Neuropsychology of face recognition
Term-Paper Assignment Cognitive Science: CSCI 3702, LING 3005, PSYC 3005, PHIL 3310
Fall 2017, Professors Kim and Rupert ! Format, Length, and Due Date: Your paper must be 2,500–4,000 words, excluding cover sheet (which is optional) and list of references. Include a word count on the first page of your paper. The paper must be typed in a twelve-point font, double-spaced, with one-inch margins, pages numbered, and printed on only one side of the page. A hard copy of the paper is due at the beginning of class on Thursday, Dec. 14; also submit an electronic copy to the class D2L dropbox before coming to class on that day. ! Approach to the Paper: This is a research paper and should be the result of your independent investigation, which involves identifying resources and incorporating them into your paper. DO NOT focus, in your paper, on the assigned readings or lecture material. If your paper is simply a summary of course readings or material from lecture, you will get a very low grade, perhaps even a failing grade. At the same time, your paper should show an appreciation of the content of the assigned readings and lectures, where applicable; so, for example, you should cite assigned readings when they’re relevant, and you should not write things in your paper that show that you have not done the assigned reading. ! Topics and Resources: You may pursue a topic introduced in class or address a new topic in cognitive science. One way to select a topic is to find a single idea of interest in one of the assigned readings, and then read the articles cited in connection with that idea, and then read some of the material cited in those papers, and so on (in other words, follow the trail of citations). Or, you might find a topic by searching through relevant academic journals, such as Nature, Science, Trends in Cognitive Science, Cognition, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, Cognitive Science, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, and Mind & Language. Read abstracts and skim through papers until you find a specific article that interests you, one that’s part of cognitive science, in particular. Also, consider finding resources either by searching library databases (PsycINFO, for example), Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com), or PhilPapers (looking in the appropriate categories – e.g., ‘philosophy of psychology’ or ‘artificial intelligence’), using key words or by following the trail of citations from the journal article that caught your interest. ! We have three definite criteria for the topic and content of your paper. First, the paper should not stray too far from mainstream cognitive science. Do not write a paper on, for example, ESP or reading auras. Talk to one of us if you’re not sure what counts as mainstream cognitive science. Second, the paper should take an interdisciplinary perspective on the topic of your choice. If you are a philosophy student, it’s fine to write a paper that deals primarily with philosophical issues and perspectives, but the argumentation of the paper should exploit experimental data or modeling from other areas of cognitive science. If you’re a psychology student oriented toward behavioral experiments, consider not only the behavioral literature, but also neuroscientific data or computational perspectives. Third, as resources, you should use articles published in refereed (peer-reviewed) journals that regularly publish work in cognitive science. Some of the most worthwhile journals are listed above, but there are many more (one list of
http://scholar.google.com)
Cognitive Science journals, ordered by degree of impact is here: .http://scholar.google.com/ citations?view_op=top_venues&hl=en&vq=soc_cognitivescience) Although books and book chapters can be very useful, we expect you to make substantive use of at least three refereed journal articles (that were not assigned reading for the course); the best papers typically use more than this. ! Structure: Regarding the structure of your paper, consider the following possibilities: (1) a paper that traces the development of a particular kind of theory or model (e.g., Baddeley and Hitch’s model of working memory), as it encounters apparently disconfirming data, is revised in response, and thus evolves over time, or (2) compare and contrast two or more competing theoretical perspectives on the same problem (e.g., is language acquisition driven primarily by innate resources?). Try not to pick too broad a topic. For instance, if you ask whether language learning is driven primarily by innate resources, don’t try to cover all dimensions of language acquisition; instead, you should focus on one particular aspect of the debate, for instance, patterns in the early acquisition of nouns. However you structure your paper, be sure you synthesize your material into a single narrative; your paper should take the form of a coherent essay, not a series of summaries of different articles you’ve read. ! Academic dishonesty is unacceptable and will result in lowered grades and a referral to the Honor Code Council. You must express yourself in your own words. In other words, you must construct your sentences yourself, from scratch. Also, the paper you turn in must have been written specifically for this course. ! References: Be sure to give a citation when you directly quote the work of others or when you paraphrase their ideas. Feel free to use any standard system of citation: MLA, APA, Chicago Manual of Style. (It may be easiest simply to follow the format of one of the academic papers you read.) ! Generally speaking, quotations should be used sparingly. If you have a question about plagiarism, quotations, or references, please come talk to one of us.
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