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Course Syllabus

Master 2022/2023

Research Seminar "Cognitive Sciences"

Type: Elective course (Cognitive Sciences and Technologies: From Neuron to Cognition)
Area of studies: Psychology
Delivered by: School of Psychology
Where: Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience
When: 2 year, 1-3 module
Mode of studies: offline
Open to: students of one campus
Instructors: Maria Alexeeva, Kirill Efimov, Iiro Jaaskelainen, Mario Martinez-Saito, Ioannis Ntoumanis, Ksenia Panidi
Master’s programme: Cognitive Sciences and Technologies: From Neuron to Cognition
Language: English
ECTS credits: 8
Contact hours: 72

Course Syllabus

Full SyllabusAsk Question

Abstract

The present program establishes minimum demands of students’ knowledge and skills, and determines content of the course. The present syllabus is aimed at department teaching the course, their teaching assistants, and students of the Master of Science program 37.04.01 «Cognitive sciences and technologies: from neuron to cognition».
Learning Objectives

Learning Objectives

  • Know information for career design
  • This course aims to teach students fundamental steps of the scientific method with practical applications that the students can use with their own thesis topics. For example, writing an abstract about their thesis topic, developing their data analyses plan and preparing a presentation for the thesis project. This course will offer students the opportunity to study how research examines how the mind works. This endeavour requires knowledge drawn from multiple perspectives. The lecturer will employ perspectives from psychology and neuroscience to explore the nature of mental processes. Students will have the opportunity to discuss how their own thesis project can contribute to the literature.
  • Discuss logic, probability, and statistics to understand their relation with students' research projects.
  • Research methods and experimental design are fundamental aspects for properly prepared scientific projects focusing on practical aspects. The lecturer will present on hypotheses development, various methodologies and tools used to answer different questions in cognitive science and psychological meta-subjective task analyses.
  • Understand issues of science in society
  • Lectures will focus on brain areas and related functional properties. Students will engage in practical activities that target cortical and sub-cortical regions. Practical activities will include historical understanding and current findings related to specific brain areas.
  • The lecturer will overview fundamental practices in data collection, highlight the importance of hypothesis appropriate statistical analyses and introduce tools for analyzing data.
  • Knowledge translation is key for communicating research findings. Academic writing may vary from short abstracts to long monographs. The lecturer will present on various writing techniques and give tips for academic writing focusing on research reports for peer-reviewed scientific journals. Practical activities will include preparing text for knowledge translation such as writing conference abstract.
  • The last weeks of this course will focus on skills and techniques for orally presenting scientific findings. The lecturer will overview the dos and don'ts of poster and paper oral presentations.
  • The aim is to help students choose a supervisor, a laboratory, better variant for research project and methods
  • At the second year students will develop interdisciplinary thinking by studying behavioural economics (1 module), social cognition, executive functions, consciousness (2 module). Behavioral Economics (broadly defined) combines knowledge from several disciplines, such as Economics, Psychology, Sociology and Neuroscience. Students will learn how theories of human behavior are formalized, described and experimentally tested in Economic science. Second, the module is focused on understanding what is an economic experiment and how it is different from experimental practices in Psychology. Finally, the module helps to develop critical thinking with respect to the results of economic research. Students will have a chance to train their ability to be conscious readers of economic studies and integrate evidence from various sources. In the 2nd module at the 2nd year, students will also acquire skills to work and use in their research projects naturalistic stimuli, as part of behavioral and neuroscientific research.
Expected Learning Outcomes

Expected Learning Outcomes

  • Learn to consider and discuss current issues of empirical science: replication crisis, publication bias, and research misconduct.
  • Learn to consider and discuss roles of science in society.
  • Learn to consider their practical career plans before/after getting degree
  • Learn to plan and work on their own research projects independently.
  • Learn to present and discuss their own research projects
  • Learn to understand, present and discuss results
  • Students will choose a supervisor for scientific work, a laboratory, research methods.
  • Students will learn about the brain by actively participating in presentations on historical and contemporary knowledge on brain areas of interest.
  • Students will learn write conference abstracts, the first and subsequent paragraphs of an introduction and how to structure the content of a scientific paper.
  • Students will present their own thesis projects with an oral presentation and learn how to give and receive constructive feedback on their work.
  • The students will engage in discussion and activities associated how we study the brain and mental processes using the scientific method.
  • The students will learn about good practices on data collection, analyses and software tools and have the opportunity to discuss practical aspects in preparing their own research projects.
  • The students will think critically about experimental methodology related to their own experiment. They will complete a freely available research ethics course that covers ethical contact for research involving humans.
Course Contents

Course Contents

  • Career design
  • Logic, Probability, and Statistics
  • Science in society
  • Introduction to EEG/MEG data analysis
Assessment Elements

Assessment Elements

  • non-blocking Home assignment
    1 home assignment around the end of the 1st module. Its weight in grading is 0.3. The 1st-retake of a home assignment is evaluated in the same way as the original assignment. The 2nd-retake of the assignment comes with 20% of penalty on its score. Namely, its score is first computed in the same way as the original assignment and then the computed score is multiplied by 0.8.
  • non-blocking Essay
    1 essay around the end of the 2nd module. Its weight in grading is 0.4. The 1st-retake of the essay is evaluated in the same way as the original essay. The 2nd-retake of the essay comes with 20% of penalty on its score. Namely, its score is first computed in the same way as the original essay and then the computed score is multiplied by 0.8.
  • non-blocking Short review paper
    Short review paper (in groups of 2 students): writing a short review paper on a selected behavioral economic concept (explaining the meaning of a concept, why it can be considered as an irrationality, what evidence from economic experiments is available to support this concept, what field studies show that this effect exists outside the lab)
  • non-blocking Writing test
    A writing test at the end of the 3rd module; This score (Gx) will be integrated with grades of the 1st-year Research Seminar (G1) and of the 2nd-year Research Seminar (G2) as follows: 0.1*Gx + 0.504*G1 + 0.396*G2. The 1st-retake of a test is evaluated in the same way as the original assignment. The 2nd-retake of the test comes with 20% of penalty on its score. Namely, its score is first computed in the same way as the original test and then the computed score is multiplied by 0.8. Экзамен проводится в письменной форме (тест по материалам курса). Экзамен проводится на платформе Zoom (https://www.zoom.us/). Компьютер студента должен удовлетворять требованиям: наличие рабочей камеры и микрофона, поддержка Zoom. Для участия в экзамене студент обязан: поставить на аватар свою фотографию, явиться на экзамен согласно точному расписанию, при ответе включить камеру и микрофон. Во время экзамена студентам запрещено: выключать камеру, пользоваться конспектами и подсказками. Кратковременным нарушением связи во время экзамена считается нарушение связи менее минуты. Долговременным нарушением связи во время экзамена считается нарушение длиной в минуту и более. При долговременном нарушении связи студент не может продолжить участие в экзамене.Экзамен проводится в письменной форме (тест по материалам курса). Экзамен проводится на платформе Zoom (https://www.zoom.us/). Компьютер студента должен удовлетворять требованиям: наличие рабочей камеры и микрофона, поддержка Zoom. Для участия в экзамене студент обязан: поставить на аватар свою фотографию, явиться на экзамен согласно точному расписанию, при ответе включить камеру и микрофон. Во время экзамена студентам запрещено: выключать камеру, пользоваться конспектами и подсказками. Кратковременным нарушением связи во время экзамена считается нарушение связи менее минуты. Долговременным нарушением связи во время экзамена считается нарушение длиной в минуту и более. При долговременном нарушении связи студент не может продолжить участие в экзамене.
  • non-blocking Participation - formula code Ga
    Participation scores is based the quality and quantity of answers and in-class assignments. There will be at least one in-class activity every week. In class assignments are mainly practical activities related to the students own research project. For example, writing the first paragraph of the introduction, writing a conference abstract, writing references in APA style for an article, chapter and book; preparing a peer-review evaluation; presenting on a preselected brain area; presenting on a preselected founding figure in neuroscience.
  • non-blocking two essays
    For each essay maximal grade can be 10. Criteria are: relevance of the content to the topic; literacy; originality and independence; ability to express one’s own position; argumentation.
  • non-blocking Presentation - formula code Gp
    Oral presentation associated with the students own thesis research project.
  • non-blocking Mid-term test- last week of Module 3 - formula code Ge
    The mid-term test/exam will be take home and the due date will be announced to the students.
  • non-blocking Final exam - Take home - Module 4 - formula code Gf
    Final exam given during the final week of Module 4. This is a take home exam focusing on potential impact of the student's research project in their perspective field, cognitive science and society. The due date of the final exam will be announced to the students.
  • non-blocking Participation
Interim Assessment

Interim Assessment

  • 2021/2022 4th module
    G1 = 0.3*(0.3*Ga + 0.7* Ge) + 0.7*(0.2*Ga + 0.2*Ge + 0.3*Gp + 0.3*Gf )
  • 2022/2023 2nd module
    The grade for the 1st and 2nd modules of Research Seminar "Cognitive sciences" at the 2nd year of education is calculated as an average of 1st and 2nd modules grades: (0.3 * Final test (module 1) + 0.3 * Essay 1 module + 0.4 * Short review paper 1 module)*0.5+0.5*(homeworks in 2nd module's grade)
  • 2022/2023 3rd module
    The grade for the 1st and 2nd modules of Research Seminar "Cognitive sciences" at the 2nd year of education is calculated as an average of 1st and 2nd modules grades: (0.3 * Final test (module 1) + 0.3 * Essay 1 module + 0.4 * Short review paper 1 module)*0.5+0.5*(homeworks in 2nd module's grade)
Bibliography

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

  • Reinhart, A. (2015). Statistics Done Wrong : The Woefully Complete Guide. San Francisco: No Starch Press. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=984483

Recommended Additional Bibliography

  • Lakatos, I., Feyerabend, P., & Motterlini, M. (1999). For and Against Method : Including Lakatos’s Lectures on Scientific Method and the Lakatos-Feyerabend Correspondence. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=351279

Authors

  • ARSALIDOU MARIE -
  • SAWADA TADAMASA -
  • FEDELE TOMMASO -
  • MOISEEVA VIKTORIYA VLADIMIROVNA