ANALYSIS AND TOOLS FOR THE STUDY OF COGNITIVE FUNCTIONS (2019/2020)

Learning outcomes

The purpose of this course is to provide students with methodologies and contents about the investigation of cognitive functions in healthy participants. In particular, it aims at developing in students the ability to design experiments to investigate cognitive functions, conveying knowledge about techniques and methodologies often used in Experimental Psychology. All of these techniques will be discussed in class in their characteristics, applications and criticisms by means of the scientific literature, in order to promote the ability to use them in the experimental setting.

The first part of the course will focus on the basic methodological notions in experimental research and the main methods used in the investigation into cognitive functions will be presented. After introducing mental chronometry and accuracy as fundamental techniques in experimental psychology, the following means will be presented:
- paper-and-pencil tasks
- imagination tasks
- perceptual tasks
- motor execution tasks
- interobservation
The concepts of Naive Physics and Naive Optics will be then introduced, after a broader presentations of what prevision errors (PE) are. The lessons will be hold with the support of the scientific literature and will be also an opportunity to deeply explore the structure of the scientific article and underline strengths and weaknesses.
In the second part of the course, the active participation of students will be promoted through the discussion of scientific literature whose arguments will be agreed with the professor. Part of the course will be spent designing and simulating experiments to investigate specific experimental hypothesis using the methods presented in the class.

The final exam will be an oral test and it will be held during official sessions. It will be focused on the discussion of a brief research project investigating one of the arguments studied in class and it must be provided with an APA style bibliography. References could be recovered using the online database of University of Verona. For non attending students, the exam program and modality must be agreed with the professor.