Learning outcomes
The aim of this course is to allow the students to achieve some basic notions about, cognitive, emotional, and motivational processing, setting them within the context of the actual debate about the scientific foundations of Psychology and the relationships of the latter with other scientific disciplines.
Course contents
The research on cognitive processes: history and methods
- The experimental method
- The historical development of psychology: behavioural and gestalt approaches
- The role of Information Theory and Artificial Intelligence
- The cognitive approach
- The methods for investigating behaviour
- The representation of knowledge: the symbolic computational approach and the connectionist approach
- Basic notions about cognitive processes: attention, perception, memory, learning, reasoning, problem solving, language
- Intelligence and creativity
The study of specific cognitive processes: models and methods of investigation
- The attentional processes and the metaphors introduced to describe them
- Holistic theories of visual perception
- Stage-based theories of perception and perceptual recognition. Rudiments about Artificial Vision
- Experimental paradigms used in studying memory
- Interference processes in memory
- Structural and functional models of memory
- Learning processes in natural and artificial systems
- Emotions
- Motivation
- The different kinds of knowledge representation
- Mental imagery
- The structure of concepts
- Reasoning and problem solving. The theory of mental models
- Using and learning language: the empiricism-nativism dilemma
Reccomended or required readings
Textbooks to be used for the examination, both by student attending the lessons and by students which cannot attend the lessons
L.Anolli, P.Legrenzi, Psicologia Generale, Il Mulino, Bologna 2001
E.Pessa, M.P.Penna, Manuale di Scienza Cognitiva, Laterza, Roma-Bari 2000, Capp. 1, 2, 4.
O.Andreani Dentici, Intelligenza e creatività , Carocci, Roma 2001
Further textbooks to be used only by students attending the lessons:
one textbook to be chosen among the following ones:
M.P.Penna, S.Mocci, La lettura. Teorie e modelli di comprensione del testo. Cuec, Cagliari 2009
N.S.Bonfiglio, R.Renati, P.M.Farneti, La resilienza tra rischio e opportunità . Alpes, Roma 2012.
Further textbooks to be used only by students which cannot attend the lessons:
M.P.Penna, S.Mocci, La lettura. Teorie e modelli di comprensione del testo. Cuec, Cagliari 2009
N.S.Bonfiglio, R.Renati, P.M.Farneti, La resilienza tra rischio e opportunità . Alpes, Roma 2012.
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