Sections offered FALL 2019:

CLASS NOTES: IUB GenEd N&M credit; COLL (CASE) N&M Breadth of Inquiry credit

People spend a lot of time thinking about the future—where will I have lunch, what courses should I take next semester to help me be prepared for the job market in four years, will my coastal hometown be underwater by the time my children are grown up. But how do we think about these uncertain outcomes? Do we think about tomorrow the same way our pet dogs do? Are we good or bad at it? Could we do better? These are the types of questions that cognitive scientists, including psychologists, anthropologists, and behavioral biologists, ask about people’s (and other animals’) thinking. In this course, we will apply the interdisciplinary ideas and methods of cognitive science to the domain of thoughts about the future. We will look at how animals plan where to find their next meal (behavioral biology); at how children learn the difference between “yesterday,” “today,” and “tomorrow” (developmental psychology); how different cultures think about the directionality of time (anthropology); how individuals and groups make plans and predictions for the future, and what happens when those fail (cognitive and social psychology); and how people can be helped to think more clearly about the future and make better decisions about their finances, their own health, and the health and sustainability of society and the environment more broadly.

The course will include weekly readings and discussions, participation in experiments related to thinking about the future, writing short critical essays about these activities as well as a longer final research paper, and guest lectures and visits from local experts, showcasing the world-leading Cognitive Science Program we have here at IU.

This course is not about what will happen in the future—flying cars, CRISPR babies, robot wars on Mars—but rather how we can even think about what will happen in the future. If we can figure this out—if we can better understand how people think about things to come—then we can have a better chance of improving how we think about the future: how usefully we can predict what will happen, and how well we can make decisions that will bring about the kind of future we want to live in.

Sections offered FALL 2019:

CLASS NOTES:  IUB GenEd N&M credit – Natural Science; COLL (CASE) N&M Breadth of Inquiry credit

Acoustic communication in animals, including humans, involves both a sender and a receiver.  The sender produces an acoustic signal that is then processed by the receiver to ultimately produce a behavioral response. Thus, there are two aspects concerning acoustic communication in animals: (1) the production of a vocal signal and (2) the processing of sounds by the auditory system. Comparative studies have a long history in hearing science and allow us a glimpse into the auditory world of other species. Comparing acoustic communication and hearing in humans and non-human animals allows us to understand hearing and communication as a general biological phenomenon and thus, place our understanding of human hearing and acoustic communication within the realms of evolutionary biology and neuroscience. This course will address these issues by considering both vocal production (how sounds are produced) and hearing (how sounds are processed) in vertebrate animals, including humans.