ID:
510706
Duration (hours):
54
CFU:
9
SSD:
PSICOLOGIA GENERALE
Year:
2025
Overview
Date/time interval
Secondo Semestre (16/02/2026 - 05/06/2026)
Syllabus
Course Objectives
Educational objectives: knowledge of learning mechanisms based on experience and exploration, conceptual development, reasoning, and problem-solving; knowledge of the macro-construct "intelligence" and how it is described and measured. Learning outcomes: at the end of the course, the student will know in practice the different intellectual mechanisms that support human intelligence; will be able to recognize how different intellectual tasks affect those different mechanisms (both in psychological testing and in daily school or work activities); will also be able to recognize the action of peculiar characteristics and limits of human thought processes in different aspects of daily life.
Course Prerequisites
Good mastery of experimental methods typical of cognitive psychology. Basic knowledge of fundamental concepts of statistics and probability calculus. Basic knowledge of attentional processes and the main characteristics of human memory.
Teaching Methods
The course is equivalent to 9 CFU, equivalent to approximately 225 hours of total work for the average student. Of these, 54 hours will be spent in the classroom with the instructor, while the remaining hours should be dedicated to individual study. The 54 classroom hours are devoted to the most difficult topics of the programme, while the other topics will be left to the individual study of the textbooks. The 54 classroom hours are evenly distributed between lectures, exercises guided by the instructor with the aid of interactive digital tools (particularly Wooclap), and simulation by the students wishing to do so of the administration of parts of important cognitive tests.
Assessment Methods
The exam is written, conducted on a computer in one of the university's computer labs. The first part is a closed-question quiz aimed at verifying the extent of the student's study. If the quiz is passed with at least a sufficient grade, the student can access a second part with open-ended questions. The final grade is the weighted average of the two tests. An optional open-ended quiz focused on the optional reading allows to increase the grade of the main exam.
Texts
Cherubini P., Bricolo E, Reverberi C. (2021) Psicologia generale. Raffaello Cortina Editore. Chapters 6, 7, 8, 9, and the online materials on deduction associated with chapter 8. Optional reading (warmly recommended as an introduction to the study of these topics): Cherubini, P. (2025). Intelligenze. Ragionamento umano e IA a confronto. Carocci.
Contents
Associative learning. Causal learning. Elements of probability calculus and deductive logic essential to understanding theoretical models of human thought. Learning of similarity-based concepts. Learning of rule-based concepts. Conceptual recombination. Exploration-based learning. Problem-solving: general scheme of the different intellectual mechanisms involved, its phenomenology, and the main heuristics. Human deductive reasoning. The construct of intelligence, its measurement, and its correlations with different outcomes in the life cycle. The course contents will be addressed taking into consideration the ethical-deontological principles that, both from a theoretical point of view and with direct connection to practical activity, are involved in the study and measurement of human intelligence.
Course Language
Italian
More information
All lectures will be videorecorded and uploaded online to the course moodle (along with other course materials). Students in presence (only) may sign up for self-organized work groups, which will be assigned homework assignments to be completed during the course. Classroom test simulations will be conducted by students enrolled in these groups.
Degrees
Degrees
PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Bachelor’s Degree
3 years
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