Professor: David L. Miller, Ph.D.
Semester: Fall, Spring
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: Psy 113 and Psy 301 or equivalent.

Catalog Description: An examination of contemporary research and theories on mental activities. Topics will include perception, pattern, recognition, attention, memory, problem solving, language, consciousness, and artificial intelligence.

This course is about how we gather, store, and use information from the world around us. We will survey perceptual processes, memory, the organization of knowledge, and cognitive skills. We will also examine the scientific theories and methods used to investigate these abilities.
By the end of the semester students will be able to:

• Discuss the approaches and research methods used in studying cognition
• Describe various cognitive mechanisms and recognize them through demonstrations and personal experience.

Class participation is strongly recommended. Students will demonstrate course knowledge through a midterm, final exam, term paper and class participation. The exams will cover lecture material, classroom demonstrations, assigned chapters, and all readings.
Class Topics:

• Pattern recognition
• Short-term Memory
• Long-term Memory
• Working Memory
• Visual Images
• Categorization
• Semantic Organization
• Problem Solving
• Expertise and Creativity
• Consciousness
• Integration

David L. Miller, Ph.D., earned his B.A. in Psychology from URI in Providence, where he won the Carpenter Research Prize and was a New England Psychological Association Undergraduate Fellow. He went to Brown, where he received his Ph.D. in Psychology, specializing in perception and cognition. After a postdoctoral fellowship in brain imaging at the University of Wisconsin Medical School and teaching at Brown for a few years, he returned to his Alma Mater, where he is an Adjunct Associate Professor of Psychology.

This course meets the Psychology major requirement for a topics course. Psychology majors are required to take 3 topics courses. This course is appealing to students interested in behavioral neuroscience, linguistics, memory, artificial intelligence and other related areas.

• This website is dedicated to the history of Cognitive Psychology.
• Here is an educational interactive website for cognitive psychology topics.