Laboratory Exercises for Cognitive Science and Psychology

心理学-认知（73）在本科课程中，对认知、大脑和行为相关问题的兴趣激增。认知科学的新课程正在引入，而神经生物学和心理学的标准课程正在融入认知科学的材料。当学生积极参与学习时，学习是最有效的。因此，心理学教科书传统上使用视觉错觉来激发兴趣。虽然令人信服，但这样的演示是静态的，并且必然在范围上受到限制。理想情况下，学生不仅会体验幻觉，还会积极地进行实验，测试视觉以外的模式，并体验来自认知科学各个领域的材料。一般来说，为心理学入门、神经生物学入门或新兴的认知科学课程等大型讲座课程提供成熟的实验室是不现实的。然而，这些课程通常有讨论部分，这些讨论部分将通过实验和互动演示来丰富。该项目通过开发实验和演示的CD-ROM来满足这些需求，这些CD-ROM可以由学生在自己的计算机上使用，也可以由带有投影设备的教师使用。计算机现在是心理学研究实验室的标准工具，同样也可以用于教学。尽管许多关于幻觉的好例子散布在互联网上，但它们都严重偏重于视觉，往往缺乏解释，而且只能让一个被动的观察者参与其中。这张CD-ROM走得更远，在实验和演示中使用互动性。此外，它超越了视觉，覆盖了听觉，超越了感知，允许学生在认知科学的所有领域复制经典实验。光盘涵盖了几个广泛的领域，包括视觉、听觉、语言、学习和记忆、注意力、认知和实际应用。有几个模块专门针对每个广泛的领域。每个模块通常包括(1)尽可能从现实世界中选取现象的演示，(2)孤立的突出特征的演示，(3)量化现象的自我实验，以及(4)激发学生形成假设并使用CD-ROM进行测试的问题。大多数模块适合所有水平的学生，入门级学生只是查看演示，高级学生做实验和测试自己的假设。在所有的层次，方法是开放的和探索的，而不是严格的说教。康奈尔大学心理与认知研究系的教师是这些领域的活跃研究人员，他们可以帮助我们选择合适的主题和教科书中尚未涵盖的最新实验。康奈尔大学和其他地方的教师也在开发过程中积极评估CD-ROM，无论是从他们的研究专长还是在教室里测试测试版。与来自不同学院和大学的教师的初步接触表明对该材料相当感兴趣。此外，几家出版商对这个项目表现出兴趣，使全国传播成为可能。

Psychology - Cognitive (73) There has been an explosion of interest in matters relating cognition, brain, and behavior in the undergraduate curriculum. New courses in cognitive science are being introduced, while standard courses in neurobiology and psychology are being infused with material from cognitive science. Learning is most effective when students actively engage the subject. Thus psychology textbooks have traditionally used visual illusions to stimulate interest. Although compelling, such demonstrations are static and necessarily limited in scope. Ideally, students would not only experience illusions, but actively perform experiments, test modalities other than vision, and experience material from all areas of cognitive science. In general, it is not practical to provide full-fledged laboratories for large lecture courses such as introductory psychology, introductory neurobiology, or the emerging cognitive science courses. However, such courses often have discussion sections that would be enriched by experiments and interactive demonstrations. This project addresses these needs by development of a CD-ROM of experiments and demonstrations that can be used by students at their own computers or by instructors with projection equipment. Computers are now standard tools in the psychology research lab, and can be similarly used in teaching. Although many fine examples of illusions are scattered across the internet, they are heavily weighted toward vision, often lack explanation, and engage one only as a passive observer. This CD-ROM goes much further, using interactivity for experiments as well as demonstrations. Furthermore, it goes beyond vision to cover hearing, and beyond perception to allow students to replicate classic experiments in all areas of cognitive science. The CD-ROM covers several broad areas, including vision, hearing, language, learning and memory, attention, cognition, and practical applications. There are several modules devoted to each broad area. Each module generally includes (1) a demonstration of the phenomenon, taken from the real world where possible, (2) a demonstration with the salient features isolated, (3) a self-experiment to quantify the phenomenon, and (4) questions that stimulate students to form hypotheses and test them using the CD-ROM. Most modules are suitable for students at all levels, with introductory students simply viewing the demonstrations, and advanced students doing experiments and testing their own hypotheses. At all levels, the approach is open-ended and exploratory rather than strictly didactic. Faculty from Cornell's Department of Psychology and Cognitive Studies Program are active researchers in these fields and are available to assist us in choosing appropriate topics and recent experiments that are not yet covered in textbooks. Faculty from Cornell and elsewhere are also active in evaluating the CD-ROM during its development, both from their research expertise and by testing beta versions in their classrooms. Preliminary contacts with faculty from a variety of colleges and universities indicate considerable interest in this material. In addition, several publishers have shown interest in this project, making nationwide dissemination certain.