PSYCH 119J
Brain Bugs: Understanding Brain through Its Flaws
Description: Lecture, three hours. Requisite: course 115 or M117C. Designed for juniors/seniors. Psychology of brain flaws and limitations to understand how brain works by studying what it does well and understanding neuroscience of why brain is poorly suited to perform some tasks such as numerical calculations, memorizing lists and names, and making unbiased decisions. Topics include memory (types of memory, false memories, misinformation and memory, memory capacity) and cognitive biases (framing, anchoring, and temporal discounting). Exploration of underlying neural causes of brain flaws and limitations in context of brain's associative architecture. Basic neurophysiology, synaptic plasticity, cortical plasticity, neural basis of learning and memory, and some computational neuroscience. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2023 - If you have a chance to take this class, take it! Attendance is highly highly encouraged because the lectures are not recorded and while he does post the slides, they are mostly just of experimental data and graphs (little words/explanations), so taking notes is super important. We had three grades in this class: midterm, group presentation, and final. The exams were FRQ and true/false MTC and if you paid attention in lecture and reviewed your notes, you would do well (we had an A average for our midterm). The group presentation is chill too. There was no HW or textbook so all the information on exams came from lecture but he mainly tested big concepts and smaller details for MTC. I reviewed my notes and made a study guide as well as studied online quizlets and that was very low-effort. There is some review from Psych 115 that would be helpful to brush up on. Overall, it was a great class and I looked forward to it and didn't stress about it compared to some other challenging courses. Professor is awesome and funny and there are cool concepts taught that I found very applicable to every day life.
Winter 2023 - If you have a chance to take this class, take it! Attendance is highly highly encouraged because the lectures are not recorded and while he does post the slides, they are mostly just of experimental data and graphs (little words/explanations), so taking notes is super important. We had three grades in this class: midterm, group presentation, and final. The exams were FRQ and true/false MTC and if you paid attention in lecture and reviewed your notes, you would do well (we had an A average for our midterm). The group presentation is chill too. There was no HW or textbook so all the information on exams came from lecture but he mainly tested big concepts and smaller details for MTC. I reviewed my notes and made a study guide as well as studied online quizlets and that was very low-effort. There is some review from Psych 115 that would be helpful to brush up on. Overall, it was a great class and I looked forward to it and didn't stress about it compared to some other challenging courses. Professor is awesome and funny and there are cool concepts taught that I found very applicable to every day life.
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