Foundations of Language, Brain & Cognition

Course goals

The goal of the course is to introduce the students to the basic concepts in psycholinguistics as part of cognitive science and to provide for a basic understanding of how to design a theory based psycholinguistic experiment.

Content

Psycholinguistics studies the psychological and neurobiological factors that enable humans to comprehend, produce and use language. The topics include an introduction to the computational theory of mind, basic notions of neuroscience, the organization of the brain with a specific focus on the language related networks, as well as discussion of language comprehension, language impairment, and the relation between language and other areas of human cognition (e.g. memory, general information processing, etc.). Students will also be introduced to the basics of experimental design in psycholinguistic experimentation and will participate (in groups) in designing a possible experiment, proceeding from formulating the research questions, hypothesis, method, analyses of the results and potential conclusions.
As a PASS/FAIL requirement, students are asked to present a summary of a published academic paper that utilized one of the experimental methodologies discussed in class.

Additional information

Early Exit option for international exchange students (5 ECTS)
 
Exchange students who are required to return to their home university before January, are allowed to choose an Early Exit option for this course. The Early Exit option means that students can finish the course before Christmas break, receiving 5 ECTS for the course. Students must make arrangements with the course coordinator at the start of the course.