Introduction to Cognitive Neuroscience

Full course description

Cognitive psychology came to the forefront of psychology in the last fifty years, as it became clear that mental constructs can be meaningfully described in mechanistic terms. In this course, students will gain an overview of cognitive science through an introduction to several core topics including attention, memory, and action. Importantly, these cognitive functions are immediately linked to biological mechanisms in the brain. This introduces the field of cognitive neuroscience, the discipline that bridges cognitive science, psychology and neuroscience. Students will become acquainted with the most important theories and models in the domains of cognitive neuroscience. Moreover, a global overview of the various tools in the cognitive neuroscientist’ arsenal, including neuroimaging tools like fMRI and EEG, and brain stimulation tools like TMS will be provided. The introduction to the most important cognitive domains and how they are studied will be illustrated by widely used, renowned cognitive tests (e.g., perception thresholds, memory 15-word list, Eriksen flanker task). In the course, there will be a focus on the experimental cycle and students will get hands-on experience on how cognitive phenomena can be measured by performing small “lab” experiments themselves.

With the overview of cognitive neuroscience gained in this course, students get the groundwork for four learning lines in the curriculum, including a set of three courses on perception, a set of three courses on learning & memory,  a set of three courses focused on the motor system, and two courses on brain cells and networks. Additionally, the present course foreshadows separate year 2 courses in which students will receive background and training in the various data acquisition tools in the cognitive psychology arsenal, including behavioural experiments but also neuroimaging and brain stimulation (Behavioural Research Methods, and Methods for Measuring and Manipulating Brain Activity). The focus on the experimental cycle is an optimal preparation for empirically-oriented projects in the subsequent project periods.

The final assessment for this course is a numerical grade between 0,0 and 10,0.