Greetings!
My name is Richard Stone. I’m from Pottsville, Pennsylvania. I’m Business Administration Major with a concentration in finance.
I’m taking this class in order to graduate, deepen my understanding of Psychology, and apply it to the Cognitive Science courses I’ve completed.
My background in Psychology stems from 2 Cognitive Science courses I previously completed and an introductory Psychology class I took in high school.
I think of Psychology as the study of the way humans think as individuals and the combined mental processes in order to generate behavior.
The 1st topic which sparked my interest was cognitive because it would be interesting to compare how a Psychology instructor would explain Cognitive Science as to how my previous instructor with a Philosophy background explained Cognitive Science.
The 2nd topic which I’m interested in is Observational Learning. I know a bit about it already. I’m curious about the amount of depth this class gets into on this subject.
The 3rd topic I’m interested in is the mechanics of sleep. I never learned about the stages in great detail so I’m curious about each stage and what roles they play throughout the sleeping process.
The 1st least interesting topic to me is the scientific method. I’ve learned about it in every science course I’ve ever taken.
The 2nd least interesting topic for me is Neuro-Imaging. From what I’ve learned about Neuro-Imaging already, I know we still can’t capture the exact parts of the brain which respond to a certain prompt in real time. I’d be more curious on the subject when better technology is available and has bigger sample sizes.
The 3rd least interesting topic for me is Why Research Design Matters. I’ve learned about what makes a good Research Design in great detail in statistics class. I don’t feel like there’s much more for me to learn about this subject.
The question I want to build a better answer for from this class is “What are the mental processes and behaviors needed for an organism to constitute consciousness?”
Rickster's Psychology Blog 
Welcome to the course Richard! Well, that is a complex question you’d like to answer. I’m not sure we’ll have a full response for you by the end of our time together, but we will talk about a lot of different mental processes so I think you’ll be in a good position to put forth arguments about what you believe to be essential. Most of the early psychologists studied consciousness, so there are probably some sources you’d enjoy there. You can check them out here: http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/topic.htm. Hopefully you’ll still learn some things from the topics you’re least interested in and you get another lens with which to think about cognitive science!
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