PSY 307 - Memory & Cognition
D. Valencia-Laver
SUMMER 2003

A Brief Virtual Tour of Cognitive Psychology on the WEB

Purpose: To expose you to some of the people, phenomena, and issues related to cognitive psychology.

A little about you

Name:                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Email address:                                                                                                                                                                                                       

Major:                                                                                                                                                  Year:                                                          

Minor or Concentration:                                                                                                                                                                                    

What is something that makes you unique (i.e., something that I can use to help me remember who you are and that you would not be embarrassed to share with others!)?

 

 

Your Background in Psychology

Now please say a little about your background in psychology. What have you studied? What have you found particularly interesting?

 

 

 

Have you taken Research Methods?     YES         NO

You and Computers

Do you own or have regular, easy access to a computer with a web connection?     YES         NO

What is your general experience with using email and/or the web?

 

Is your email linked to the university/department (e.g., through my.calpoly.edu)?     YES         NO

Have you ever used the web and/or email in a class? If so, for what kinds of things were they used? Did you find it helpful?


Taking your virtual tour

For this exploration, you will be looking at some of the materials available on the class Web site. To get to the class site, start at my home page (http://www.calpoly.edu/~dlvalenc/) and then click on Schedule under PSY 307. Once there, clicking on a chapter link (e.g., Chapter 1 links)  will lead you to a chapter site of outside Links and Demonstrations. The links take you to WWW sites on different people, concepts, and phenomena related to the study of cognitive psychology. I have tried to include a wide variety of potentially interesting sites for you to browse and explore. Clicking on an outline link will take you to the tentative outline for that chapter which I will use in lectures. You might want to bookmark either my homepage or the class page for future reference.

Complete the following.

Step 1: Print out and enclose the first page for one chapter outline from any of the chapters in the class.

Step 2: Next, browse several sites from each chapter and then choose five sites, each from different chapters to review for this assignment (NOTE: Chapters 4 & 5 and Chapters 6 & 7 are combined, taking you to the same set of links, therefore you are required to only do one  link for each set of combined chapters). 

You will be reviewing five sites total. At least one of the sites you review (but no more than three) must be an interactive demonstration of some cognitive phenomenon (e.g., the Stroop demonstration. Some demos take longer than others - you do not have to complete the longer demos; just do enough to get an idea about the topic area and how it's studied). You may want to look at a few sites in each chapter before choosing one s that interest you to review.

For each link or demonstration that you are reviewing in depth, do the following:

• Give the actual web address of the site (on the Netsite or Location bar at the top of the window).

• In two short paragraphs (about 4-7 sentences each) describe two new things you learned from the site (be as specific as possible) or two things you found that were interesting/provocative about the site. Be sure to use your own words.

• Would you recommend this site to someone else? Why or why not? (Some characteristics that might impact your willingness to recommend a site are its 1) credibility, 2) ease of use, 3) depth, 4) relevance, and 5) interest level.)

  • What more would you like to know about this topic?

Step 3: Conduct your own web search on any of the topics you reviewed or choose another topic related to memory and cognition to see what you find (check the table of contents or the chapter summaries in your textbook for possible keywords for a search on Yahoo! [http://www.yahoo.com] or another search engine). Indicate the search engine and key words you used and how many "hits" were generated. Then review the site as in Step 2 above.

Step 4: Based on your virtual tour, what topic(s) in cognitive psychology did you find the most interesting? What you would like to learn about that topic in this class?

Step 5: In what specific ways has this exercise improved your understanding of the scope of cognitive psychology? Was there anything that surprised you about the area? Include any other comments, suggestions, or questions about the website or this exercise.

Submit a write-up of the above. All responses should be written in complete sentences in your own words and typewritten (double-spaced and spell-checked). Include the survey page (which can be filled out by hand) with your site reviews. This exercise is due on Thursday, July 3.