Comparative psychology 2500-PL-SPZ-OB1L-1

The lectures will discuss issues of behavior and cognitive abilities from an evolutionary perspective (block 1); fundamental mechanisms of cognition - in the physical world (block 2) and in the social environment (block 3).

Comparative Psychology class focuses on the issues of behaviour and cognition of different animal species from an evolutionary perspective. Participants have the opportunity to conduct a study in the field of Comparative Psychology, based on a selected, published scientific paper: plan its methodology, conduct an experiment, interpret the results of the study, present them to other participants.
The classes will deepen some of the topics in the field of comparative psychology which are discussed during the lecture. Students will have the opportunity to try their hand as researchers. They will receive a selected scientific article to be developed and presented. Then based on the assigned text, they will plan the research, conduct it and present the results to the other participants of the classes. Each block of classes will be preceded by a theoretical introduction, discussion of the text and then followed by practice of the test procedure at the Animal Behavior Laboratory at the Faculty of Psychology. The next step will be to conduct the study on their own with a small group of participants. The last class will be devoted to the presentation of students' achievements in the form of a conference poster. An integral part of the exercises will be completion of all tasks on the Kampus platform.