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Semester 1

From Perception to Cognition: A Journey in Colour (PSYL10166)

Subject

Psychology

College

CAHSS

Credits

20

Normal Year Taken

3

Delivery Session Year

2023/2024

Pre-requisites

Visiting students must be studying Psychology as their degree major, and have completed at least 3 Psychology courses at grade B or above. We will only consider University/College level courses. **Please see Additional Restrictions below**

Course Summary

This course will explore many ways in which humans and other species perceive and think about colour. Colour will serve as a sandbox to study how different psychological domains are inextricably linked and influence each other. Colour is perfect for this - on one hand, a uniquely visual phenomenon that arises from computations performed by sensory neurons, while on the other hand, a conceptual and cognitive domain high in social and emotional salience and influenced by language-derived concepts.

Course Description

The following topics will be covered: (a) visual ecology of colour and diversity of colour vision systems in non-human animals; (b) perception of colour and lightness in humans; (c) colour cognition and language, seeing through the prism of the universalist/relativist debate on how cognition and perception interact; (d) development of colour perception and cognition in infancy and childhood; (e) colour preferences and their relation to biological adaptations and colour-emotion associations.

Assessment Information

Written Exam 0%, Coursework 100%, Practical Exam 0%

Additional Restrictions

Unless you are nominated on a Psychology exchange agreement, visiting students are only permitted to enrol in one 3rd year Psychology course each, per semester, before the start of the relevant semester’s welcome period – and spaces on each course are limited so cannot be guaranteed for any student. Enrolment in a second course from this group will depend on whether there are still spaces available in the September Welcome Period, and cannot be guaranteed. It is NOT appropriate for students to contact staff within this subject area to ask for an exception to be made; all enquiries to enrol in these courses must be made through the CAHSS Visiting Student Office. This is due to the extremely limited number of spaces available in this very popular subject area.

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