Cornell University
fall 2009
3 credits
Copyright © 2006 - 2009 Matthew Belmonte
PREREQUISITES: One course in statistics, and either BIONB 222 or one course in neuroscience at the 300 level or beyond.
MEETING TIME AND PLACE: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11.40-12.55, Keeton House seminar room
OFFICE HOURS: Keeton House study rooms, Thursdays 10.30-11.30; and by appointment. Telephone 1.617.715.2049.
ABOUT EMAIL: The deepest, fastest, most efficient way way to learn is by face-to-face interaction, not by typing. A ten-minute face-to-face conversation can save hours of email correspondence — and seeing you and speaking with you gives us a much richer sense of how you’re faring. Please, therefore, do not send questions by email. In case our office hours do not suit your schedule, we are happy to make ourselves available by appointment. To make an appointment, please speak with one of us in class or by telephone.
TEACHING ASSISTANT: Jeff Valla <jmv34>, Thursdays 13.10-14.10 at Keeton House, and by appointment in MVR G88.
MAILING LIST: hd474 at mit.edu
DESCRIPTION: What drives the development of social cognitive skills such as language, theory of mind, and empathy? To what extent do these capacities constitute isolable ‘modules,’ or how might they emerge from more elementary neural properties? How can understanding what goes wrong during autistic development teach us about what goes right during normal development, and about how neural and cognitive development intertwine? This seminar covers current psychological and neurobiological theories of autism, emphasising written analysis and critical review of the primary research literature. Specific topics will be selected to match students’ interests, and each student will develop and orally defend a research proposal on an open question in the neuroscience of autism or related developmental disorders.
PRACTICUM IN BEHAVIOURAL THERAPY FOR AUTISM: An optional practicum in autism therapy will be offered in cooperation with the Racker Centers, organised as an HD 402 section and limited to six students. The purpose of this practicum is to give training and experience working with preschoolers with autism, using the educational methods and principles of Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA). The practicum is intended to complement the student’s coursework and to enrich the preschool programme’s staffing pattern. No previous work experience is required; students will receive training. Responsibilities include working directly with preschoolers with autism one-on-one and in small groups, facilitating the children’s participation in group activities, recording and analysing single-subject data, organising instructional materials, and participating in team meetings. Students will be assigned to either the Franziska Racker Centers’ Ithaca location (7 miles from MVR Hall) or Cortland location (17 miles from MVR Hall).
PRACTICUM IN GAME DESIGN FOR EXPERIMENTAL NEUROSCIENCE: An optional practicum on the design of behavioural experiments as computer games will be offered in cooperation with the Faculty of Computing and Information Science, organised as a CIS 490 section. Students choosing this practicum will design the experiments in their term projects to be performed within computer games, which can then be implemented by computer programmers from the Cornell Game Design Initiative. Game-based experimentation is an increasingly important method in behavioural neuroscience and psychology, one that preserves precise control over the timing of experimental stimuli, yet avoids the boredom of exactly repetitive trials — thus slipping between the horns of the dilemma between experimental control and ecological validity.
SCHEDULE: The following schedule is approximate and may be adjusted as the term progresses. Publishers’ restrictions make some of these readings unavailable from outside Cornell’s campus network. A few readings are annotated ‘LONG’ or ‘VERY LONG’; please plan ahead so that you’ll have time to get through these. In addition to the listed readings, you are free to read as background material my collection of my own papers using the username and password given in class.
TEXTS: All the readings are available electronically, except for the first day’s readings which are on reserve. Should you wish to have the readings on paper, a course reader is available from the campus store, and Baron-Cohen’s long essay Mindblindness is available from Buffalo Street Books (f/k/a The Bookery II) in the DeWitt Mall downtown (voice 1.607.273.8246, fax 1.607.275.9221, BuffaloStreetBooks at hotmail.com). Orders placed with Buffalo Street Books in advance, by credit card, can be collected in class at the first class meeting. All other orders can be collected at Buffalo Street Books.
In addition, books by Temple Grandin, Sean & Judy Barron, and Tito Mukhopadhyay, from which the first day’s readings are excerpted, are also available from Buffalo Street Books should you want to read these in their entirety.
ASSIGNMENTS:
1. DAILY ESSAYS: For each day’s readings with specific titles listed above, you are to submit a short, written response of no more than a few hundred words (about a page) per reading. (So, for example, if there were two readings you could write up to two pages — but you might decide that that day’s topics could be covered more briefly than that.) This response may discuss the day’s readings separately or en bloc, and should consider how the papers relate to your own knowledge from other readings and discussion in this course or from other sources. Papers will be marked for style and content. Do not merely summarise each paper’sconclusions; many beginning students make this mistake, and consistently neglecting to go beyond summary is a sure way to earn a low mark on the essays. We already know what the papers say; we are looking for your interpretations and syntheses. Are the conclusions justified by the methods and results? Can you propose alternative or supplementary methods to refine or to disambiguate the findings?
This response must be submitted by the beginning time of the class in which the paper in question is to be discussed. No credit will be given for responses submitted late — even if these are submitted after class on the same day that they were due. Assignments are to be submitted by saving them as a file whose name consists of your surname, the date of the relevant class meeting in YYMMDD format, and the appropriate extension (for example "smith081125.pdf") and uploading them to the Cornell University dropbox service (https://dropbox.cornell.edu/ ; specify both of us as recipients and do be certain to un-tick the “Notify Recipients by Email” box), and also handing the instructor or the teaching assistant or placing on the instructor’s door a hardcopy whose content is identical to the uploaded copy. In the event that the upload system is not functioning, assignments can be emailed to the teaching assistant. No credit will be given for assignments submitted via any other means. These assignments will not be marked individually, but will receive comments individually, and will receive a mark in aggregate once the last of them has been submitted. Up to three of these responses can be omitted without penalty, though all responses submitted will figure in the calculation of your aggregate mark.
2. PAPER PRESENTATION: After the term is well under way and we’ve had a chance to cover some essential background, each of you will select a paper from the primary research literature and lead a discussion on that paper. This discussion will occupy half of one 75-minute class period, and you may, if you wish, coordinate with a partner whose topic complements yours and who is willing to present on the same day. Though you should encourage your classmates to do a lot of the talking, you yourself should come prepared to present critically the paper’s experimental methods and results, and how its stated conclusions do or do not follow from these results. (You may wish to use just a few slides, for example figures from the paper and questions for discussion.) You are responsible for telling your classmates how to access the paper that you select, at least one week before it’s scheduled to be discussed. Schedule your presentation by clicking on the "+" at the bottom right of this calendar (if you need access to Google calendar, contact the teaching assistant):
3. TERM PROJECT (WRITTEN PART): You are to submit, by the beginning of class on Tuesday 24 November, a written term paper consisting of a proposal for research on an open question in the neuroscience of autism or related developmental disorders. Formats for this project will be covered during a class discussion on scientific communication. Although there is no minimum or maximum length, you probably will not be able to do a thorough job in fewer than 2500 words, and if you exceed 5000 words you may be overdoing it. (These word counts exclude titles, notes, and bibliography.) The writing walk-in service offers help and advice on academic writing, and you are encouraged to make use of this resource should you need assistance. No credit will be given for term papers submitted late. You may, however, submit one revised version of your term paper after having submitted an earlier version on time. This revised version can be submitted anytime up to the end of the exams period, must clearly identify all changes in relation to the on-time version, and can increase or decrease your mark by no more than one letter. Revisions may alter the specifics of your methods and interpretations, but not the overall formulation of the project or the background. Papers are to be submitted by upload and in hardcopy, and should be named with your surname, an underscore, and the term "paper" or "revision" — for example smith_paper.pdf or smith_revision.pdf.
4. TERM PROJECT (ORAL PART): You are to prepare a seven-minute oral presentation on your term project, for delivery during one of the last three class meetings. This presentation should summarise the background on which your proposal builds, the proposal’s specific aims, the experimental methods by which results will be obtained, and the interpretations of the various possible results. As the seven-minute time limit includes questions and discussion, you may wish to plan for no more than five minutes of prepared remarks. As a rule of thumb, the number of minutes that you speak will be about ⅔ of the number of slides that you present. You will want to rehearse the presentation with your friends or classmates to make certain that it’s well timed and well paced for understanding.
MARKS: One quarter of your mark will be based on the quality of your brief written responses and accompanying oral discussion during class, one quarter will be based on your paper presentation, and one half will be based on your written term project and its oral presentation. As there are no final exams in real scientific research, there is no final exam in this course. Marking of written assignments often seems unavoidably subjective and difficult to quantify. In an effort to make evaluation more transparent, the following general criteria will be applied:
A: A clearly written, strongly themed, critical treatment that highlights the successes and shortcomings of previous work and places it in context, identifying points of confluence with, and differences from, other theoretical viewpoints. Aims and hypotheses are specific and well defined. Experimental and statistical methods are original, precise, complete, understood by the author, and relevant to the hypotheses. Oral presentation is clear and engaging, and responses to the audience’s questions are thoughtful and informative. In general, the student’ work is uniquely insightful and goes well beyond what has been discussed in class and in assigned readings.
B: The ideas are there, perhaps held back by a few flaws in written or oral presentation. Questions and methods are interesting but perhaps not optimal or not completely understood in absolutely every detail. Oral presentation may contain some minor flaws of organisation or presentation. In general, the student demonstrates active insight and engagement with the subject, although ideas and criticisms might not always come in huge numbers or might not always be supported with specifics and with ironclad arguments.
C: A summary of relevant background, but without synthesis. Aims and hypotheses are not clearly enunciated or are not completely addressed by the methods. Experimental methods may have been adapted without being completely understood. Oral presentation contains most of the information but lacks engagement. In general, the student understands the overall picture but not the nuances and subtleties.
D: Background information is significantly incomplete. Aims and hypotheses are not enunciated. Methods are unsound.
F: Little or no understanding of the scientific background or of experimental design.
A WORD ABOUT THE SEMINAR FORMAT: In this seminar you’ll be expected to take chances and to voice uncertain interpretations, and you can expect to be questioned about those interpretations and to be put on the spot. To forestall any misperceptions, let me say at the outset that what we are criticising is science, not scientists, and certainly not students; as such, these intellectual jabs should not be taken personally. It has been my experience that separating intellectual criticism from personal criticism can be difficult for many students new to this seminar’s format of vigorous oral discussion and debate, but it has also been my experience that being able to do so is essential to one’s growth, both intellectually and personally, and is essential to the work of a scientist. Taking a chance and being wrong is nothing to be embarrassed about, as this trial-and-error exchange of ideas mirrors the way science and knowledge progress. Being able to detach the intellectual from the personal will be of great use to you in science, business, or any activity that involves groups of people thinking together about complex ideas. If you ever come away from a discussion feeling intimidated or belittled, please let me know, and please do not assume that such was my intent.
This problem of misperceptions is compounded by the fact that I, as an instructor, am poor at sending and receiving the right social signals:
STATEMENT ON DISABILITY: If you have a disability that affects your work on this course and for which accommodation can reasonably be made, you may inform the Student Disability Servies office and the appropriate accommodations will be put in place. This course is meant to be accessible to all whom it can benefit, and who can benefit it.
COLLABORATION AND ACADEMIC HONESTY: Each student on this course is expected to abide by the Cornell University Code of Academic Integrity. Any work submitted by a student on this course for academic credit will be the student’s own work. Under no circumstances is it appropriate to copy or even to paraphrase someone else’s words or ideas without citing them. This goes for the works of published authors as well as for those of your fellow students. The penalty for even one instance of plagiarism is a failing mark for the entire course. As the distinction between copying and collaboration can sometimes be murky, you should consult me if you feel at all uncertain about which side of the boundary you stand on. (In particular, if experimental stimuli are adapted from others’ work, you must cite that source in the context of those stimuli; it is not appropriate just to cite the source elsewhere in your paper.)
You are permitted, and in fact encouraged, to discuss the readings with each other in advance of submitting your written responses. However, the writing should be your own.
You are also permitted to collaborate on term projects. However, this collaboration should not decrease the amount of effort contributed by any one student. That is, a team of three people ought to produce a project whose size and complexity are approximately three times that of a term project written by one person. One way to divide responsibilities would be to have each person handle a separate set of experimental methods — for example, a genetic study, a behavioural study, and an experimental study all addressing the same problem. Students intending to collaborate on their term projects must consult me well in advance with their proposed topics and division of labour.
It is never appropriate to copy and paste the methods (or any other portion) of someone else’s published (or unpublished) paper into your own term project, even if you cite the source. We want to see your own thoughts on methodology, not a regurgitation of others’ methods. Think to yourself when you write a sentence or a paragraph: could you explain the meaning of this passage if quizzed on it? If not, then it isn’t really your work and shouldn’t figure in your project.