Decision-making is ubiquitous to everyday life and crucial to survival. Good choice is subject to evolutionary selection; poor choice accompanies many neurological and psychiatric disorders. But theoretical understanding of a function is needed to manipulate and measure it experimentally. Recently, this has led scientists studying choice to seek insights from economics. This course explores how humans and animals make decisions, focusing on how psychological and neural mechanisms implement, or fail to implement, economic theories of choice. We consider choice in many sorts of tasks; eg, in animal foraging and human competitive interactions.

The cognitive processes underlying the use and understanding of language, and in learning to speak. Topics include speech production and perception, grammar and meaning, knowledge and words, and pragmatic aspects of language.

This sequence is designed to provide Sophomores with an in-lab research experience over two semesters, with PSY 230 in the Fall being the prerequisite for PSY 231 in the Spring. PSY 230 is a non-credit bearing class while PSY 231 carries a full unit of credit (both are graded P/D/F). Students will gain an introduction to research within a Psychology lab. Students are expected to spend a minimum of 6 hours per week engaged in research and attend weekly meetings as outlined by the mentoring faculty. At the end of each semester, students will submit a written report of their research experience (PSY 230) and present their findings (PSY 231).

Survey of different types of psychological disorders and different models of explanation. Students will come to understand the conflicting viewpoints and treatment approaches that characterize the clinical field, and will understand what is presently known and unknown about psychopathology.

This course covers foundations of the research process for experimental Psychology: reviewing and evaluating published journal articles, refining new research questions, conducting pilot studies, creating stimuli, sequencing experiments for optimal control and data quality, analyzing data, and communicating scientific methods and results clearly, effectively, and professionally in APA style. Lectures survey time-tested excellent methods, and labs provide opportunities to recreate interesting experiments and innovate, building toward an original research final project.