Practical sessions

Below you can find information concerning the practical sessions on Computational Neuroscience (for Psychology students only).

The aim of the practical sessions is to learn to use a great tool for running simulations: Matlab, and then to use it to simulate the diffusion model of decision making. A recommended textbook for Matlab:

Brian D. Hahn (1997, 2007) Essential Matlab for Scientists and Engineers, Arnold, London.

There are 16 copies of this book in the Engineering Library in Queens Building (Location: QA297.HAH). I chose this book because its first part focusses just on the essential elements of Matlab, and after explanation of each element, there are very interesting examples allowing you to try it out straight away. The materials relevant to this unit is in the first chapters of this book: There are two editions in the library which differ in chapter numbering, so the relevant material is presented until section 2.9 (inclusive) in the 1st edition or until section 2.7 (inclusive) in the 3rd edition.

Then there will be 5 tutorials on Matlab, for which the slides can be found here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

Assignments

There will be 2 assignments. The first assignment that accounts for 15% of your mark from the unit is to design any experiment of your choice in Matlab, run it on at least one participant (e.g. yourself), and analyse the data (also in Matlab). Please write a report (no longer than 2 pages) describing your experiment, and results of data analysis. Submit it together with your Matlab codes for experiment and data analysis using the online submission system by 1st April 2011.

The second assignments accounting for 5% of your mark from the unit, is to simulate the decision network - see the main website of the unit.