Overview | Honours | Summary of Courses

Offered By:	ANU Joint Colleges of Science
Academic Contact:	Dr Kristen Pammer and Professor Don Byrne
Areas of Interest:	Psychology

Description:

This minor will provide an understanding of behavioural systems, neuroscience, and brain mechanisms underlying behaviour. This will occur within the context of basic and advanced cognitive and perceptual processes and will cover a wide variety of advanced topics in neuroscience. An important aspect of this minor is to expose students to relevant and applied research being conducted by ANU researchers.Laboratory classes will cover microscopic and macroscopic anatomy of the nervous system, investigations of higher order processing, experimental approaches to brain and behaviour, and problem-based learning.

Learning Goals:

Students who have completed the Biological Neuroscience Psychology minor will be able to:

1. Explain major concepts, theoretical perspectives, empirical findings, and historical trends in psychology.
2. Differentiate theoretical and empirical frameworks that have defined and shaped the field.
3. Define key concepts that characterise psychology as a field of scientific inquiry as well as things that differentiate it from other related disciplines.
4. Relate how social (eg environmental/cultural), and biological (genes, hormones) factors jointly shape human behavior.
5. Apply basic research methods in psychology to investigate psychological questions and to research design, data analysis, and interpretation.
6. Use critical inquiry, and, when possible, the scientific approach to solve problems related to behavior and mental processes.
7. Identify relevant psychological mechanisms/issues and apply to real world or other contexts.
8. Apply psychological principles to personal, social, and organisational issues.
9. Critically analyse data and research, including methodology, results and conclusions.
10. Articulate some of the central questions and issues in contemporary psychology.
11. Critically evaluate the presentation of scientific ideas and research in the popular media.
12. Identify and critically evaluate appropriate disciplinary research sources
13. Evaluate information from a statistical perspective drawing on basic statistical concepts.
14. Develop competence in interpreting graphical data to understand what is being compared/manipulated (independent variables) and what is being measured (dependent variables).
15. Clearly communicate psychological processes and principles to both science literate and non science literate audiences.
16. Adapt the collaborative and independent experiences of psychology laboratory, project and course work to other contexts.
17. Identify and reflect on the values that underpin the discipline of psychology and its practice.

Requirements

This minor requires the completion of 24 units from the following compulsory courses:

PSYC2007  Biological Basis of Behaviour

PSYC2008  Visual Perception and Cognition

PSYC3015  Issues in Cognitive Psychology

PSYC3016  Issues in Behavioural Neuroscience

Advice to Students:

What 1st year courses should you enrol in? Some of these subjects require 1st year prerequisites, and both PSYC1003 and PSYC1004 are highly recommended for all 2000 and 3000 level psychology courses.

Students should seek further course advice from the academic convener of this Biological Neuropsychology minor.

The information published on the Study at ANU 2012 website applies to the 2012 academic year only. All information provided on this website replaces the information contained in the Study at ANU 2011 website.