Sem02 (2024-2025) Brain and Behavior*

Course details

• Practical information

  Academic year
  2024-2025

  Semester
  2

  Period
  4 & 5

  Day(s)
  Mondays

  Time
  17:30 – 20:00

  Number of meetings
  12

  Dates of all meetings
  3, 10, 17 February 2025
  3, 10, 17, 31 March 2025
  7, 14 April 2025
  12, 19 May 2025
  2 June 2025

  Location
  Vrije Universiteit, De Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV Amsterdam

  Room
  NU-3A67
  
  Credits
  6

  Lecturer
  Dr. Richard Godijn

• Learning objectives

  This course is an introduction to the science of experimental psychology - the investigation of how people perceive, attend, remember, communicate, and the role social and emotional factors play. Students are expected to actively participate in work groups. Students will learn how they can apply knowledge of brain and behavior to solve every-life problems.

• Working formats & structure

  The course consists of seven lectures and six work groups. The content of the meetings is outlined below:

  • Introduction to Brain and Behavior 
  • Perception 
  • Attention and Action 
  • Memory 
  • Language 
  • Working memory and executive functions 
  • Social and Emotional Cognition 

  Work groups

  • Work group 1: Perception and Lesions: what can we learn about perception from studying patients with lesions? 
  • Work group 2: Limits in attention: How much of the world around us do we actually perceive? 
  • Work group 3: Testing our memory: We will learn about different memory processes by performing a series of memory tasks.
  • Work group 4: Eye movements during reading: How does eye tracking provide insights into our reading processes?
  • Work group 5: Holding information online: How does our brain keep information in working memory?

• Assessment methods

  Students are evaluated by means of weekly quizzes (50 %) and a group essay (50 %).

• Study materials

  We will use The Student’s Guide to Cognitive Neuroscience (4th edition) by J. Ward for a background into each topic. In addition, a number of research papers will be provided for further discussion on the topics.