Course for international guest/part time students

Faculty

Faculty of Education and Psychology

Organization

PPK Institute of Psychology

Code

PSZM21-MO-KOGN-113

Title

The neuroscience of learning: novelty, surprise and curiosity

Usual semester

Spring

Published semester

2025/26/2

ECTS

4

Language

en

Learning outcomes

The aim of the course is to familiarize students with basic concepts in the neuroscience of learning and to elucidate how features related to information content influence this process. The novelty of incoming information is a feature that influences memory formation immensely. Surprise can be elicited by novel information and the neurocognitive processes associated with this emotion affect learning. Curiosity determines what information the learner seeks out or responds to, making it another cornerstone of the learning process. Learning outcome, competences knowledge: The neural basis of learning Experimental approaches to the effects of novelty, surprise and curiosity attitude: Notice how methodology constrains theoretical approaches skills: Critical evaluation of conflicting literature responsibility/ autonomy: Autonomous interpretation of specialized literature

Course content

Topic of the course Classic ideas on learning Introduction to the neuroscience of learning and memory The orienting reflex The neuroscience of novelty detection Novelty detection in computational science Experimental designs utilizing novelty in behavioral science The neurobiology of salience effects in memory formation Surprise in cognitive psychology Curiosity in psychology and neuroscience Experimental approaches to curiosity Information seeking behavior Information seeking in artificial systems Learning activities, learning methods lectures presentations based on academic articles made by students

Assessment method

Learning requirements, mode of evaluation and criteria of evaluation: in class activity, quality of presentation and research plan (assignment) Mode of evaluation: each student presents an article from the compulsory reading list in 15 minutes each student writes a research plan related to topics discussed on the lectures min. 800 words (in Hungarian or English) Introduction/rationale of the study Methods (description of the experimental task and general description of data analysis) Expected results Criteria of evaluation: completion of the presentation completion of the research plan assignment

Bibliography

Academic articles provided by the instructor for each class

Programmes of the course