Thought Paper for Seminar 5

The thought paper topic for Seminar 5 on Tuesday 21 Aug is:

What, according to Damasio, does it mean to have the feeling of an emotion? In what sense is this account an embodied account of emotion and feeling?

Further reading - EP

As mentioned in class, some of the EP authors we have been reading are very generous in what they make available over the Internet. For your interest (and in case you are thinking of writing your first paper in this area), here are useful links in this regard:

Cosmides & Tooby:
http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/publist.htm

Buss:
http://homepage.psy.utexas.edu/homepage/group/busslab/publications.htm

Thought Paper Topic for Seminar 4

The thought paper topic for Seminar 4 on Tuesday 14 Aug is:

Are Cosmides and Tooby right in thinking that our (superior) performance on cheater-detection tasks is best explained by a specialised cheater-detection module? Or might our performance instead be some kind of artifact based on a distinctive logic or structure in these tasks?

Readings - Seminar 6 on Tuesday 28 Aug

The prescribed reading for Seminar 6 (focussing on Damasio's Somatic Marker Hypothesis) is:

Damasio (1994) Chapters 8, 9 and 10.

Dunn et al. (2006), which should be accessible via following the link below:
http://0-www.sciencedirect.com.innopac.wits.ac.za/science?_ob=MImg&_imagekey=B6T0J-4H6GPP0-1-5&_cdi=4864&_user=1378557&_pii=S0149763405001053&_origin=browse&_zone=rslt_list_item&_coverDate=12/31/2006&_sk=999699997&wchp=dGLzVtz-zSkWb&md5=b892176060ba59532e8e65e8c0b9d1a7&ie=/sdarticle.pdf

Readings - Seminar 5 on Tuesday 21 Aug

In Seminar 5, we begin our second main section of the course, on the Embodied Mind. We will spend Seminars 5 and 6 focussing on the work of Antonio Damasio, in his 1994 book Descartes' Error (see previous posts on prescribed texts).

The prescribed reading for Seminar 5 is Damasio (1994) Chapters 3, 5, 6 and 7.

Recommended reading would be to read all of Part I of the book (Chapters 1-4), as well as the chapter on emotions and feelings from Damasio (1999) The Feeling of What Happens (copies available in the Main Office from lunchtime on Wednesday 8 August).

Readings - Seminar 4 on Tuesday 14 August

The readings for our last seminar on Evolutionary Psychology are as follows:

Cosmides et al. (2010). Adaptive specializations, social exchange, and the evolution of human intelligence.

Available at:
http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/papers/PNASCosmidesBarrettTooby2010_wSI.pdf

Cosmides et al (2005). Detecting cheaters.

Available at:
http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/papers/Detect_cheat.pdf

Buller (2005) - Chapter 4.

(Reminder: it was recommended that, at some point in this part of the course, you should read Buller (2005) Chapter 3)