Psychology 1: Introduction to Psychology
Fall, 2007

Time: MWF 3:00-3:50
Location: Solis 107

Course web page: http://psy.ucsd.edu/~ferreira/psy1/

	Name	Office Hours & Location	Contact Information
Instructor	Professor Victor Ferreira	Th 2-4 or by appt McGill Hall 5141	vferreira@ucsd.edu 858-534-6303

	Name	Section(s) & Location	Contact Information
Graduate TA	Jason Jones	Tu 1-1:50, McGill 1350 Th 1-1:50, McGill 1350	jasonj@ucsd.edu
Graduate TA	Kimmie Vanderbilt	Tu 9-9:50, McGill 1350 Th 11-11:50, McGill 1350	kvanderbilt@ucsd.edu
Undergrad TA	Alex Rooney	W 12-12:50, McGill 1350	arooney@ucsd.edu

Textbook: “Psychology,” Fifth Edition, by Peter Gray. The book is available in the bookstore new with a bundled study guide, or a used textbook without it. You may find the study guide helpful, but it is not necessary. You may consider purchasing the “eBook” instead; see http://ebooks.bfwpub.com/gray.php. Copies of the book are on reserve at the library.

Course Objectives: By the time you’re finished taking this course, you should have an understanding of how psychological research tries to use ingenuity and technology to increase human understanding of the range of subfields that make up psychology, including the brain, perception, memory, thinking, language, social development and interaction, personality, and psychological disorders.

Content and Evaluation: Students will be responsible for all material presented in class, and for all assigned parts of the textbook. As the quarter goes on, I will indicate specific sections (pages) of the book that you will be responsible for.

There will be two midterms: One on Monday, October 22nd (Week 4), and another on Wednesday, November 14th (Week 7). Each midterm is worth 24% of your grade. The final examination is scheduled for Friday, December 14th from 3:00 to 6:00 PM (although this is subject to change – make sure!). The final exam is worth 48% of your grade; two-thirds of the final will cover the material after the second midterm, whereas the remaining one-third of the final will cover material from before the second midterm (i.e., the final is cumulative). All scheduled examinations will be entirely multiple-choice. You are responsible for bringing Scantron form F-1712-ERI (it’s a PINK form that’s the size of a full sheet of paper and is available at the bookstore) to the examinations, and a #2 pencil.

You are strongly encouraged to take all exams at their scheduled times. Because make-up exams are very difficult to administer fairly in a course of this size, students with valid reason to miss an exam cannot be guaranteed a make-up during the current quarter, in which case an incomplete grade will be assigned for the class. Furthermore, the format of any make-up exam cannot be specified ahead of time. Any student taking a make-up exam should be prepared to take an essay, short answer, or multiple-choice test. To be eligible to take a make-up, a student must have a legitimate (e.g., medical) and verifiable reason for having missed the scheduled exam.

Both exams are closed-book tests. No aids of any kind are permitted. Although the vast majority of students are of high academic integrity, it is still necessary to say that cheating will not be tolerated. Students found guilty of cheating will receive an F for the course and may be expelled from UCSD (see the General Catalog for UCSD’s policy on academic dishonesty). Students found guilty of cheating should also expect to receive a hidden code on their transcript which when revealed will prevent admission to law schools and medical schools.

Experimental Participation: Together, the midterm and final make up 96% of your final grade. The remaining 4% of your grade will be determined by participation in the Psychology Department Human Subject Pool. You are permitted to participate in the subject pool for up to three hours. You will receive 1% toward your grade for every hour you participate, plus a 1% bonus for completing all three hours. Thus, for one hour of participation, you will receive 1%; for two hours, 2%; and for three hours, 4%. For information on how to participate in the subject pool, please visit http://experimetrix.com/ucsd/ (note that that says “experimetrix,” with NO n).

Alternatively, if you do not wish to participate in the psychology subject pool, you may write a 4-8 page research paper on a topic related to the material presented in class. The paper may be on a topic of your choosing, but that topic must be approved by Professor Ferreira before the paper is written. Any student who writes a paper is expected to do supplemental research (e.g., at the library) in support of that paper. The paper will be graded on a four-point scale, and the grade of the paper will be added to the student’s final grade. (Note that a student may not both write a paper and participate in the subject pool -- at least you won’t get credit for both.) Note that UCSD’s standards of academic integrity apply to this paper as well; students must not plagiarize or copy work not of their own original creation.

Sections: The TAs will lead course sections. The times of the course sections are listed at the top of this syllabus. You do not sign up for sections. Rather, you simply show up at any section that you wish to. In the sections, the TAs will answer student questions and go over multiple-choice questions that are similar to those that will appear on the exams. Though sections are not mandatory, they are very useful.

Schedule of Classes and Assigned Readings

Wk	Date		Topic	Textbook Section (tentative)
0	Fri	Sep 28	Introduction	—
1	Mon	Oct 1	Learning	Chapter 4
	Wed	Oct 3
	Fri	Oct 5	The Brain & Nervous System	Chapter 5
2	Mon	Oct 8
	Wed	Oct 10
	Fri	Oct 12	Perception	Chapters 7, 8
3	Mon	Oct 15
	Wed	Oct 17
	Fri	Oct 19	Memory	Chapter 9
4	Mon	Oct 22	First Midterm Examination
	Wed	Oct 24	Memory cont'd	Chapter 9
	Fri	Oct 26
5	Mon	Oct 29	Higher Order Processes	Chapter 10
	Wed	Halloween
	Fri	Nov 2
6	Mon	Nov 5	Development	Chapters 11, 12
	Wed	Nov 7
	Fri	Nov 9
7	Mon	Nov 12	Veteran's Day Holiday — No Class
	Wed	Nov 14	Second Midterm Examination
	Fri	Nov 16	Social Psychology	Chapters 13, 14
8	Mon	Nov 19
	Wed	Nov 21	Thanksgiving Holiday — No Class
	Fri	Nov 23
9	Mon	Nov 26	Social Psychology cont'd	Chapters 13, 14
	Wed	Nov 28	Personality	Chapter 15
	Fri	Nov 30
10	Mon	Dec 3	Psychopathology	Chapter 16
	Wed	Dec 5
	Fri	Dec 7
FI	Fri	Dec 14, 3 PM	Final Examination

Read Carefully!

All LOWER-DIVISION PSYCHOLOGY COURSES require that all students* participate as subjects in psychological research. The minimum requirement is 3 hours. Some instructors may require additional hours or count additional hours as extra credit. This requirement is part of the course just as a mid-term or final examination. It is your responsibility to take care of these requirements.

SIGN UP FOR EXPERMENTS EARLY IN THE QUARTER TO AVOID DEALING WITH A SHORTAGE LATER IN THE YEAR! Do NOT wait until finals week to try and sign up for an experiment because you won’t be allowed.

Some UPPER-DIVISION PSYCHOLOGY COURSES may offer extra credit based on participating in experiments.

What to do:

1. Go to https://experimetrix2.com/ucsd/.

For general rules, guidelines, etc., click on the “read.me” link on the main page.

For frequently asked questions, click on the “help.me” link on main page.

2. Click on the "new.user" link, enter your name, student ID, and email address. Your logon and password will then be sent to your email address. It is your responsibility to make sure your provided email address is able to accept emails.

3.After you receive your logon and password, you’ll have 3 days to log on to your account. If you fail to logon within that 3 day period, your membership is deleted and you’ll have to register again. If you make a mistake (e.g., enter the wrong email address) and never receive your logon and password, you must wait 3 days before registering again. You should only have to register one time (not every quarter or even every year).

4.If you forget your password, click on “forgot.password” located on the main page.

5.Once you’ve logged in, go to the “Edit your course selection” link. You must select the course(s) to which you wish to later assign the credit (Psych 1, Psych 2, etc.).

6.Go to the “sign up” link on the home page to select an experiment. You should select both an experiment and the course for which you want to receive the credit. Confirmation will then be sent to your email address.

7.You will receive an email reminder 24 hrs before the experiment. A common reason for not receiving this email is that your mailbox is full, so check that first.

8.You can cancel an appointment without penalty as long as you do so at least 24 hrs prior to the experiment. Confirmation will be sent to your email address. Failing to show up for a scheduled experiment will result in a penalty equal to the number of credits offered for that experiment.

9.At any point, you may select the “log.in” link from the main page to review your scheduled and past appointments, edit your course selections, and assign your earned credits to your courses.

10. VERY IMPORTANT! After receiving credit for your participation, you must select Assign Credits to Your Courses, and you must do this before finals week. The classes to which you wish credit to be assigned are listed, with the number of credits you’ve received. You will need to type in the number of credits you want assigned next to the class to which you want it assigned. If you fail to do this step, you will not receive your credit.

*As a participant in psychological research, you have the right to leave the experiment at any time if you wish to do so. If you conscientiously object to experimental participation, or if there is a shortage of experiments in which you can participate, your instructor will provide you with an alternate assignment which will serve the same educational ends. You are entitled, in each experiment, to at least five minutes devoted to teaching you about the experiment and its purposes.

04/11/05