Cognitive Studies Emphasis

The task of learning to read is a very complex process involving the application of perceptual, sensory, linguistic, and cognitive skills to making meaning of text. Exploration of the specific cognitive functions that are applied while reading and strategies supporting reading instruction and reading comprehension skills will be addressed. The implications of digital media on reading skills will also be explored in this course.

This course will introduce changes both cognitively and physically, that occur in both healthy and pathological aging. This course will emphasize changes in functioning, learning, language-processing, decision-making, memory, and reasoning in older adults Prerequisite: PSY 101 or equivalent.

Students will study research and theory about mental processes that go between experience and the human mind. Students will gather and interpret data for several simple experiments that demonstrate classic research findings in perception, learning, and cognition. Perception entails the mental processes involved in the organization and interpretation of sensory experience. Learning entails relatively permanent changes in behavior that result from experience. Cognition explains how the mind processes information, how we encode, store, and retrieve memories, and how we use information to form beliefs, make decisions, and solve problems. Prerequisite: PSY 101 or equivalent.