Who are you? The answer is that you are a collection of your memories. Our very identities depend on what we remember about our own lives, and the stories we tell ourselves and others. In PSYCH322, we examine these issues. PSYCH322 is an advanced undergraduate class on human memory with an emphasis on the related cognitive processes. If you’ve ever wondered why it is you sometimes pop into the store with the specific intention of getting aspirin, only to discover at home that you purchased a chocolate bar, a magazine, a few apples and no aspirin...well, you may have wondered what a weird thing memory is. What you will learn in this class will capture your imagination, hold your attention and sometimes baffle you. That’s a promise, because there’s no way it could be otherwise. For instance, you certainly know that a good memory can help you enormously in life, but did you know that too good a memory can cripple you? What does it mean when you don’t remember much of your childhood? How come certain songs remind you vividly of events you haven’t thought about in years? What’s the true story behind false memories? Do you remember things in images or in words? Stay tuned.

PSYCH322 is NOT a Flexi course. You are expected to attend each one hour lecture (Monday, Wednesday, Friday). The required readings consist of textbook chapters, empirical journal articles, and the occasional video you can access online from Moodle, along with selected notes from some of the lectures. (Condensed forms of the lecture slides are provided online; students should supplement these slides with their own notes made during the lectures). Tests and quizzes are held in class. There are no online equivalents.

The lectures are designed to give you an overview of a certain topic, but you won't learn everything you need to know about a topic solely from the lectures. In other words, PSYCH322 is not just about three hours of lectures per week: it is also about your labs, your readings and other exercises. You will have to pay close attention to the readings we specify, and make sure you can do the activities we talk about. Keep in mind that the lectures are not simply the live version of the text. There are things in the text that we don’t talk about in class, because we don’t have time, but you still need to know. Where you have a question about the relative importance of some material in the text, you can ask the TAs.

For many of the topic units there will be a “Spotlight Lecture” [SL]. In a SL, you will learn about research tackling an important real-world issue that relates to something you have learned,. There are several purposes of the SL: to encourage you to see the real world as a psychological scientist does; to develop a sense of wonder and curiosity about behaviour and memory; and to gain an appreciation for the notion that psychology is everywhere. SLs also give you a sense, in a small way, of what it might be like to be a grad student. SLs may or may not form part of your reading list. If you have an idea for a SL topic, let us know: if you alert us early enough, and if we can fit your idea into the course topics, we will.

You have a tremendous amount of freedom about how your final grade in the course is calculated. You probably know already if that freedom is good for you or bad for you, so best to take steps to plan accordingly.

The labs are 1 hour. Because of resource constraints, we can't offer the Thursday lab sessions every hour on the hour. So, we will poll the class in the first week to determine which sessions are most popular, and arrange at least one online lab per week.