PSYCH 120B
Sensation and Perception
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Requisites: courses 10, 100A. Designed for juniors/seniors. Acquisition of information about physical world through basic sensory mechanisms and perceptual processes. Perception of objects, surfaces, space, motion, and events. Connections between information, computations, and biological mechanisms in vision, audition, and other systems. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2023 - The nature is that 120B is just more difficult than 120A. During the time I took 120B with Fuchser, he was a quiet lecturer and mumbled a bit but was clearly passionate about the work he was presenting. Thankfully lectures were recorded and discussion sections were not mandatory. He received criticism about the exams being difficult but honestly it wasn't that bad (although be aware that I took interest in this content, despite how nuanced it could be at times, so my interest probably helped me study and engage with the content more). He also let us use one notecard as a cheat sheet for the final. The assignments were easy, it was just a one-page "reaction paper" of what we learned that week; it was very open-ended and graded pretty much on completion. There was also a final project where you read an article and make a presentation on it. I had a lot of fun with it because I found the article interesting. Going to his office hours was also nice because he's very approachable and enjoyed explaining the concepts in depth. Overall, if given the chance, I would say to take this class with Fuchser.
Winter 2023 - The nature is that 120B is just more difficult than 120A. During the time I took 120B with Fuchser, he was a quiet lecturer and mumbled a bit but was clearly passionate about the work he was presenting. Thankfully lectures were recorded and discussion sections were not mandatory. He received criticism about the exams being difficult but honestly it wasn't that bad (although be aware that I took interest in this content, despite how nuanced it could be at times, so my interest probably helped me study and engage with the content more). He also let us use one notecard as a cheat sheet for the final. The assignments were easy, it was just a one-page "reaction paper" of what we learned that week; it was very open-ended and graded pretty much on completion. There was also a final project where you read an article and make a presentation on it. I had a lot of fun with it because I found the article interesting. Going to his office hours was also nice because he's very approachable and enjoyed explaining the concepts in depth. Overall, if given the chance, I would say to take this class with Fuchser.
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Most Helpful Review
Ugh...this class. Dry, boring, and I had to entertain myself from falling asleep in class. I agree with the below post that he really makes things more confusing than they really are. Doesn't seem to know his own material well, and is not prepared when people asks him questions, and often admits he doesn't know the answer. Interesting material, professor sucks in terms of teaching. Horrible.
Ugh...this class. Dry, boring, and I had to entertain myself from falling asleep in class. I agree with the below post that he really makes things more confusing than they really are. Doesn't seem to know his own material well, and is not prepared when people asks him questions, and often admits he doesn't know the answer. Interesting material, professor sucks in terms of teaching. Horrible.
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2024 - All things considered, I enjoyed this class. I can definitely see why it left some students frustrated though. In my opinion, Dr. Murray is a good lecturer and a nice/approachable person; with that being said, her exams were quite challenging. They were open note, but some of the questions were pretty jargony and/or required a decent chunk of extra intuition/thinking, which resulted in an okay average for the midterm and a low (especially for the Psych department) average on the final. You definitely need to study. We learned all the intricacies of vision and a decent amount on auditory perception, which I found pretty interesting. We had two projects/papers as well in which we read scientific articles related to either somatosensation or audition and made comparisons to lecture content on vision. I feel like this was a great way to get some extra practice for scientific writing, but many students found the projects quite boring. If you are a science-oriented person who likes to understand the fine-grained details of perceptual processes, this class probably won't be too bad. However, if you're somebody who only really enjoys the social sciencey part of psych, you're in for a wild ride. Overall, you definitely have to work for your grade. I took Psych 115, and I would consider this more difficult. Even some neuroscience/premed people were struggling with the exams, which I feel speaks to the depth with which you need to understand the material. Dr. Murray was kind enough to change our grading scheme to unweighted, so people did not do too bad overall grade-wise. If you want to learn a lot (even though the content might not seem to have much real-world applicability) and are confident in your test-taking abilities, I don't think this class is nearly as bad as other students portray it to be. However, there are definitely easier classes to take.
Winter 2024 - All things considered, I enjoyed this class. I can definitely see why it left some students frustrated though. In my opinion, Dr. Murray is a good lecturer and a nice/approachable person; with that being said, her exams were quite challenging. They were open note, but some of the questions were pretty jargony and/or required a decent chunk of extra intuition/thinking, which resulted in an okay average for the midterm and a low (especially for the Psych department) average on the final. You definitely need to study. We learned all the intricacies of vision and a decent amount on auditory perception, which I found pretty interesting. We had two projects/papers as well in which we read scientific articles related to either somatosensation or audition and made comparisons to lecture content on vision. I feel like this was a great way to get some extra practice for scientific writing, but many students found the projects quite boring. If you are a science-oriented person who likes to understand the fine-grained details of perceptual processes, this class probably won't be too bad. However, if you're somebody who only really enjoys the social sciencey part of psych, you're in for a wild ride. Overall, you definitely have to work for your grade. I took Psych 115, and I would consider this more difficult. Even some neuroscience/premed people were struggling with the exams, which I feel speaks to the depth with which you need to understand the material. Dr. Murray was kind enough to change our grading scheme to unweighted, so people did not do too bad overall grade-wise. If you want to learn a lot (even though the content might not seem to have much real-world applicability) and are confident in your test-taking abilities, I don't think this class is nearly as bad as other students portray it to be. However, there are definitely easier classes to take.
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2019 - I don't understand the bad reviews at all, I mean i get that other students can have different experiences w/ a class but the sheer amount of negative reviews surprises me. I felt like this class was very fair, and the professor is very clear on what is expected of you. Sure, there are times during lecture where you may be bored but the subject is pretty technical so that may be expected. Shams has changed the grading scheme so now there is only one exam (the final) that is worth 30%, 3 paper critiques (each worth 20%), and some minilabs (worth 10% total). There is also a ton of extra credit offered, you can get AT LEAST 3% for participating in SONA and submitting an exam question, which is an entire letter grade! If you do well on pop quizzes and go above and beyond on the papers, you can get even more extra credit. But the 3% alone is unheard of, especially for a column A class. I'd make sure to do all the EC cuz it's very easy, and that cushion or boost may be very helpful by the time you take the final. Also, one thing that's great about this class is you don't have to show up if you don't want to- not even to discussion (never had a class like that before). I personally never showed up to lecture or discussion and got an A, but I still worked hard for it. I heard the discussion are really helpful though cuz you can get personal help from the TA since not many students show up, so you may be encouraged to go if you feel like the topics covered are difficult. So as stated previously, the bulk of your grade comes from 3 papers. For each paper, you read a research paper and answer some questions on it. They were pretty easy if you have taken psych 100b before, basically you just find the IVs and DVs, confounds, etc. stuff that should probably come 2nd nature to you if you've taken psych 100b somewhat recently. I was lucky enough to have taken it the quarter before taking this class so I found the papers to be pretty easy. I also liked that there were sentence limits to each question, since it gives you a sense of how much you need to write to answer the question, as I personally have a bad habit of writing too much. Though if you haven't taken 100b before, you may be wary about taking this class just because things like finding confounds and levels to the IVs aren't things that are intuitive, and the class has been changed to where the papers are worth more than half of you grade (I heard there used to be 2 exams). Also the TAs are limited in how much they are allowed to help you on the papers, so be mindful about that. I also felt like the final was fair- I was very worried about it beforehand just cuz it was the only exam we have ever taken for this class, so no one knew what to expect. She asks a lot of broad, somewhat superficial question so don't get so bogged down on the details to where you miss the main point of the concepts you learn. I felt like the book was not necessary, it tends to go too in-depth, giving you more info than you need to do well on the final. However, it may help you to read on some concepts you may be confused about. Just make sure you prioritize on knowing all the slides first. I just watched the lectures and typed everything she said that wasn't written on the slides. It's important you take good notes because the slides tend to lack material. Overall, I thought Shams was a great professor and it seemed to me like she designed a very fair class. Bottom line is, don't let all the negative reviews keep you from taking her class. I'd recommend this course to anyone that needs to fulfill the column A requirement
Fall 2019 - I don't understand the bad reviews at all, I mean i get that other students can have different experiences w/ a class but the sheer amount of negative reviews surprises me. I felt like this class was very fair, and the professor is very clear on what is expected of you. Sure, there are times during lecture where you may be bored but the subject is pretty technical so that may be expected. Shams has changed the grading scheme so now there is only one exam (the final) that is worth 30%, 3 paper critiques (each worth 20%), and some minilabs (worth 10% total). There is also a ton of extra credit offered, you can get AT LEAST 3% for participating in SONA and submitting an exam question, which is an entire letter grade! If you do well on pop quizzes and go above and beyond on the papers, you can get even more extra credit. But the 3% alone is unheard of, especially for a column A class. I'd make sure to do all the EC cuz it's very easy, and that cushion or boost may be very helpful by the time you take the final. Also, one thing that's great about this class is you don't have to show up if you don't want to- not even to discussion (never had a class like that before). I personally never showed up to lecture or discussion and got an A, but I still worked hard for it. I heard the discussion are really helpful though cuz you can get personal help from the TA since not many students show up, so you may be encouraged to go if you feel like the topics covered are difficult. So as stated previously, the bulk of your grade comes from 3 papers. For each paper, you read a research paper and answer some questions on it. They were pretty easy if you have taken psych 100b before, basically you just find the IVs and DVs, confounds, etc. stuff that should probably come 2nd nature to you if you've taken psych 100b somewhat recently. I was lucky enough to have taken it the quarter before taking this class so I found the papers to be pretty easy. I also liked that there were sentence limits to each question, since it gives you a sense of how much you need to write to answer the question, as I personally have a bad habit of writing too much. Though if you haven't taken 100b before, you may be wary about taking this class just because things like finding confounds and levels to the IVs aren't things that are intuitive, and the class has been changed to where the papers are worth more than half of you grade (I heard there used to be 2 exams). Also the TAs are limited in how much they are allowed to help you on the papers, so be mindful about that. I also felt like the final was fair- I was very worried about it beforehand just cuz it was the only exam we have ever taken for this class, so no one knew what to expect. She asks a lot of broad, somewhat superficial question so don't get so bogged down on the details to where you miss the main point of the concepts you learn. I felt like the book was not necessary, it tends to go too in-depth, giving you more info than you need to do well on the final. However, it may help you to read on some concepts you may be confused about. Just make sure you prioritize on knowing all the slides first. I just watched the lectures and typed everything she said that wasn't written on the slides. It's important you take good notes because the slides tend to lack material. Overall, I thought Shams was a great professor and it seemed to me like she designed a very fair class. Bottom line is, don't let all the negative reviews keep you from taking her class. I'd recommend this course to anyone that needs to fulfill the column A requirement
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