Undergraduate Courses
Auditory Perception: This advanced undergraduate course provides a thorough introduction to the normal processes of auditory perception and attention. Covered topics include the physics of sound, peripheral auditory anatomy and physiology, auditory psychophysics, anatomy and physiology of the central auditory pathway , plus introductions to attention and the processing of the complex sounds of speech and music. The class is taught lecture-style, grading is based on tests and class participation.
Psychology of Attention: This advanced undergraduate course examines attention and its role in perception, cognition, and action. In addition to classroom lectures and discussions, students will have the opportunity to read original research and review articles dealing will issues in general attention, audition, and vision. Lectures are combined with student presentation of the supplementary reading materials. Grading is based on tests and class participation. Students are also required to present one research article in class, or write one review paper dealing with a substantive issue in attention research.
Cognitive Modeling: This is an introductory course for undergraduate and graduate students who have learned the basics of cognitive processing and are interested in understanding how to model those processes. This course is aimed at understanding computational aspects of neural information processing. This course covers the basics of computational modeling of cognitive processes and introduces many research topics. Topics include selected modeling techniques related to visual systems, auditory systems, memory, language, learning, development, and motor systems.Music Perception and Cognition: This undergraduate course introduces the perception and performance of music from the viewpoint of cognitive science. Topics include: music theory, physics of sound, auditory perception, consonance and dissonance, musical scales, melody, harmony, rhythm, and musical structure. We also address relationships between music and language, the communication of emotion and meaning, and the role of cultural context. The course includes a set of lectures surveying the field of music perception and cognition, as well as student presentation of some of the classic papers in the field, representing work in experimental psychology, music theory, and neural networks.
Graduate Courses
Cognition and Complex Systems: This is a core course for graduate students at the Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences. It provides an introduction to the scientific study of perception, action, and cognition from the point of view of complex systems and nonlinear dynamics. The focus is on empirical methodologies for development and evaluation of theories of mind. Readings cover psychology, artificial intelligence, linguistics, neuroscience, and philosophy.
Computational Music Cognition: The course surveys of the field of music perception and cognition, focusing on computational theories of music cognition. We use the Matlab MIDI toolbox (Eerola & Toiviainen, 2004; http://www.jyu.fi/musica/miditoolbox/), work through some of the prepared examples, and create new applications. We touch on the subjects of melody, rhythm, tonality, expectancy and music performance. Students do homework and in-class presentations.Graduate Seminars: In addition to the above courses, I regularly offer graduate seminars on current research topics including Auditory Perception, Auditory Nonlinearities, Mammalian Auditory Pathway, Computational Auditory Scene Analysis, Music Cognition, Attention, Time Perception, and Meter Perception.