Psychology

This course discusses the most relevant experimental paradigms for the investigation of conscious perception and its failures. The course discusses topics including notions concerning how the sensory apparatus in human adults selects and organizes the flood of information into coherent and perceivable objects; notions concerning the lively debate about the role of attention as a gate to consciousness; notions about extant functional, neural, and computational models of consciousness; and notions about human error as resulting from a failure at one of more processing stages underlying the generation of a conscious percept, considering a subset of situations in which such errors may engender in particularly problematic situations. The course requires students to have the basic notions typically delivered in classes such as Experimental/General Psychology, and the basic principles for the use of experimental methodologies in the psychological field as a prerequisite.

This course provides a broad understanding of how our brain works. The course structure is focused on active learning with a balance of lectures and hands-on activities. Topics include perception, reasoning, memory, attention, emotions, and decision-making, among other cognitive traits. The course is accessible to students with different backgrounds and provides important new insights into how our brain gives rise to our abilities to perceive, act, and think.

When external stressors happen to individuals, their coping occurs with their family involved as a unit. This course covers diverse types of stressors, including immigration and health condition, and investigates how families cope with the stressors. Contemporarily, whereas diverse forms of families exist, the cultural expectations towards families do not seem to have changed accordingly. Thus, the discussions in this course will cover the context of diversity and the diversity of contexts.  

In our daily life, people often tell friends, peers, family of their distress before they tell professional counselors. Peer counseling is such a special kind of psychological counseling, conducted by trained or supervised unprofessional people, providing helps having some counseling effects. In this process, through the use of active listening and problem solving skills combining knowledge about human development and mental health, peer counselors instruct their companions and provide them with psychological and emotional support In this course, the basic concept, skills and ethic of peer counseling will be introduced, as well as some practical problems such as culture, race, sexual orientation and romantic relationship. As a general course, these goals are to reach: Students can have basic knowledge of peer counseling; Some basic peer counseling skills can be mastered and used in practical situations; This course also helps student in viewing their own mental health and improving it with related knowledge.

The course covers human psychological development from childhood to old age and methods used in research in development psychology. It describes theoretical perspectives on personality and related fields of application. The course consists of four modules, this is the first module: Child Psychology. This module studies the psychological and biological development during childhood and how this development is affected by genetic factors and different living conditions. Some of the topics addressed are self-regulation, emotional attachment, social understanding, and friendship. Furthermore, the module covers the research methods used to generate knowledge of child development.

This course examines the use of animal models in translational research to study human diseases (in particular, neuropsychiatric disorders) and the methodology applied. The course discusses topics including the history of animal models; classification of animals; animal diversity; evolution of nervous systems in invertebrates and vertebrates; ethics of animal research; and animal models of neuropsychiatric disorders. Animal models used in research: the nematode C. elegans, the common fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster,) the zebrafish (Danio rerio), the chick (Gallus gallus), and the mouse (Mus musculus). A lesson is focused on research conducted in cephalopods. For each animal model information about biology, application in scientific research with reference to neuropsychiatric and neurological disorders is provided. The course recommends students have basic knowledge of general biology, psychobiology, and genetics as a prerequisite.

This course provides a solid understanding of classic and contemporary psychological theory and research in Social Psychology which covers key research in social thinking, influence, and inter-group behavior. Students learn to describe and evaluate major models and theories within social psychology; critically analyze the role of culture in social behavior with a focus on the difference between collectivist and individualistic cultures; explain the main theories of social facilitation and social loafing; analyze key issues in the study of group behavior such as communication, status, roles, and leadership; evaluate the empirical evidence of theories and intergroup conflict comparing realistic conflict theory with that of social categorization theory; critically analyze evidence where social psychology has helped solve an applied problem such as leadership education or prejudice; and to apply their knowledge to real-world situations.

This course introduces theory and research in cognitive psychology, the study of the human mind and mental processes. Key theories and research in cognitive psychology are discussed, including visual and multi-modal perception, attention, memory, language, reasoning, and decision-making. Experiments and studies from classical and modern cognitive psychology are provided and discussed critically throughout to illustrate these concepts. This course demonstrates the essential role of that cognitive psychology plays in everyday life.

This course introduces and discusses some key issues and problems in cognitive neurosciences. The course covers an introduction to the brain and behavior; vision; memory; brain and artificial intelligence; communication; disorders of the mind, etc.