Sensation And Perception

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Class Project
Instructions  
A class project that critically evaluates recent research on a problem in sensation and perception should be submitted not later than the deadline listed in the syllabus schedule, using Eastern Daylight or Eastern Standard time, whichever is appropriate for the time of year. Your project should bear your name, a title, and references in APA format. Your project must include at least one peer-reviewed reference. You are not restricted to topics that appear in the assigned readings and videos, but your project must be based on serious scholarship. Although it is permissible to choose the same topic as another class member, all work must be your own; this is not a collaborative project.

The assignment may be fulfilled by a term paper of no more than 1,600 words (about 6 to 8 pages not counting references, but be guided by the word count in judging length, and stay within 200 words of the target to avoid penalties) accompanied by either of the following: a podcast in MP3 format of five minutes’ length or five MB file size; or a slide presentation (e.g., PowerPoint) of about six slides. Your written portion will be worth a maximum of 50 points, and the podcast or PowerPoint that accompanies it will be worth a maximum of 10 points. Thus, the project as a whole will be worth 60 points. The penalty for a late project is ten percent of the score on the project. 

Everyone needs to write a paper. Beyond that, pay attention only to the part of the project description that concerns the activity that interests you.

Written paper. As an example, the problem you choose might be to identify the way we recognize faces. Your paper should state the fundamental issues, pinpoint unanswered questions, and evaluate recent research that aims to solve the problem. To accomplish this, you will have to use one or more recent research articles published within the last five years, along with supplementary information that may be drawn from reputable magazines like Scientific American or blogs from professionals such as MindHacks.com. Avoid tabloid newspapers and blogs by authors without appropriate credentials. You may use any of a number of electronic databases to find research articles that deal with your topic, including the library and the Internet. (You may wish to consult with the library staff or your faculty member to confirm whether a particular journal is peer-reviewed.)

You should avoid simply repeating the articles in summary form, but rather use them within the text of your paper to illustrate important points. You are welcome to discuss your choice of topic with your faculty member to make sure you are on the right track.

The paper will be graded on content, organization, and writing mechanics and style. The following rubric is used to assign points associated with each main topic.

                                                             Grading Rubric for Project: Written Paper
  5 4 3 2 1 0
CONTENT            
1. All topics were discussed in clear detail.            
2. Author supported assertions correctly.            
3. Ideas were inter-related coherently and logically.            
4. Author creatively enhances the topic.            
ORGANIZATION            
5. An introduction previews main points of study            
6. Body of paper develops and elaborates main ideas.            
7. A conclusion summarizes main points.            
WRITING MECHANICS and STYLE            
8. Paper free of mechanical errors (e.g., misspellings, typos, etc.)            
9. Paper grammatically sound (proper sentence structure)            
10. Citations and references in proper style (e.g., APA).            

You may wish to submit a draft of your complete or near complete paper to the Effective Writing Center (EWC) for review and comment, prior to the due date of the paper. This should be submitted well in advance of the due date, in order for the EWC to respond and for you to make the necessary corrections. Once you receive feedback from the EWC, you can copy and paste it into a Word Document, then upload it into LEO by the due date, for your instructor to view as necessary. The EWC can help address questions regarding format, structure, writing style, and appropriateness of references.

Podcast presentation.  The podcast should be targeted to the public and should summarize and discuss the topic of your written paper. It should not be a verbatim reading of your paper. You will record your spoken comments with a microphone and audio software, then upload your audio file to class. You will need to create an audio story (approaching it the same way you would any other story or essay) on your paper topic. The podcast should be in MP3 format of five minutes’ length or 5 mB file size. You may download free audio recording software at http://www.audacityteam.org/

Grading Rubric for Project: Podcast (Audacity or substitute)
  2 1 0
Information Content Describes the topic fully and accurately Describes the topic superficially or incorrectly Description fails to correspond to the written description
Technical Volume, transitions, and noise are effectively controlled Uneven control of sound that occasionally interferes with clarity Missing intervals or unintelligible sound recording
Creativity Narrative enhanced with special effects throughout the delivery Narrative exhibits momentary enhancement Narrative lacks creative enhancement
Spoken production Clear, well-rehearsed delivery Unrehearsed or unclear delivery Unintelligible enunciation
Relevance Meets requirements of the assignment in length or size Comes acceptably close to meeting the requirements of the assignment Varies widely from the assigned requirements

PowerPoint presentation. The PowerPoint presentation should summarize and illustrate the topic of your written paper. The main purpose of this is to familiarize you with the most widely used state-of-the-art presentation form, to augment information in the paper, and to share your work with other class members. The PowerPoint presentation should consist of a minimum of 6 slides of the area in your written report. If you do not have access to PowerPoint, you may use free, publicly available software such as Prezi or Open Office Impress instead.

Consider the following tips in preparing your presentation:

1. Your first slide should give your name and our class’s name and the term, along with the title of your presentation.

2. There should be about four or five points per slide

3. Use a standard font (Times Roman or Arial) and at least an 18-point font size with different sized fonts for main points and secondary points

4.  Use a font color that contrasts sharply with the background

5.  Use graphs rather than charts and words, and always title your graphs

6.  Proof your slides for spelling and grammatical errors

7.  Use a conclusion slide to summarize the main points of your presentation and to suggest future avenues of research. You do not need to list references.

8.  Avoid ending your presentation abruptly—you might end your slide with a quote, a simple question, or the next steps

 

Grading Rubric for Project: Slide Presentation (PowerPoint or substitute)
  2 1 0
Introduction Topic, author, and date are clearly indicated Introduction lacks some important information Introduction is missing
Layout Visually pleasing, with appropriate use of headings, subheadings and white space Appears cluttered and busy or distracting with large gaps of white space or uses a distracting background Confusing or unreadable
Text Readable text with good placement and appropriate typeface. Lengthy, busy, or full of distracting and inappropriate embellishments Missing, unreadable or inappropriate text
Creative enhancements Graphics effectively supplement text Graphics present, but irrelevant or inappropriately used No enhancements
Relevance Meets requirements of the assignment in length or size Comes acceptably close to meeting the requirements of the assignment Varies widely from the assigned requirements

 

PROJECT RESOURCES

Resources for a slide presentation

The class project described in the Syllabus is a written paper accompanied by either PowerPoint slides or a podcast. In this topic we’ll take a look at PowerPoint. If you haven’t used it before, of course your first question will be “What is PowerPoint?”. It is versatile software from Microsoft that is used to present text and graphics in slides. You can buy it at a student discount from UMUC. There is also free software that will do much the same job, sometimes in a different way.

There are versions of PowerPoint for the Mac and the PC, with training for Microsoft Office here and there. If you prefer the free route, you may download a PowerPoint clone such as OpenOffice Impress from this site and find their other products here.

Among the free options, a newly popular presentation tool is Prezi, available at http://prezi.com/. For further help, try the forums for PowerPoint and Prezi users:

http://www.msofficeforums.com/powerpoint/ https://prezi.com/community/

If you use an alternative to PowerPoint, please include a note in your upload to tell me which software you used. The project assignment in the Syllabus will ask you to turn in at least six slides. The grading rubric will give you some ideas of what to include in your presentation.

If you have trouble getting started, give some thought to a strategy. The assertion-evidence style has attracted interest in scientific and medical presentations.

Resources for a podcast

The class project described in the Syllabus is a written paper accompanied by either PowerPoint slides or a podcast.

If you have not made a podcast before, welcome to sound communication on the Internet! You can learn more at this siteor that one. For example, here is the history of brain research in ten 15-minute podcasts that you could have made yourself. Your podcast should have at least a length of five minutes or a file size of 5 mB in MP3 format. What is MP3? It’s explained at this site and at that one. Using free Audacity software, each minute of monaural recorded speech in MP3 format occupies about 1 mB in file size.
 
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