Courses

Jeremy Caplan's teaching for 2025/2026:


Winter, 2026, PSYCH 403 B07 and PSYCH 505 B08: Research on Enhancing Memory

(open to people from all departments/faculties/colleges)

Description: One of the most obvious goals of the study of human memory is to enhance it. There are many ideas on how to do this, but very little actual success. In this seminar-format course we will read, discuss and argue about published research on a diverse range of behavioural strategies. The goal is to understand the state of the art across all techniques, to form our own critical opinions about this work, and figure out together what needs to be done next, with primary focus on human episodic memory for arbitrary new information like randomly constructed lists.

Format: We will read articles and discuss them, led by students. A term project includes oral presentations and a final short paper proposing a compelling, novel experiment on this topic.

Pre-requisites: I am happy to waive formal pre-requisites if you have the pertinent pre-requisite knowledge:
Substantial knowledge of experimental psychology of memory (such as PSYCO 350) and a good intuitive understanding of basic statistical tests, how to apply them and how to understand reports of those statistical tests. Simply having taken psychology courses previously is not a firm requirement. Note that for qualified students from other departments, Psychology course pre-requisites might be waived (consult the Instructor). Try out this self-quiz to assess your preparedness for this course or identify areas to read up on (if most of these are hard work, the course will be more challenging than necessary):

  • Sketch a graph (fully labelled) of your favourite memory experimental result and explain how the plot supports the researchers' conclusions.
  • Explain what a hypothesis is, and how it differs from a topic, an expectation or a research question.
  • What does a t test actually test?
  • When do you need to use an ANOVA?
  • What is a Pearson correlation? What does it mean if a correlation is positive, zero or negative?
  • What is a p value and how does it relate to false positives and false negatives?



Winter, 2026, PSYCH 473 and PSYCH 576: Cognitive Neuroscience

(open to people from all departments/faculties/colleges)

Description: Brain basis of human cognition studied using a diverse range of techniques, with a focus on measures of brain activity such as functional neuroimaging and electrophysiology recorded during behavioural tasks. Designed for graduate and senior undergraduate students who are conducting cognitive neuroscience research.

Format: We will read articles and discuss them, led by students. Students will write hypothetical editorial letters for the articles. Students will present their own research or proposals. We will do hands-on analyses of sample brain-activity data.

Pre-requisites: I am happy to waive formal pre-requisites if you have the pertinent pre-requisite knowledge:
Basic knowledge of cognitive psychology and basic neuroscience and commfort reading and critiquing original research articles. Although we will work through the methods together, basic knowledge of cognitive neuroscience (e.g., EEG, fMRI and related topics) is also important. Have a look at recent articles in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience and try out this self-quiz to assess your preparedness for this course or identify areas to read up on (if most of these are hard work, the course will be more challenging than necessary):

  • Sketch a graph (fully labelled) of your favourite experimental psychology result and explain how the plot supports the researchers' conclusions.
  • Explain what a hypothesis is, and how it differs from a topic, an expectation or a research question.
  • What does a t test actually test?
  • When do you need to use an ANOVA?
  • What is a Pearson correlation? What does it mean if a correlation is positive, zero or negative?
  • What is a p value and how does it relate to false positives and false negatives?
  • What is the difference between these units: V, mV and uV?
  • What do EEG and fMRI measure? How do people think that relates to neuronal activity?
  • What is the difference between MRI and fMRI?
  • What is an ERP, and how does that relate to EEG?
  • Sketch your favourite EEG or fMRI result, and explain what we learn from it











Check out the Alberta Cognitive Neuroscience group