Comprehensive Assessment Portfolio (CAP) Key Assignment

This course qualifies as a CAP course, which means that the paper will serve as a key assignment for your Comprehensive Assessment Portfolio. The key CAP Assignment for this course is a requirement for the course regardless of your status in the Psychology major. All students must complete the assignment. Psychology Majors must submit the CAP Assignment, along with evidence of their grade, into their electronic portfolio once the assignment has been graded.

This assignment is designed to allow students the opportunity to explore a given topic of interest within the field of Cognitive Psychology more in-depth than is covered in the lectures. Students will have the choice between two avenues for the paper and for either choice, there is no strict guideline as to which topic students should choose. Option 1: Students can choose to perform a literature review on a given topic of interest to them within the field of Cognitive Psychology. It is recommended that students examine the topics in the textbook to get some starting points include Perception and Action, Working Memory and the Brain, Distortions of Long-Term Memory, Emotion and Decision-Making, etc. Option 2: Students can choose to focus on a specific set of cognitive deficits, how they are assessed, and how what we know from basic cognitive psychological research informs us about the cognitive deficits you are writing about.

For both paper routes, students will be expected to identify what is known about their chosen topic, describing empirical studies on the topic, which can include behavioral studies, brain imaging studies, or both. If you choose to discuss neuroscientific work you will be expected to discuss in basic terms the role of important brain structures in the given topic you are discussing (e.g., the hippocampus in memory encoding). Importantly, any outstanding questions you may have about the topic that are not addressed by the studies you have reviewed should be included in a discussion section, with potential ideas for how that question could be addressed. For example, you can propose an idea for an experimental manipulation, or a given methodological technique we have discussed in the course that you think could shed more light on the question of interest.

Paper Requirements & Guidelines

Length & Formatting: The final paper should be between 8-10 pages, double-spaced, 12 pt. font, 1-inch margins, have page numbers in the upper right hand corner, and be written in APA format.

References: Students should include a minimum of 5 scientific references. This means articles from scientific journals, or books. At least three of your references must be empirical studies. Articles written in popular science magazines, newspapers, Wikipedia etc., are not acceptable as scientific references. This is not to say that you cannot examine these sources to begin your search and gather your thoughts. However, academic sources must be used as the references you include in your paper. The rationale for this assignment is to familiarize you with writing a research paper, and using scientific databases to conduct your inquiries. For example, some databases that may be helpful include PubMed, PsycInfo and PsycNet and Google Scholar. When citing references in the paper, you must follow APA guildelines. The Adelphi University Libraries website has useful guides for following APA style: http://libraries.adelphi.edu/research/citation.php.

Citations: When citing studies in the text of the paper, do not use direct quotes. The point of this assignment is for you to demonstrate a basic understanding of scientific literature and research and be able to explain it in your own words. When describing a specific study, or set of findings, or even ideas expressed in a scientific review paper, it is imperative to summarize/describe in your own words and provide the citation of that study after you talk about it.

Tone: This paper should be written in the third person, as opposed to the first person. That means no use of “I” or “you” in the paper, even when expressing your own thoughts.