Undergraduate Course: Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience: Infancy (PSYL10136)
Course Outline
| School | School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | The course is an introduction to cognitive and brain development from gestation up until age two years. The course focuses on how infants and toddlers perceive, understand, and reason about the world, and investigates the role of intrinsic and exogenous factors in cognitive and brain development. |
| Course description |
This course covers some specific topics in developmental cognitive neuroscience, focusing on infancy. The goals of the course are to:
(a) Introduce important phenomena in and mechanisms supporting neurocognitive development.
(b) Understand the mutual influence among the brain, cognition, and the environment in the dynamic context of development.
(c) Illustrate these mechanisms in various domains (e.g., perception of objects and agents, statistical learning, language, social cognition).
(d) Provide students with an introduction to some of the methods used within developmental cognitive neuroscience including basic experimentation, formal theory development, and neuroscientific methods.
Through this course, students will practice and sharpen the following skills: critical analysis, science communication, structuring presenting arguments, writing skills.
This is a companion course to Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience: Childhood. Students can complete either course as a pre-requisite for advanced Honours courses in Developmental Psychology.
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Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | Visiting students who are Psychology majors and in their third or final year at their home university are welcome to take this course. |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2022/23, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: 0 |
| Course Start |
Semester 1 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Lecture Hours 20,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
176 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Midterm: Experiment proposal (1000 words)
Final: Essay (1500 words) |
| Feedback |
1. In class feedback exercises will be used to check understanding and to develop skills (e.g. quizzes, peer feedback on essay plans/drafts).
2. The mid-course assessment will also provide feedback as to whether students have mastered the foundational theories and empirical results in the study of infant cognitive neuroscience. Thus, students can use their results to determine whether to allocate additional effort to this class.
3. Structured optional programming assignments (using the R language) will allow students to gain experience analyzing real-world data from infants, applying their research methods and statistics knowledge in context.
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| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Demonstrate an understanding of recent scientific advances, debates, and challenges regarding brain and cognitive development in infancy.
- Analyze the developmental mechanisms (e.g., maturation, learning, experience-driven change) driving cognitive and neural changes during infancy.
- Demonstrate an understanding of how cognitive development and brain development are intrinsically related.
- Demonstrate an understanding of the questions that motivate developmental research and the methods that can address these questions.
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
This course will expose students to and help them become critical consumers of primary research articles. The course assessments require critical analysis, critical analysis, science communication, structuring and presenting arguments, and writing skills. As such, this course promotes the graduate attribute skills of research and enquiry, personal and intellectual autonomy, and communication, and fosters the "enquiry and lifelong learning" mindset. |
| Keywords | cognitive neuroscience,developmental,infancy,psychology |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Hugh Rabagliati
Tel: (0131 6)50 3454
Email: |
Course secretary | Miss Susan Scobie
Tel: (0131 6)51 5505
Email: |
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