Syllabus

BCSC 260: Syllabus

Spring 2025

Time & Location

Tuesday/Thursday 3:25-4:40 p.m, Gavett 206

Personnel

Instructor: Dr. Elise Piazza (Brain & Cognitive Sciences, Neuroscience)
Office hours (by appointment, Meliora 319 or Zoom)

Graduate TA:
Calli Smith

Undergraduate TAs:
Mary Jedynak
Alyssa Koh
Luna Trumble

Recitation Sessions

Weekly recitations are optional, but they will provide opportunities for in-depth discussion/review of course material and assigned research articles, “real-world” applications of course topics, and extra review before the three midterms (in addition to the in-class review sessions).

Slack will be the preferred mode of communication for the course. Each student will be added to the Slack account and should post homework responses (to assigned articles; see details below), ask questions about course logistics and content, and post relevant links (news articles, videos) on the various channels. Please keep discussion on Slack supportive and positive!

Suggested (but Optional) Textbook

Thompson, W. F. (2015). Music, Thought, and Feeling: Understanding the Psychology of Music. 2nd edition; NY: Oxford University Press. (NOTE: PDFs of individual chapters are posted on Blackboard under “Learning Modules → Thompson book chapters”)

Student Learning Objectives

Students who successfully complete this course will be able to:

  • Describe how music cognition aids our understanding of human cognition, development, neuroscience more generally.
  • Compare aspects of musical structure, as a cognitive system, with other systems such as language, visual pattern perception, and auditory scene analysis.
  • Apply a basic understanding of theories of evolution, the physical properties of sound, principles of human development and learning, structure of the auditory system and brain, and theories of emotion, to the study of music.
  • Understand the design of behavioral/neural experiments, be able to critique experimental designs for confounds, draw conclusions from data presented in experimental studies, and extrapolate from these data ideas for future studies.
  • Demonstrate this knowledge by comparing and contrasting published music cognition experiments on a common theme, writing a short paper in APA style that explores and critiques their contents and findings.

Expectations for student participation

To optimize your learning, you will:

  • Attend class and participate in discussions in class, on Slack, and in recitation/office hours
  • Come prepared to class, having read homework articles and completed assignments beforehand
  • Download and review lecture slides (optional but recommended). Slide PDFs will be posted before each class.

Course Requirements and Deadlines

  1. Three non-cumulative exams. Matching, multiple choice, and short answer. These will be closed-book, in class on 2/18, 3/27, and 5/1.
  2. Article homework assignments
    You will be asked to read a series of articles, listed in the class schedule below in orange. Articles will be posted on Blackboard under “Learning Modules → Readings (articles)”. For each reading, you will complete the following (two-part) assignment on Slack. In total, these homework posts will amount to 10% of your grade
    • Slack post (part 1): You should post one substantive comment and/or question about each article on the Slack discussion channel for your assigned discussion group. You will be assigned to the same Slack discussion group of students for the entirety of the class. There will be question prompts posted by the TA in your group to help stimulate discussion, but you are welcome to come up with your own questions or comments! Please begin each post by writing the article citation (e.g., Schlaug (2001)) so we know what you’re writing about. Posts should include meaningful content about the article (not simply “it was great!”). Posts should be about a paragraph long.
    • Slack post (part 2): You will also be expected to respond to at least one other student’s post. (Again, this response should contain some substantial contribution to the discussion, not simply “I agree!”).
  3. Other homework assignments
    HW 1: Google Chrome Lab (due 2/11): Go to https://musiclab.chromeexperiments.com/Spectrogram/, record your own voice and/or instrument(s), and observe the resulting spectrogram(s). (See the end of Lecture 4 (Acoustics) for an example). Play around with different pitches and timbres and observe what changes. On Slack (#hw- chrome-lab channel), write a paragraph describing your observations. For example, what happened when you sang a vowel vs. a consonant, or changed the pitch of your voice? (Describe in terms of harmonics). What happened when you played a very brief note vs. one with a long decay? What does vibrato look like?
    HW 2: Proposal of final paper (due 3/4): **See description and rubric below. Upload directly to Blackboard.
    HW 3: Expectation (due 3/6): On Slack (#hw-expectation channel), post a link to a piece (or clip) of music and in a few sentences, describe how it manipulates listeners’ expectation, using concepts described in class (e.g., schematic, dynamic, or veridical expectation; ITPRA theory).
    HW 4: Emotion in film (due 4/10): On Slack (#hw-emotion channel), write a brief paragraph describing a particularly compelling use of music to convey emotion in film/TV. It can be either emotionally congruent or incongruent with the plot/scene.
    HW 5: Performance (due 4/29): Sometime during the semester, attend one live musical performance. On Slack (#hw-performance channel), post a description linking aspects of the concert to our Performance lecture (e.g., how certain performance cues elicited certain emotions, how different aspects influenced your judgments of whether it was a “good” performance, the influence of visual cues on your perception of the sounds).
    **HOMEWORK PASS: You are allowed ONE homework pass during this course, which gets you out of one article homework assignment (all Slack posts), OR one other hw assignment (except HW 2: Final Paper Proposal). If there is a quiz for the week, you are still required to take it (if that is a problem, see late policy below). To use your homework pass, fill out the form (will be posted in Slack and given in class).
    **MORE DETAILS ON HW 2: Proposal of final paper
    For this hw assignment, you will submit a basic plan for your final paper which includes: a title of your final paper and two APA-formatted article choices (+ one back-up). Here are the steps you should follow:
    • Download the “paper proposal template” on Blackboard to see an example of what you’ll be submitting. Don’t miss this step!!
    • Choose a topic related to the course. It doesn’t have to be one we covered in class (e.g., “differences in pitch perception in schizophrenia”), but it can be (“influence of musical training on mathematical ability”).
    • Find two articles on this topic. There are a couple of ways we’d suggest doing this:
      • Google Scholar (https://scholar.google.com). Type keywords and “experiment.” Don’t pay for articles (click “all N versions” to find free PDFs)! Or download the articles when you are on the UR campus (or VPN) so that the library’s subscription (likely) covers it.
      • Research Rabbit (https://www.researchrabbit.ai/). This is a fun AI tool that lets you search for articles and create a map based on how related they are.
      • See the video demos of Google Scholar and Research Rabbit on Slack under #course-discussion! And if you encounter issues, ask us!
    • NOTE: Each article must be an ORIGINAL research article (NOT a review article/meta-analysis; see examples in Lecture 1) that it is published in a scientific research journal (not a book, website, or popular magazine). Your two articles should also be from different teams of authors and preferably use different methods/approaches. (E.g., if one is a behavioral study, another might use EEG or fMRI. Or one might use neurotypical subjects, the other a clinical population).
    • Once you’ve explored related articles and read their abstracts, choose two to write about in your final paper (plus one backup in case we suggest eliminating one).
    • Write out the citations for your chosen articles in APA format (see example below, and NOTE ALL aspects of formatting below: capitalization, italics, indentation, order of components: Schellenberg, E.G., & Trehub, S.E. (2003). Good pitch memory is widespread. Psychological Science, 14 (3), 262-266.
    • For your hw assignment, you will submit a document modeled off of the “paper proposal template” (again, see Bb!) This should contain a title for your final paper (a theme that encompasses the chosen articles) and APA-formatted references for your 2 article choices (and back-up article). Upload your doc in the same place where you downloaded the template for this assignment. You’re done!
    • NOTE: Grad students submit 4 papers (+ 1 back-up) instead of 2!
    • Rubric (3 points total): 1 for title; 1 for appropriate articles chosen; 1 for APA style
  4. Final paper critiquing your chosen articles (title page, body, reference list): due 4/17
    First, download the template on Bb (“final paper template”) and read it carefully for detailed guidelines. You will upload your paper in this same folder on Bb.
    Goal: to contextualize, summarize, critique, and compare your chosen articles. (E.g., how do your articles shed new light on the topic, how do they differ in their approaches, in what ways are the results similar/different across the papers and why, how might you design a new study to answer your own questions on this topic, etc.)
    In the process of discussing your chosen articles, you will likely want to refer to other articles (e.g., related articles you found on Research Rabbit and/or articles cited in your article). [These other refs are not strictly required, but it is recommended to add richness to your analysis]. Whenever you refer to another article, you should cite it in the text and include it in a reference list at the end. Again, see final paper template on Bb for examples!!!
    Number of articles: 2 for undergraduates, 4 for graduate students
    Length: 4-5 pages for undergrads, 6-8 pages for grads (+ title page and refs) You may be within +/-0.5 pages of the limit; anything lower or higher will be penalized.
    Double-spaced, size 12 font
    Your title page should also include this honor pledge: “I affirm that I have not given or received any unauthorized help on this assignment, and that this work is my own.”
    Rubric (20 points total): 8 for accurate/coherent discussion/analysis of chosen article; 8 for organization, clarity of writing; 4 for format, APA citations/references. (No late papers without grade penalty; see late policy below!)
  5. Quizzes
    You will receive a link (via e-mail) to a Google survey containing quiz questions about recent course material. You must complete each quiz on your own. You are allowed to attempt the quiz TWO TIMES (and we will take the higher score). The goal of the quizzes is to review the material and assess your knowledge in anticipation of exams, so we recommend that you try it the first time without notes to properly gauge your learning.
  6. Participation
    Although this is a lecture course, participation is 8% of your total grade, and you will be expected to actively participate in several ways:
    • 5% will come from some combination of in-class course discussion and external engagement with course topics.
    • In-class discussion can include both asking and answering questions during lecture. This course benefits greatly from rich discussion from many diverse perspectives, so everyone is encouraged to share!
    • External engagement can include: adding content in our #course- discussion channel, coming to office hours/recitations (or scheduling time to meet with a TA if you can’t make it to either), asking questions in our course feedback form (below) or over Slack/email, and completing the mid-semester and final course evaluations
    • Course feedback form is online
    • 3% will come from attendance, which is mandatory. If you have an extenuating circumstance that prevents you from attending class (sickness, grad school visits, etc.) please fill out the Google Form below (also pinned in Lecture 1 and Slack).
    • We will be tracking your participation actively through QR codes that will be available (on paper) near the entrance to lecture. Absence form is online
  7. Extra credit
    You can also gain up to three percentage points of extra credit on your total course grade by filling out an Extra Credit Assignment Form (available on Slack) for the following:
    • Attend a music event
    • Attend the Undergraduate Research Expo
    • Attend the Music Cognition Symposium (Feb. 22, Apr. 19)

Final Grade Breakdown

  • Three “midterm” exams (non-cumulative, 15% each): 45%
  • Article posts on Slack: 10%
  • Other homework assignments: 10%
  • Final paper (article critique): 15%
  • Quizzes: 12%
  • Participation: 8%

Late Policy

Any homework assignment or quiz submitted up to 24 hours late gets 1/2 credit. (After that, 0 credit). Note: you are allowed to attempt the quiz TWO TIMES (and we will take the higher score), but you must still complete this by the deadline to get full credit.

Any final paper submitted up to 2 days (48 hrs) late gets 1/2 credit. (After that, 0 credit).

We are willing to grant extensions ONLY IF you submit a request (via the Google form linked below and on Slack), preferably 3+ days before a deadline, and/or with a reasonable excuse (e.g., illness, family emergency, job interview).

Assignment extension form is online.

Other Information

Academic Honesty: The course Blackboard site has a section on academic honesty, including a PowerPoint presentation on the topic. Visit this website, especially the section on "Tips and Pitfalls" for advice.

You (and I) are bound by the policies on this site. Remember: cutting-and-pasting from an online article into your paper is a violation of academic honesty, as much as cheating on an exam. In describing experiments, you should paraphrase in your own words, rather than quote.

On the Use of Generative AI:
Students may use AI programs (e.g., ChatGPT) only to help clarify concepts taught in this course. (For example, one might ask an AI program: “I don’t understand the concept of ‘natural selection’. Please provide some examples of this concept”). However, since analytical/critical thinking, reading and writing skills are major learning objectives of the course, all course assignments must be completed by a student without the assistance of AI programs. (Except Research Rabbit!)

Learning Assistance: If you have a disability for which you may be requesting an academic accommodation, please reach out to Dr. Piazza early on in the course about your specific needs and the access coordinator for your school to establish eligibility for academic accommodations. The TAs and I are happy to help with any questions/issues you may have about this.
AS&E students
Eastman students