PSY 208, Fall 1998
Office Hours: Before class in classroom (003G), and by arrangement.
Office: Room 13.
Textbook: Houston, J. P. (1991). Fundamentals of Learning and Memory. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace. ISBN:0-15-529445-8
Course Objectives: This course will survey human and animal learning. It will cover the basic principles of conditioning and verbal learning. It introduces selected current theoretical positions in the field, and reviews methods and findings that are considered important in the field.
Homework: Homework will be distributed every week, and will be taken both from the Houston book and supplemental readings. It will be due the next class period. You must submit homework on time in order to get full credit. Each assignment will be worth either 2 or 5 % of your grade. Together the assignments can contribute to 50% of your grade.
Other readings: You will select one topic for a fifteen minute class presentation or paper. (10% of your grade)
Quizzes: There will be four in-class quizzes. (40% of your grade)
Extra Credit: Extra credit may be earned during every class period, by putting extra work into the homework, and is strongly encouraged.
Grades: A = 95%, A- = 90%, B+ = 87%, B = 85%, B- 0 80%, etc.
August 31/Sept. 2 -- Chapter 1-What is learning
Sept 9 -- Chapter 2-- Classical and Instrumental Learning
Sept 13 & 16 -- Chapter 2-- Classical & Instrumental Learning Quiz 1.
Sept 21 & 23 -- Chapter 3 --Learning Tasks
Sept 28 & 30 -- Chapter 4--Biological Constraints
Oct. 4 & 7 -- Chapter 5--Contiguity Quiz 2
Oct. 14 -- Chapter 6--Reinforcement
Oct. 19 & 21 --Chapter 7--Generalization
Oct. 26 & 28 -- Chapter 8-- Memory Models 1 Quiz 3.
Nov. 2 & 4 -- Chapter 9--Memory Models 2
Nov. 9 & 11 -- Chapter 10-- Issues in Memory.
Nov. 16 & 18 -- Chapter 10-- Issues in Memory. Quiz 4.
Nov 23 -- Chapter 11 --Imagery.
Nov. 30 & Dec 2 -- Chapter 11-- Improving memory
Dec 6 & 9 -- Chapters 12 & 13--Concepts and Language