30473-COMPARATIVE PSYCHOLOGY Spring, 2020 Mauricio R. Papini (SWR 336, m.papini@tcu.edu) TA: Sara Guarino (s.guarino@tcu.edu) TR, 15:30-16:50, WIN 228
Objectives The main goal is to provide knowledge about the factors contributing to the evolution and development of brain- behavior relationships. You will learn a basic vocabulary and a set of concepts and theories that will enable you to appreciate the importance and scope of comparative psychology. This course is organized around five areas: evolutionary theory, brain evolution, animal learning and cognition, developmental psychobiology, and human evolution.
Outline Jan/14-28: Animal evolution (5 lectures). Jan/30 – FIRST EXAM: Class material (lectures, videos, etc.) and reading assignments (Chapters 2 and 3). ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Feb/4-18: Brain-behavior evolution (5 lectures). Feb/20 – SECOND EXAM: Class material and reading assignments (Chapter 5 and 6). ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Feb/25-Mar/17: Learning and cognition (5 lectures). Mar/19 – THIRD EXAM: Class material and reading assignments (Chapters 8 and 9). ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mar/24-Apr/7: Behavioral development (5 lectures). Apr/14 – FOURTH EXAM: Class material and reading assignments (Chapter 11 and 12). ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Apr/16-28: Human evolution (4 lectures). May/5: FIFTH EXAM and MAKE-UP EXAMS for all Students: Class material and reading (Chapter 14). -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Textbook Papini, M. R. (2008). Comparative psychology. Evolution and development of behavior. Second Edition . New York: Psychology Press. Class Materials The lectures are guided by Power Point files. These files will be available no later than after the last lecture before any given exam at the course’s web site (see above). The files cannot be made available before they are used because I am constantly changing them and correcting errors. Thus, you must take careful notes and use these Power Point files as a last-minute template to review the material covered in class. Exams There will be 5 exams, each worth a maximum of 40 points (maximum total points in exams: 200; see below). In terms of reading material, there will be no overlap between the exams. There will be no comprehensive final. Each exam will involve 40 multiple-choice questions, each with 4 alternatives, only one correct alternative per question, and each correct answer will be worth 1 point.
Missing Exams If you miss an exam for whatever reason, you will be able to make up for it at the end of the course. Make-up exams will be given immediately after the final exam (see date above). No exceptions will be granted for the date of make-ups. You do not need to justify to me missing an exam. You could miss all exams and make up for all of them during the final day, although this is strongly discouraged. As the figure shows, the scores obtained by students who took the exams as scheduled in the syllabus tended to be higher than the 85 scores obtained by students who took the 80 Exam Score (Scale 0-100) same exams (covering the same material, but 75 with different questions) during the make-up 70 session (the exception was Exam # 2). While Regular exams 65 we could point to several potential causes for Make-ups 60 the difference (perhaps the make-up 55 questions were more difficult, perhaps many 50 1 2 3 4 5 students took more than one make-up test, Exams etc.), you should be aware that while making up is available if you have a really important impediment, you would probably benefit from taking the exams at their regular times.
Exam Requirements PERSONAL PROPERTY (backpacks, clothing, etc.): All personal property/items will be on the floor next to you or at the front of the room. LEAVING THE ROOM: Once you are in possession of an exam, you will not be permitted to leave the room until you complete the test. FOOD/DRINKS: No food or drinks are allowed in the classroom. ADJACENT EXAMS : Resist the temptation to look at other students’ exams and protect your own exam from being viewed by others. COMPUTERS, PHONES, WATCHES: You must turn off your computer, and put your phones and watches away in a pocket or backpack. HATS: You are not allowed to wear hats during an exam. EXAM: Under no circumstances may exam questions or any part of an exam be removed, reproduced, and/or disclosed by any means (hard copy, verbally, electronically, etc.) to any person or entity. Failure to comply with these instructions may result in the immediate termination of the exam and an assignment of a zero score for that exam. The Dean’s office will also be notified of the violation.
Extra Points For each hour of participating in research through SONA systems, two points will be added to your final course score, up to a maximum of 10 extra points. Please note the following: (1) Because the grading scale is 0-200 (see Grading below), there is no guarantee that your final grade will be increased as a result of collecting extra points by participating in experiments. (2) There is no guarantee that enough experiments will be available to participate in for you to collect all 10 credits. (3) To receive the maximum 5% increase to your course grade, you must participate in 10 hours and assign them to this class. If you participant in fewer than 10 hours, you will earn a fraction of the total number available (e.g., hours completed/10). For instance, if you obtain 5 hours, you earned 50% (5/10 = 0.50) of the extra credit available, adding 2.5% (5% x 0.50) to your final grade. In other words, you will earn extra credit for the hours that you complete and assign to this class.
Extra Points (cont’d) (4) Let me know no later than Thursday, January/30/2020, if you are unwilling or unable to participate in experiments. In such a case, you will be able to collect a maximum of 10 extra points by writing a paper (APA style, Times New Roman 12 font, 1-inch margins, 15 pages of narrative minimum not counting the title page and references). Note that your paper will be graded and, therefore, simply completing this activity does not guarantee you the maximum 5% grade increase. You will be required to submit your article and photocopies of all the papers you consulted. I will assign a topic unique for each student in this situation. The deadline for submitting the paper is: Thursday, April/2/2020. Guidance to the SONA systems can be found in the web site for this class: http://personal.tcu.edu/papini/comparative/SONAinstructions.pdf
Grading Your final score will be the sum of the scores obtained in the 5 exams plus the extra points (maximum extra points: 10). Thus, a student who scores the maximum number of points will have a final score of 210 (200 from exams plus a maximum of10 from extra points). Letter grading from your final score: A: 180-210 points. B: 160-179 points. C: 140-159 points. D: 120-139 points. F: below 120 points. Attendance Policy This course has a total of 30 meetings of which 5 are allocated to the exams. Attendance in the remaining 25 lectures will be monitored. It is recommended 85 Average Attendance (%) r 2 = 0.82 80 that you attend all the lectures since this course depends heavily on material 75 presented in class. It is unlikely that you will obtain a C or better grade if you 70 miss more than 20% of the 25 lectures (that’s about 5 absences in the entire 65 semester). Here is evidence of the correlation between attendance and grades 60 from several courses offered over the past several years. Notice that 55 attendance accounts for 82% of the variance in grades. I may add that I found 50 0 20 40 60 80 100 strong correlations like this one in my other courses, suggesting that this is Average Grade probably true for most of the courses you take at TCU.
Concern about Grade Inflation Data on grade inflation shows that there is a general trend across both public and private schools toward higher rades over the period ranging between 1991 and 2007 (see www.gradeinflation.com for more information). This trend is not apparently present in community colleges. Notice in the graph given below that this trend is especially robust in private schools, like TCU. Although there are several interpretations of these results, if the trend continues, soon a diploma from a private school may be worth less than one from a public school in the job market. Whether or not this would be fair is irrelevant to your professional future. TCU was not sampled for the research represented in this figure, but, as a graduate from a private school you may be affected anyway when competing for jobs. I provide this information so that you become aware of a potential problem.
Please check the following sections in your Syllabus: (1) Disability Statement (2) Students with Disabilities (3) Academic Misconduct (4) Issues Created when Faculty are Too Accommodating
Plant behavior? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0LFBM3hOLs Duration: 20 s
Unicellular predation? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvOz4V699gk Duration: 44 s
Fish expectations? No video available
Parrot fear? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QZgkkb2OwU Duration: 28 s
Recommend
More recommend
