Course Syllabus

Perception (Psych 30) Course Overview

Professor Kalanit Grill-Spector

kalanit@stanford.edu
Office hours: Tuesday 11am-noon, 420-414

Course Objectives

The objective of this course is to teach you fundamental facts and concepts of perceptual psychology and sensory neuroscience. This is an interdisciplinary field of science, crossing the boundaries between psychology, neuroscience, and engineering. The course includes 2 weekly lectures and a weekly section. Additionally, we will have a 2-part illusion workshop in which you will generate and showcase perceptual illusions that you create. My own research uses functional brain imaging magnetic resonance imaging and computational methods to study the neural basis of visual perception. I will bring this perspective to class, emphasizing during lectures how the nervous system and the brain enable perception.

Lectures will be on Tues/Thurs 9:00-10:20am, 420-041.

Teaching Assistants

We have a wonderful group of teaching assistants (TAs) that will teach you this quarter. You will get to meet all of the TAs, as each leads specific modules.

Head TA: Mona Rosenke, rosenke@stanford.edu

Office hours: 420-452, Tuesdays 12-1 pm

Jesse Gomez: gomezj@stanford.edu
Office hours: 420-452, Fridays 3-4 pm

Akshay Jagadeesh: akshayj@stanford.edu
Office hours: 420-452, Fridays 1:30 – 2:30 pm

Eshed Margalit: eshedm@stanford.edu
Office hours: 420-452, Thursdays 10:30 – 11:30 am

Sections

Sections are held once a week and are mandatory. You are allowed to miss a maximum of 2 sections, without it having an effect on your grade. You don't need to email us in advance if you will miss a section, and there is no section make up if you miss one.

Lectures and Textbook

The course is arranged by weekly modules covering the weekly lectures and the related book chapter(s). Some lectures cover additional material that is not covered in the book and some lectures overlap with the book. Each lecture begins with a list of topics you should learn. This serves as a guideline for important concepts associated with each topic. You are responsible to learn both the materials covered in the lecture and in the book. Lecture slides will be uploaded on canvas after each lecture.

Textbook: We will be using the book: Sensation and Perception, by Jeremey Wolfe, 4th edition (2014). Books are available for purchase at the bookstore. 3 copies are on reserve at the Green library.

Homework assignments

Homework assignments will be given each week on Tuesday, starting week 2. The homework is due the following week on Monday no later than 11:55pm. Deadline will be strictly enforced as homework solutions will be subsequently posted. Homework has to be your own work and uploaded on canvas. If you discuss your answers with someone else, please indicate the names of the people in your work group at the top of your homework submission.

Exams

There will be two in-class exams: a midterm and a final exam. The midterm will cover material taught up to that point. The final exam will include the entire material of the course. You will need to pass both exams to pass the class. The exams include material from both the lectures and the book. Books and lecture notes are not allowed during exams. Before each exam we will post example exams and hold a review session. Please note the exam dates. If you have any questions, please email the head TA.

Illusion workshop

The goal of the illusion workshop is to promote active learning of perceptual mechanisms and an opportunity to engage your creative side.

Illusion I: Random dot stereograms: The first illusion is aimed to enhance understanding of how stereo vision works. After you create your own original random dot stereogram you might have an ‘aha’ moment and reconsider that the 3D structure you see is an illusion based on the horizontal placement of your eyes.

IIlusion II: IllusionFest: As the name indicates, this is going to be a festive event. Here you will pick your favorite illusion or perceptual mechanism, and create your own version of it. It cannot be a version of an example that was shown in class or in the textbook. To streamline the process, you will first submit a proposal. Once ok-ed, you can proceed to generate it. The Illusion Fest, which will be during the sections in the End-of-Quarter-Period (Dec 5th- 9th), will be the time to present your illusion to the instructor and TAs, as well as check out your colleagues’ illusions.

Class Rules
Class and Classwork:

• Please come to lectures, not all the course material is covered by the book.

• Come to class on time, and don't leave before it's over.

Please ask questions during class. Please don't worry about asking a "stupid"

question. Chances are that other students in the class are also confused. Asking a question shows that you're thinking. Believe me, I've asked plenty of bone-headed questions over the years.

Office Hours

Please come see me and the TAs regularly throughout the quarter. We ask you to email us before meeting with us so we can plan the office hours accordingly.

Exams

If you think your exam has been graded incorrectly, submit a written explanation along with your exam to the head TA. This needs to be submitted within 48 hours after the graded exam has been returned to you. Note, your whole exam will be re-graded. That means you may get additional points where you think it was graded incorrectly, but we will also re-grade the rest of our exam which may result in loosing points at questions that were graded too lenient.