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Academic Goals
Departmental Learning Goals for Psych 333: Sensory and Perceptual Processes
Mastery of Content:- Students will broaden, deepen and reinforce the basic working knowledge about the structure and function of the nervous system acquired in Psych 202.
- Students will develop a basic working knowledge of classical psychophysics.
- Students will develop a basic working knowledge about the structure and function of the gustatory system, olfactory system, somatosensory system, visual system, and auditory system.
- Students will develop an understanding of the relation between biological systems, neural processing mechanisms, and perception. This will include understanding the how biological factors influence aspects of human perception that are shared across, or may differ across, cultural, ethnic, gender, geographic, or other boundaries.
- Students will develop an appreciation of properties common to all sensory systems, and properties shared by sensory systems and other brain systems.
- Students will develop an understanding of the study of sensory systems and processes within the historical context of the field, and potential future directions of the field. This includes understanding the tentative nature of knowledge, tolerating ambiguity, and using skeptical inquiry to discover discrepancies and/or gaps in current knowledge.
- Students will develop the ability to identify an appropriate and tractable topic of study within a general scientific field.
- Students will develop and refine their ability to perform a directed scientific literature search, create an appropriate bibliography, and cite literature appropriately in support of written statements.
- Students will develop and refine their ability to critically read and understand scientific literature, understand and use scientific and technical vocabulary, and synthesize information from multiple sources. This will include deepening their understanding of how hypothesis testing is used to evaluate theories about the function of sensory and perceptual processes, and their ability to evaluate research evidence to assess the strength of support for scientific claims.
- Students will refine their scientific writing skills, focusing on choice of content, organization, logic, and clarity of expression.
- Students will refine their oral presentation skills, focusing on choice of content, organization, design and use of visual aids, pacing, and speaking style.
- Students will be encouraged to reflect on the information they learn about sensory processing and perception and apply it to their own lives and the world around them.
