Research Methodology in Cognitive Sciences

認知科學研究方法

All-English PhD Program in Cognitive Science

National Chung Cheng University

Fall, 2017  Tuesday 14:10-17:00   Room: Humanities 412

Course number: 3169002

(Changes will be announced in class if necessary)

Instructors:

Dr. Steven Tzeng, 曾玉村   Center for Teacher Education &

              Institute of Education

E-mail: ttcytt at ccu.edu.tw   Campus phone: 36403

Office: Education I, 511  Office hours: Wed 16:00-18:00

 

Dr. James Myers, 麥傑    Institute of Linguistics

E-mail: Lngmyers at ccu.edu.tw  Campus phone: 31506

Office: Humanities 247  Office hours: Monday 10:00-12:00

 

 Dr. Tina Huang, 黃世琤   Department of Psychology

E-mail: psysth at ccu.edu.tw  Campus phone: 32216

Office hours: Wed 10:00-12:00

 

Purpose

The goal of the course is to provide a broad survey of research methods widely used in different areas of cognitive sciences, including behavioral (psychophysical), brain imaging (for both neurophysiology and neuroanatomy), and computational (simulation and modeling) approaches. In addition, we will also include discussion from philosophy of science, philosophy of cognitive sciences in particular, to highlight some of the fundamental methodological issues when the subject matter for research entails human mind and brain. We will also discuss issues related to research ethics through the class. 

 

Class Activities:

This class will be taught jointly by three instructors representing different disciplines and covering diverse methodologies in cognitive sciences. They will give lectures, invite guest speakers, lead class discussions, and arrange hands-on experiences, and students will have to do in-class presentations.

 

Grading Policy:

6 homework assignments: 60% (10% each)

In-class presentation: 10%

Term paper with in-depth review or application of selected methodologies: 20%

Attendance: 10%

For due dates, see class schedule below.

 

Class Schedule

 

Week

Date

Topic

Readings

Assignments

1

09/19

Class introduction

& research ethics

 See readings

 

Block I: Dr. Steven Tzeng

2

09/26

Verbal reports as data

Ericsson & Simon (1980)

 

3

10/3

Inferring mental processes through response time

Haberlandt (1994)

Keenan et al. (1990)

Homework 1

10/10

Holiday

 

4

10/17

Understanding the mind through tracking the eyes I

Rayner (1998)

 

5

10/24

Understanding the mind through tracking the eyes II

Knowler (2011)

Homework 2

6

10/31

Cognitive modeling

Sun (2008)

Block II: Dr. James Myers

7

11/7

Types of explanations in cognitive science

Myers (2012)

 

8

11/14

Philosophical intuitions

Rey (2014)

9

11/21

Experimental philosophy

Knobe et al. (2012)

Homework 3

10

11/28

Grammatical analysis

Anderson (2016)

11

12/5

Linguistic evidence

Ohala (1986)

Homework 4

Block III: Dr. Tina Huang

12

12/12

Basic Principles of Experimental Design

Kirk (2013)

Ch. 1, 6, 8

Homework 5

13

12/19

Overview of the common Event-related Potential (ERP) components

Luck (2014) Ch. 3

 

14

12/26

The Design of ERP Experiments

Luck (2014) Ch. 4

 

 

15

1/2

Blocked design and event-related design of fMRI studies

Huettel et al. (2014) Ch. 9

Homework 6

16

1/9

Basic statistical analysis

Huettel et al. (2014) Ch. 10

 

17

1/16

Student presentations

& more research ethnics

(last class)

 (no reading)

(18)

1/23

NO CLASS

Term papers due (as font-embedded PDF, emailed to all three instructors)

 

Readings

 

Research Ethics:

Plagiarism when Writing Published May 12, 2017

http://www.plagiarism.org/article/preventing-plagiarism-when-writing Preventing

 

Human Subject Research Ethics , Academia Sinica, Education http://irb.sinica.edu.tw/english/education-1.html Retrieved 2016/6/4

 

For Block I:

Ericsson, K. A. & Simon, H. A. (1980). Verbal reports as data. Psychological

Review, 87(3), 215-251.

Haberlandt, K. (1994). Methods in reading research. In M. A. Gernbacher (Ed.) Handbook of psychololinguistics (pp. 1-31). Academic Press.

Keenan, J. M., Potts, G. R., Golding, J. M., & Jennings, T. M. (1990). Which elaborative inferences are drawn during reading: A question of methodologies. In D. A. Balota, G. B. Flores d’Arcais, & K. Rayner (Eds.) Comprehension processes in reading (pp. 377-402). LEA.

Knowler, E. (2011). Eye movements: The past 25 years. Vision Research, 51, 1457-1483.

Rayner, K. (1998). Eye movements in reading and information processing: 20 years of research. Psychological Bulletin, 124, 372–422.

Sun, R. (2008). Introduction to computational cognitive modeling. In R. Sun (Ed.) The Cambridge handbook of computational cognitive modeling (pp. 3-20). Cambridge University Press.

van Someren, M. W., Barnard, Y. F., & Sandberg, J. A. C. (1994). The think aloud method: A practical guide to modeling cognitive processes. Academic Press.

 

For Block II:

Anderson, C. (2016). Learning to think like linguists: A think-aloud study of novice phonology students. Language, 92(4), e274-e291.

Knobe, J., Buckwalter, W., Nichols, S., Robbins, P., Sarkissian, H., & Sommers, T. (2012). Experimental philosophy. Annual Review of Psychology, 63, 81-99.

Myers, J. (2012). Cognitive styles in two cognitive sciences. In N. Miyake, D. Peebles, & R. P. Cooper (Eds.), Proceedings of the 34th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 2067-2072). Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society.

Ohala, J. J. (1986). Consumer's guide to evidence in phonology. Phonology Yearbook, 3, 3-26.

Rey, G. (2013). The possibility of a naturalistic Cartesianism regarding intuitions and introspection. In M. C. Haug (Ed.) Philosophical methodology: The armchair or the laboratory? (pp. 243-267). London: Routledge.

 

For Block III:

Kirk, R. E. (2013). Experimental design: Procedures for the behavioral sciences (4nd ed.), Brooks/Cole : CA,USA

Luck, S. J. (2014). An introducation to the event-related potential technique (2nd ed.), The MIT Press: Cambridge, MA, USA.

Huettel, S. A., Song, A. W., & McCarthy, G. (2014). Functional magnetic resonance imaging (2nd ed.), Sinauer Associates, Inc: Sunderland, MA, USA.