| Unit name | Advanced Cognitive Neuroscience |
|---|---|
| Unit code | PSYCM0086 |
| Credit points | 20 |
| Level of study | M/7 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24) |
| Unit director | Dr. Tsetsos |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Units you must take before you take this one (pre-requisite units) |
None |
| Units you must take alongside this one (co-requisite units) |
None |
| Units you may not take alongside this one |
Students must not have taken the associated third year unit. |
| School/department | School of Psychological Science |
| Faculty | Faculty of Life Sciences |
The unit will focus on mechanistic explanations of human thought and behaviour aiming to develop a broad understanding of key and emerging topics in Cognitive Neuroscience, as well as deep knowledge in a series of specialist topics including working memory, inhibitory control and decision-making. The unit will showcase how mechanistic explanations can arise from cross-disciplinary synergies between Psychology and Neuroscience; and will discuss the real-life implications that mechanistic explanations can have, from diagnosing neuropsychiatric disorders to understanding the neural and computational mechanisms that dictate our consumer behaviour.
The unit will cover the historical development of Cognitive Neuroscience as a discipline alongside the main theoretical frameworks in the field. A detailed overview of both established and emerging methods will be provided, accompanied by workshops on EEG (study design and analysis) and computational modelling. The contents of the core lectures will cover attention and working memory, executive control of behaviour and advanced topics of decision making. In seminars, students will be divided into groups to critically discuss contentious topics and emerging trends within Cognitive Neuroscience and associated nascent subfields (e.g., Computational Psychiatry, Neuroeconomics). Overall, the unit will highlight the merit of adopting a cross-disciplinary approach towards understanding how neural activity gives rise to intelligent behaviour.
Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of the unit, a student will be able to:
Self-paced online learning materials will be supported with weekly live sessions. These live sessions will take a variety of different forms depending on the focus of the week, but will typically include workshops, seminars and Q&A sessions based on the weeks' asynchronous content and student discussion groups.
Tasks which help you learn and prepare you for summative tasks (formative):
Delivering a short presentation and taking part in the debating seminar (see below), as well as receiving peer feedback on your seminar digest, will help you prepare for the time assessment. Additionally, you will get the chance to get guidance on aspects of the timed assessment in drop-in sessions.
Tasks which count towards your unit mark (summative):
50% coursework: You will prepare and give a short presentation in a “debating” seminar on a current topic. You will subsequently provide a critical summary of the debate, plus two pieces of critical feedback on summaries written by your peers. Specifically, the coursework assessment will consist of:
30% Debate digest/ summary: 1000 words
20% Peer feedback on debate summary: each student receives two summaries and writes a high-quality, detailed feedback based on the relevant marking criteria.
50% Open-book timed assessment (2000 words).
If this unit has a Resource List, you will normally find a link to it in the Blackboard area for the unit. Sometimes there will be a separate link for each weekly topic.
If you are unable to access a list through Blackboard, you can also find it via the Resource Lists homepage. Search for the list by the unit name or code (e.g. PSYCM0086).
How much time the unit requires
Each credit equates to 10 hours of total student input. For example a 20 credit unit will take you 200 hours
of study to complete. Your total learning time is made up of contact time, directed learning tasks,
independent learning and assessment activity.
See the Faculty workload statement relating to this unit for more information.
Assessment
The Board of Examiners will consider all cases where students have failed or not completed the assessments required for credit.
The Board considers each student's outcomes across all the units which contribute to each year's programme of study. If you have self-certificated your absence from an
assessment, you will normally be required to complete it the next time it runs (this is usually in the next assessment period).
The Board of Examiners will take into account any extenuating circumstances and operates
within the Regulations and Code of Practice for Taught Programmes.
