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Semester 1

Thinking and Reasoning (PSYL10138)

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 would provide foundational coverage of classic research in reasoning (e.g. syllogistic reasoning, conditional propositions, and causal reasoning) leading up to more advanced material (judging and reasoning about probabilities, Prospect Theory).

Course Description

This course will cover concepts of rationality, the 'classic' research into the cognitive psychology of reasoning, and decision-making. Topics will include: 1. Nature of representation, operations on representations, and levels of analysis. Different types of models in psychology (i.e., descriptive, normative, verbal vs formal). 2. Epistemic rationality and its connection to Bayes' Theorem. Issues of rational belief revision. 3. Deductive reasoning in syllogisms and if-then conditionals, with a specific focus on the debate between mental rules and mental models approaches to these topics. 4. Probabilistic approaches to deduction. Dual process models of reasoning. 5. Instrumental rationality and its connection to decision theory. 6. Abductive reasoning & science of explanation. 7. Subjective expected utility theory and Prospect Theory. 8. Decision by Sampling and heuristics within the bounded rationality paradigm. **Skills taught/developed in this course are hierarchical information integration with respect to empirical results and theoretical models; ability to systematically evaluate computational models; critical analysis; and writing skills.

Assessment Information

Written Exam 70%, Coursework 30%, 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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