Neil Stillings
Professor of Psychology, Emeritus
School of Cognitive Science, Hampshire College, Amherst,
MA 01002
I retired from Hampshire in June 2018
Courses I taught over the last few years of my career
CS 245: Minds, Brains, & Machines: The Fifty
Key Ideas
All students
in the cognitive, neural, and psychological sciences
should be familiar with certain key concepts. This
course surveys these central ideas to give students
the vocabulary needed to approach the research
literature without being intimidated by a barrage of
technical terms and to hold intelligent
conversations with other students and faculty
members who are interested in matters of mind,
brain, and machine. Readings in the course will be
drawn from books and journals in the field. Students
will complete a series of essay assignments
concerning the concepts covered in the course. There
will be no final project. Students are expected to
spend at least six to eight hours a week outside of
class time working on the reading and writing
assignments. Prerequisite: At least one prior
course in psychology, linguistics, computer
science/AI, neuroscience, philosophy, anthropology,
or animal behavior. First-year students who meet
this prerequisite are eligible. The course satisfies
Division I distribution requirements.
CS 335:
Seminar in Mind, Brain, & Behavior
This course is intended for
concentrators and advanced students whose work involves
mind, brain, behavior, or intelligent machines and who
are studying disciplines such as cognitive science,
psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, linguistics,
computer science, animal behavior, education, and so on.
The students in the course will select a number of
current issues in this broad area, choosing recent
journal articles, essays, or books in each area for
discussion. Each week students will be expected to write
a discussion paper or contribute to a web forum and to
engage in intensive discussion during the single class
meeting. Leadership of at least one class meeting, and
an extended paper on one of the course issues is also
required. Students are expected to spend at least six to
eight hours a week outside of class time on the weekly
reading and writing assignments and on developing their
final projects. Prerequisite: Two or more courses in
relevant fields. At least four previous semesters of
college work. First-year students are not eligible.
Second-year students require advisor permission.
CS 218: Music, Mind, & Brain
This
course is an introduction to the psychology and
neuroscience of music. We will study the psychological and
brain processes that underlie the perception and
production of music, current theories about why and how
music evokes emotion, and the evolutionary and
developmental roots of the variation and commonalities of
music across cultures and traditions. Students will be
required to complete a series of essay assignments during
the term. Students
are expected to spend at least six to eight hours a
week outside of class time working on the reading
and writing assignments.
CS 370: Mind
& Brain: Evolution & Culture
Human
behavior and culture have displayed remarkable variation
across groups and over time, yet the human brain is
highly similar to the brains of other primates, and it
has not evolved significantly since the ice age. In this
course we will consider contemporary approaches to the
question of how the human mind/brain evolved to support
cultural variation. We will consider how processes of
individual neurological and psychological development
are related to processes of cultural stability and
change. We will attempt to integrate insights from
neuroscience, psychology, evolutionary theory, and
anthropology to develop a more subtle account of human
nature than any of these disciplines has been able to
give on its own. We will explore these possibilities by
reading and discussing key recent work chosen by the
students, who are responsible for organizing and leading
the class meetings. A major literature review paper is
required. This course is restricted to advanced Division
II and Division III students in relevant fields.
Areas in which I taught courses during my full career
Cognitive science/neuroscience
Cognitive psychology
Music perception/cognition & auditory perception
Vision science
Psychology of language
Human rationality, irrationality, and decision making
Connectionism
Cognition and culture/evolutionary psychology
Experimental methods & statistics in psychology
Cognition & education
Foundations of cognitive science
Freud and the unconscious
Psychometrics and psychological testing
Supervision of student committees
Over 47 years I supervised numerous individual student
concentrations (Division II) and undergraduate thesis
projects (Division III). See Information
for
Students for my approach to these tasks.
