashbulb Memory
Week 9 - Dual Route Reading
Week 10 - Construction Integration
Week 10 - WEAVER++
All of these interactive exercises must be completed by the due date for the assignment.
Review/Exam Week Monday (4 June 2018) 9:00 am AEST
Exam Week Monday (11 June 2018)
Students are required to complete all of the interactive exercises to pass this assessment.
No submission method provided.
- Explain the underlying foundations of cognitive psychology, such as: how we attend to and perceive things in our world; how we remember short-term and long-term information; how we use language and how we make decisions.
- Apply research methods used to study cognitive psychology.
- Problem Solving
- Information Technology Competence
Examination
As a CQUniversity student you are expected to act honestly in all aspects of your academic work.
Any assessable work undertaken or submitted for review or assessment must be your own work. Assessable work is any type of work you do to meet the assessment requirements in the unit, including draft work submitted for review and feedback and final work to be assessed.
When you use the ideas, words or data of others in your assessment, you must thoroughly and clearly acknowledge the source of this information by using the correct referencing style for your unit. Using others’ work without proper acknowledgement may be considered a form of intellectual dishonesty.
Participating honestly, respectfully, responsibly, and fairly in your university study ensures the CQUniversity qualification you earn will be valued as a true indication of your individual academic achievement and will continue to receive the respect and recognition it deserves.
As a student, you are responsible for reading and following CQUniversity’s policies, including the Student Academic Integrity Policy and Procedure. This policy sets out CQUniversity’s expectations of you to act with integrity, examples of academic integrity breaches to avoid, the processes used to address alleged breaches of academic integrity, and potential penalties.
What is a breach of academic integrity?
A breach of academic integrity includes but is not limited to plagiarism, self-plagiarism, collusion, cheating, contract cheating, and academic misconduct. The Student Academic Integrity Policy and Procedure defines what these terms mean and gives examples.
Why is academic integrity important?
A breach of academic integrity may result in one or more penalties, including suspension or even expulsion from the University. It can also have negative implications for student visas and future enrolment at CQUniversity or elsewhere. Students who engage in contract cheating also risk being blackmailed by contract cheating services.
Where can I get assistance?
For academic advice and guidance, the Academic Learning Centre (ALC) can support you in becoming confident in completing assessments with integrity and of high standard.
What can you do to act with integrity?
