Courses for Spring 2024

	Title	Instructor	Time	Description	Cross Listings	Fulfills	Syllabus URL
PSYC 0001-001	Introduction to Experimental Psychology	Andrew H Ward	MW 5:15 PM-6:44 PM	This course provides an introduction to the basic topics of psychology including our three major areas of distribution: the biological basis of behavior, the cognitive basis of behavior, and individual and group bases of behavior. Topics include, but are not limited to, neuropsychology, learning, cognition, development, disorder, personality, and social psychology.		Living World Sector (all classes)
PSYC 1210-401	Introduction to Brain and Behavior	Michael Kane	TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM	Introduction to the structure and function of the vertebrate nervous system. We begin with the cellular basis of neuronal activities, then discuss the physiological bases of motor control, sensory systems, motivated behaviors, and higher mental processes. This course is intended for students interested in the neurobiology of behavior, ranging from animal behaviors to clinical disorders.	BIOL1110401, NRSC1110401	Living World Sector (all classes)
PSYC 1210-402	Introduction to Brain and Behavior	Venkata Sai Chaluvadi Michael Kane	M 8:30 AM-9:59 AM	Introduction to the structure and function of the vertebrate nervous system. We begin with the cellular basis of neuronal activities, then discuss the physiological bases of motor control, sensory systems, motivated behaviors, and higher mental processes. This course is intended for students interested in the neurobiology of behavior, ranging from animal behaviors to clinical disorders.	BIOL1110402, NRSC1110402	Living World Sector (all classes)
PSYC 1230-401	Cognitive Neuroscience	Michael Arcaro Linfeng Han	TR 1:45 PM-3:14 PM	The study of the neural systems that underlie human perception, memory and language; and of the pathological syndromes that result from damage to these systems.	NRSC2249401	Nat Sci & Math Sector (new curriculum only)
PSYC 1440-001	Social Psychology	Paul Okami	MW 10:15 AM-11:44 AM	An overview of theories and research across the range of social behavior from intra-individual to the group level including the effects of culture, social environment, and groups on social interaction.		Society sector (all classes)
PSYC 1462-001	Abnormal Psychology	Ayelet M Ruscio	MW 10:15 AM-11:44 AM	The concepts of normality, abnormality, and psychopathology; symptom syndromes;theory and research in psychopathology and psychotherapy.
PSYC 2240-401	Visual Neuroscience	Long Ni Alan A Stocker	MWF 10:15 AM-11:14 AM	An introduction to the scientific study of vision, with an emphasis on the biological substrate and its relation to behavior. Topics will typically include physiological optics, transduction of light, visual thresholds, color vision, anatomy and physiology of the visual pathways, and the cognitive neuroscience of vision.	NRSC2217401, VLST2170401	Living World Sector (all classes)
PSYC 2377-001	Cognitive Development	Daniel C Swingley	MWF 9:00 AM-9:59 AM	What infants and young children come to know about the world, and how they learn it. Topics will include changes in children's thinking, perceptual development, language acquisition, and current theories of cognitive development.
PSYC 2555-401	Neuroeconomics	Christian Benitez Joseph W Kable	TR 3:30 PM-4:59 PM	This course will introduce students to neuroeconomics, a field of research that combines economic, psychological, and neuroscientific approaches to study decision-making. The course will focus on our current understanding of how our brains give rise to decisions, and how this knowledge might be used to constrain or advance economic and psychological theories of decision-making. Topics covered will include how individuals make decisions under conditions of uncertainty, how groups of individuals decide to cooperate or compete, and how decisions are shaped by social context, memories, and past experience.	NRSC2273401	Living World Sector (all classes)
PSYC 2737-001	Judgment and Decisions	Edward Royzman	W 5:15 PM-8:14 PM	Thinking, judgment, and personal and societal decision making, with emphasis on fallacies and biases.
PSYC 2737-002	Judgment and Decisions	Diego Fernandez-Duque	T 5:15 PM-8:14 PM	Thinking, judgment, and personal and societal decision making, with emphasis on fallacies and biases.
PSYC 2750-401	Behavioral Economics and Psychology	Pei-Hsun Hsieh	TR 3:30 PM-4:59 PM	Our understanding of markets, governments, and societies rests on our understanding of choice behavior, and the psychological forces that govern it. This course will introduce you to the study of choice, and will examine in detail what we know about how people make choices, and how we can influence these choices. It will utilize insights from psychology and economics, and will apply these insights to domains including risky decision making, intertemporal decision making, and social decision making.	PPE3003401
PSYC 2750-402	Behavioral Economics and Psychology		M 3:30 PM-6:29 PM	Our understanding of markets, governments, and societies rests on our understanding of choice behavior, and the psychological forces that govern it. This course will introduce you to the study of choice, and will examine in detail what we know about how people make choices, and how we can influence these choices. It will utilize insights from psychology and economics, and will apply these insights to domains including risky decision making, intertemporal decision making, and social decision making.	PPE3003402
PSYC 3230-301	Seminar in Neuroscience: The Moral Brain	Sharon L Thompson-Schill	T 1:45 PM-4:44 PM	Topics vary each semester.
PSYC 3232-301	The Social Brain Seminar	Adrianna C Jenkins	T 1:45 PM-4:44 PM	This seminar examines the cognitive and neural mechanisms that enable humans to predict and understand people's behavior. We will be propelled throughout the course by fundamental questions about the human social brain. For example, why are humans so social? Does the human brain have specialized processes for social thought? Consideration of these questions will involve advanced treatment of a range of topics.			https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202410&c=PSYC3232301
PSYC 3271-001	Seminar: Thought without Language	Elizabeth M Brannon	T 3:30 PM-6:29 PM	In this seminar we will tackle key topics in cognitive science through the lens of comparative and developmental psychology. Human infants in the first year of life and nonhuman animals share an important attribute: they both lack language. What type of thought is possible without language? What can we learn about the human mind by studying animal and infant cognition? We will explore topics such as concepts and categories, metacognition, numerical cognition, helping and sharing, and understanding other minds using empirical papers. The course will be heavily discussion-based and students will be required to give multiple short presentations and write one paper.
PSYC 3281-401	Computational Neuroscience Lab	Yuzhang Chen Nicole C Rust	TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM	This course will focus on computational neuroscience from the combined perspective of data collection, data analysis, and computational modeling. These issues will be explored through lectures as well as Matlab-based tutorials and exercises. The course requires no prior knowledge of computer programming and a limited math background, but familiarity with some basic statistical concepts will be assumed. The course is an ideal preparation for students interested in participating in a more independent research experience in one of the labs on campus.	NRSC3334401
PSYC 3300-401	Seminar in Sleep and Memory	Anna Schapiro	F 1:45 PM-4:44 PM	Why do we sleep? This question has puzzled scientists for centuries, but one reason emerging from research in the area is that sleep is critical for forming, retaining, and transforming our memories. This seminar explores human and animal research in psychology and neuroscience that has shed light on how sleep carries out these functions. Topics will include the different stages of sleep and their roles in memory consolidation, its neural systems involved in representing memory at different timescales, and the role of dreams in processing memories.	NRSC4429401
PSYC 3310-401	Psycholinguistics Seminar	Delphine Dahan	R 12:00 PM-2:59 PM	This course examines how people use language. We will focus on Herb H. Clark’s book “Using Language” (1996). In this book, Clark proposes that language use is a form of joint action, and extensively develop what this claim entails and how it accounts for people’s linguistic behavior. The course will consist of a detailed examination of Clark’s thesis.	LING3750401
PSYC 3400-301	Positive Psychology Seminar: Positive Education (SNF Paideia Program Course)	Caroline Jane Connolly	M 1:45 PM-4:44 PM	This intensive, discussion-based seminar will equip you with useful insight and critical analysis about Positive Psychology by emphasizing scientific literacy. The workload for this seminar requires intensive reading. To excel in this seminar, students must be willing to enthusiastically read, dissect, and critique ideas within Positive Psychology. This requires students to articulate various ideas in verbal and written form.			https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202410&c=PSYC3400301
PSYC 3409-001	Seminar: Failure to Communicate	Carlin P. Romano	M 7:00 PM-9:59 PM	This seminar examines “failure to communicate” in a variety of cultural areas, among them literature, romance, politics, theater, law, science, war, and education. Materials will include literary fiction, plays, poetry, film, TV, and assorted nonfiction, journalism and scholarship. This course counts as a "Cognate Elective" for Psychology majors.
PSYC 3440-302	Friendship and Attraction Seminar	Caroline Jane Connolly	TR 12:00 PM-1:29 PM	This seminar primarily focuses on heterosexual friendship between men and women, and the methodological issues of investigating such relationships. The scope for sexuality and romance in heterosexual opposite-sex friendship will be explored, as well as the possibility that men and women perceive opposite-sex friendship differently from each other. The ramifications of sex, romance, and incongruent perspectives in these relationships will be discussed, as will intimacy, competition, homosexual friendship, and same-sex friendship.			https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202410&c=PSYC3440302
PSYC 3442-301	Moral Psychology Seminar	Geoffrey Goodwin	TR 3:30 PM-4:59 PM	This seminar will cover a range of topics within contemporary moral psychology, including: the nature of morality, the extent to which moral beliefs are based on reasoning as opposed to more intuitive or affective processes, the extent to which moral values can be traded off, the role of justice and blame in moral thinking, moral selfidentity, the causes of immoral behavior, and the cultural, political, and personal significance of people’s moral beliefs. Students will be expected to read and actively discuss selected papers, and will be asked to present readings at various points. There will be mid-term and final paper assignments.
PSYC 3446-001	The Science of Well-Being	Frank Jackson Martin E P Seligman	TR 12:00 PM-1:29 PM	The course consists of weekly 90-minute lectures on Positive Psychology: The topics include Well-Being as a Life Goal, Good Character, Learned Helplessness, Optimism, Coaching, Therapy and Prevention, Positive Education, the Positive Corporation, Agency, and Artificial Intelligence. In addition, there will be weekly recitation sessions and exercises for students to measure and to increase their personal well-being.			https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202410&c=PSYC3446001
PSYC 3730-301	Seminar in Judgment and Decision Making	Barbara Ann Mellers	MW 10:15 AM-11:44 AM	This course is designed to help you become a better decision maker. By the end of the semester, you should have the skills to approach decision making from a broader perspective with new tools and a new awareness of many common errors and biases. You will learn about normative decisions (how people should make choices if they want to use principles of rationality, logic and probability), descriptive decisions (how people really do make decisions) and prescriptive decisions (how people can make better decisions given normative principles and what we know about human behavior). We’ll discuss the theoretical foundations of the field, some of the key empirical insights. We’ll discuss what it means to have good judgment and how experts and novices differ. We look at decision making in such as public policy, medicine, the law, business, and intelligence analysis. Decision making is something we do every day, many times a day. It is so natural that some people don’t even realize they are doing it. Many of the insights from this field have real-world implications.
PSYC 3730-302	Seminar in Judgment and Decision Making	Barbara Ann Mellers	MW 1:45 PM-3:14 PM	This course is designed to help you become a better decision maker. By the end of the semester, you should have the skills to approach decision making from a broader perspective with new tools and a new awareness of many common errors and biases. You will learn about normative decisions (how people should make choices if they want to use principles of rationality, logic and probability), descriptive decisions (how people really do make decisions) and prescriptive decisions (how people can make better decisions given normative principles and what we know about human behavior). We’ll discuss the theoretical foundations of the field, some of the key empirical insights. We’ll discuss what it means to have good judgment and how experts and novices differ. We look at decision making in such as public policy, medicine, the law, business, and intelligence analysis. Decision making is something we do every day, many times a day. It is so natural that some people don’t even realize they are doing it. Many of the insights from this field have real-world implications.
PSYC 4440-301	Sexuality and Attraction Research Experience Course	Edward Royzman	R 1:45 PM-4:44 PM	The overarching goal of this course is to offer a practicum (hands-on experience) in designing, conducting, and reporting a piece of psychological research. This objective will be met principally through participation in a group research project, class discussions related to the project and various exercises focusing on individual components of the research process. There are additional goals as well. One is to enable you to think critically (though not disparagingly) about other people’s research, all with the hope of eventually applying the the self-same critical acumen to some future work of your own. This objective will be met primarily through class lectures and discussions of the assigned readings. I also hope that our interactions throughout the course will be conducive to developing (and exchanging) creative ideas of your own. Lastly, the course aims to offer an informal introduction to research design and research ethics. This objective will be met primarily through class discussions, group project, exercises, and some additional readings.
PSYC 4462-301	Research Experience in Abnormal Psychology	Melissa G. Hunt	R 1:45 PM-4:44 PM	This is a two-semester course starting in the Fall. Class size limited to 8-10 students.
PSYC 4997-301	Senior Honors Seminar in Psychology	Coren L Apicella	M 1:45 PM-4:44 PM	Open to senior honors candidates in psychology. A two-semester sequence supporting the preparation of an honors thesis in psychology. Students will present their work in progress and develop skills in written and oral communication of scientific ideas. Prerequisite: Acceptance into the Honors Program in Psychology.
PSYC 5390-401	Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience	Vijay Balasubramanian	TR 8:30 AM-9:59 AM	This course will develop theoretical and computational approaches to structural and functional organization in the brain. The course will cover: (i) the basic biophysics of neural responses, (ii) neural coding and decoding with an emphasis on sensory systems, (iii) approaches to the study of networks of neurons, (iv) models of adaptation, learning and memory, (v) models of decision making, and (vi) ideas that address why the brain is organized the way that it is. The course will be appropriate for advanced undergraduates and beginning graduate students. A knowledge of multi-variable calculus, linear algebra and differential equations is required (except by permission of the instructor). Prior exposure to neuroscience and/or Matlab programming will be helpful.	BE5300401, NGG5940401, NRSC5585401, PHYS5585401	Nat Sci & Math Sector (new curriculum only)
PSYC 6000-301	Language	Delphine Dahan	MW 1:45 PM-3:44 PM	Choice of half or full course units each sem. covering a range of subjects and approaches in academic psychology.
PSYC 6090-401	Systems Neuroscience	Gregory Corder Franz Ludwig Weber		This course provides an introduction to what is known about how neuronal circuits solve problems for the organism and to current resarch approaches to this question. Topics include: vision, audition, olfaction, motor systems, plasticity, and oscillations. In addition, the course aims to provide an overview of the structure of the central nervous system. A number of fundamental concepts are also discussed across topics, such as: lateral inhibition, integration, filterting, frames of reference, error signals, adaptation. The course format consists of lectures, discussions, readings of primary literature, supplemented by textbook chapters and review articles.	NGG5730401
PSYC 6120-401	Introduction to Nonparametric Methods and Log-linear Models	Wei Wang	TR 12:00 PM-1:29 PM	An applied graduate level course for students who have completed an undergraduate course in basic statistical methods. Covers two unrelated topics: loglinear and logit models for discrete data and nonparametric methods for nonnormal data. Emphasis is on practical methods of data analysis and their interpretation. Primarily for doctoral students in the managerial, behavioral, social and health sciences. Permission of instructor required to enroll.	STAT5010401		https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202410&c=PSYC6120401
PSYC 7040-301	Research Methods and Statistical Procedures for Social and Clinical Sciences	Rebecca E Waller	W 10:15 AM-1:14 PM	This course has three primary objectives: 1) developing criteria and strategies for strong inference of causal relationships in social and clinical psychology research; 2) examining the array of research designs employed in the social/clinical sciences together with the threats to internal and external validity associated with each; 3) learning and applying statistical analytical methods appropriate for questions in the social/clinical sciences. The course will employ a seminar format and a project-oriented approach to learning. Students will be encouraged to utilize examples from their own research programs in applying the design and analysis concepts covered in the course.
PSYC 7090-301	Ethics and Professional Standards	Melissa G. Hunt	M 1:45 PM-3:44 PM	A developmental approach to the study of psychopathology focuses on how psychological processes from normal to abnormal developmental trajectories. In this seminar we will cover theory, methods, and key constructs in the study of developmental psychopathology. Readings will include seminal empirical papers and chapters.
PSYC 7470-401	Contemporary Research Issues in Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience	Martha J. Farah	W 5:15 PM-8:14 PM	This course is intended to take you from a textbook-level acquaintance with psychology and neuroscience to critical engagement with the primary literature, through lectures, discussion and short written assignments. You will learn to extract, from the dense and detail-laden pages of a journal article, its contribution to the “big picture” of human neuroscience. You will also learn to recognize problematic research practices when they arise, and to analyze and communicate about the strengths and weaknesses of research articles.	BIOE7470401
PSYC 8150-301	Introductory Practicum	Melissa G. Hunt		Students typically complete 8-10 full assessment batteries on complex patients referred from a number of different sources in the community. This practicum offers intensive supervision, with live (in the room) supervision of every trainee’s first case, and live peer-supervision of their second case. Throughout their time in the practicum they receive close supervision of every case, including checking the scoring of tests and measures, and close reading and editing of every report. Students do a final feedback session with every patient which the supervisor co-leads at the beginning of the year, and observes in the room throughout the rest of the year, thus ensuring direct observation of every trainee throughout the year.