Seminar in Selected Topics in Learning & Memory: Cognitive Illusions

3 units

This course will consider illusions of perceiving, attending, remembering and, more broadly, thinking. The reading will be concentrated on three books - Blink, The Invisible Gorilla, and Thinking Fast and Slow - as well as selected journal articles. We will consider how processes that lead us astray in some situations are the same ones that aid us in other situations, which is why these processes exist. Students will write essays and a term paper on one illusion or class of illusions. Prerequisites: Psych 100B and either Psych 360 or Psych 380.