Are you interested in learning more about the science of the brain, or psychology? Take your interest to the next level with a course from the Open University. All of the courses on offer can be viewed on the OU courses page.
(DD303)Cognitive Psychology
How does memory work? How do we understand language? How do we think? These are just some of the questions related to everyday experience you’ll address on this course. Beginning with core topics – perception and attention, categorisation and language, memory, thinking and reasoning – you’ll then explore wider issues, such as emotion and consciousness, topics that have presented a challenge to the cognitive approach. Throughout, you’ll be asked to examine theories, evidence and arguments as well as the methods of cognitive psychology, including neuropsychology and neuroimaging. Using a computer, you’ll also be guided through techniques of data analysis, experimentation and cognitive modelling, and will engage in your own project work.
(SD226) Biological Psychology: Exploring the Brain
This course presents an integrated, interdisciplinary approach to the brain, behavioural and psychological sciences. It concentrates on human examples, and so also considers the implications of our knowledge of behaviour and the nervous system for human health. It asks such questions as, What do biologists and psychologists understand by the concepts of brain and consciousness? How do we study the brain? What is its structure and composition? How does it develop? What is schizophrenia? Observation and experiment are emphasized, and you will carry out some investigations yourself.
(SD329) Signals and Perception: The Science of the Senses
This interdisciplinary course uses fundamental concepts from biology, chemistry, physics and psychology to explain how we interact with our environment through the five senses - hearing, sight, smell, taste and touch. For each of the senses the course describes how sensation begins with a stimulus that is converted into an electrochemical impulse, and how that is transmitted to the brain. We look at how the brain combines these messages, the process psychologists call ‘perception'. The course presents the latest advances in the science of the senses in a way that is accessible to students pursuing a wide variety of degree studies.
(DSE212) Exploring Psychology
This course introduces basic perspectives and methods in psychology and explains their application in practice. A range of psychological topics are introduced and explored, including learning, identity, perception, memory, gender and consciousness. Multimedia resources extend and support your course work, and you are encouraged to develop ways of working with different psychological perspectives and given support to acquire the analytical tools to deal with this diversity. You will have an introduction to both quantitative and qualitative research methods, and have an opportunity to conduct your own research projects.
next > Page 1 of 2
Content last updated: 01/04/2003
Lecturer: V.S. Ramachandran
This year's Reith lecturer is the noted neuroscientist Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, Director of the Centre for Brain and Cognition at the University of California (San Diego).He originally trained as a doctor and obtained an M.D. from Stanley Medical College, where he was awarded gold medals in pathology and clinical medicine. He also studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was awarded a Ph.D. and was elected a senior Rouse-Ball Scholar.
He has received many honours and awards including a fellowship from All Souls College, Oxford. He is also a fellow of the Neurosciences Institute in La Jolla and a fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Behavioural Sciences at Stanford.
He has lectured widely on art - as well as visual perception and the brain - and is a trustee of the San Diego Museum of Art. He has published over 120 papers in scientific journals, is Editor-in-chief of the Encyclopaedia of Human Behaviour and author of a popular book on neuroscience, Phantoms In The Brain.
Professor Ramachandran's work has concentrated on investigating phenomena such as phantom limbs, anosognosia or denial of paralysis, Capgras syndrome, and anorexia nervosa.
