AS.200.131.22, Powerful Unconscious Computations of Mind
AS.200.131.22
Powerful Unconscious Computations of Mind
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences
Course Information
Course Date
Meeting Time
Instructor
Email
Address
Office Hours:
Last Update: Dec. 08, 2014
Contents are subject to change.
January 12th – 23rd, 2015
TWF 9:30 – 11:45 AM
Feitong Yang
[email protected]
Ames 150 (Subject to Change)
Thursday 3:00 – 5:00 pm, or by appointment
General Description
Despite the rich contents of our awareness, most of the computations in our mind/brain are achieved
unconsciously. This course will provide an overview of these powerful unconscious computations spanning
from perception to social cognition, and introduce how scientists study these hidden computations. We will
start by examining unconscious processing in visual awareness, as exhibited in phenomena such as continuous
flash suppression and inattantional blindness. This will be is followed by topics including automaticity in
language and math processing and intuition in decision-making and social priming. At the end of class we will
briefly discuss information processing in other states of consciousness, for example, in sleep or in vegetative
states.
Objectives
The aim of this class is to understand how modern research studies unconsciousness and which cognitive
computations can be performed unconsciously. To achieve this l, we will do the following:
1) understand the modern methodologies in unconsciousness research.
2) become familiar with those basic phenomena in different fields of unconscious research.
3) learn how to critically examine psychology studies.
4) think about the implication of these studies to our life.
Materials and Structure
Textbook
We do not have any textbook in this class. However, the following two books highly recommended as
further readings for this class.
Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
ISBN-10: 0374533555, ISBN-13: 978-0374533557
http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555
Hoffman, D. D. (2000). Visual intelligence : how we create what we see. New York: W.W. Norton.
ISBN-10: 0393319679, ISBN-13: 978-0393319675
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AS.200.131.22, Powerful Unconscious Computations of Mind
http://www.amazon.com/Visual-Intelligence-How-Create-What/dp/0393319679/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=
UTF8&qid=1418051803&sr=1-1&keywords=9780393319675
Structure
This is a lecture class. However, I encourage all students to ask questions and make comments on the
materials in the class. We will be covering difficult concepts so it is important for you to ask a question if
anything isn’t clear. There are no bad questions.
These are the requirements:
1. Attendance
Attendance is crucial because we have a very limited time together and each class will be covering a
different topic. If you need to miss class, please email me at least a day in advance. I will not take attendance,
however.
2. Participation
I expect you all to participate. In addition to questions and comments during lectures, students will be
required to give one group presentation. Each class one or two groups will present the paper they’ve read
together (I will post the papers on the blackboard). The presentations should be about 15 minutes, covering
main ideas, methods, data, and implications of the selected paper.
3. “Twitter Post”
After each class, you are going to pick one study or two covered in the class and write a 140-word post
about it. You can think of it as a tweet or Facebook post. You should summarize the main points of the study
and briefly describe its method. Feel free to include other types media: you can link to the paper, to videos
related to the paper, or to related commentaries and replies. You can write whatever you like in the post but
make sure you cover at least two points: 1) what is this study about (main idea); and 2) what are the methods
used in this study. You can post on your Facebook or Twitter and submit your screenshot, or write a post in the
discussion board.
4. Quiz
At the end of the class, there will be a short quiz of 15 to 30 multiple-choice questions. These will be
simple questions made to remind you of the materials covered in the class.
Grading
Attendance
Participation
“Twitter post”
Final Quiz
30%
30%
30%
10%
Disability accommodations:
If you are a student with a disability or believe you might have a disability that requires accommodations,
please contact Dr. Brent Mosser in Student Disability Services (385 Garland, 410-516-4720,
[email protected]). Please also let your instructor know that you require accommodations
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AS.200.131.22, Powerful Unconscious Computations of Mind
during the first class.
Ethics
The strength of the university depends on academic and personal integrity. In this course, you must be honest
and truthful. Ethical violations include cheating on exams, plagiarism, reuse of assignments, improper use of
the Internet and electronic devices, unauthorized collaboration, alteration of graded assignments, forgery and
falsification, lying, facilitating academic dishonesty, and unfair competition.
Report any violations you witness to the instructor. You may consult the associate dean of student affairs
and/or the chairman of the Ethics Board beforehand. See the guide on "Academic Ethics for Undergraduates”
and the Ethics Board Web Site (http://ethics.jhu.edu) for more information.
All students are expected to complete their own, original work. Plagiarism – representation of another
person’s words or ideas as one’s own – is a serious offense and will result in the failing grade in the course.
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AS.200.131.22, Powerful Unconscious Computations of Mind
Schedule
#1 Make it unconscious: History and Method
In this first class, we will revisit briefly the history of study unconsciousness and then focus the modern
methodologies in research. We will cover the basic paradigms to prepare us for the subsequent discussions.
We will learn how they look like, how they work, and possibly why they work.
#2 See the invisible: Unconscious computation of visual perception and attention
In this second class, we will mainly focus on unconscious visual computations. The research in this field is
more serious, more fundamental and still interesting. We will discuss the difference between attention and
awareness, and talk about perception without awareness
#3 Understand the text, do the math, unconsciously
In this third class, we come to the topic of Language and Math. Though stimuli still presented visually, we will
focus on high-level cognitive computation in this class: semantic processing and arithmetic operations, and
understand how these computation performed automatically.
#4 Make best decision, only with unconscious: unconscious decision making and social priming
In this fourth class, we will talk about even more abstract topic: decision making and social priming. We are
going to see that intuitive decisions might be optimal and better than thoughtful ideas. In addition, we will
learn some social interaction that would be affected by unconscious information.
#5 Lie or truth: problems, criticisms, and debate
In this fifth class, we will start with a letter from Dr. Daniel Kahneman, the 2002 Nobel Prize winner, and
discuss the problems and criticisms of unconscious research, especially those in social priming field. We will
talk about why some studies are not reliable, and what we should do in the future.
#6 Information processing in other state of consciousness: sleep, coma, and vegetative state
In this sixth class, we will focus on other states of consciousness. We will discuss whether we can process
external signals when we sleep. What about those in vegetative state? We will ask how we can do such studies
and show what do we have in data. Implications will be discussed at the end of this class.
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