This course brings together scholarship from musicologists, cognitive scientists, and biologists to explore the concept of "animal music" from a cross-disciplinary perspective. Animal music is an important topic because it harbors profound information about the history of life--by examining it in relation to human music making, we stand to gain a better understanding of everything from social synchronization and linguistic turn-taking to (bio)semiotics and cultural evolution. Using a combination of short lectures, student presentations, and creative projects, this course provides students with a comprehensive understanding of the field.

Freud is approached as a systematic thinker dedicated to discovering the basic principles of human mental life. For Freud those basic principles concern what impels human thought and behavior. What moves us to think and act? What is it to think and act? Emphasis is placed on the close study and critical analysis of texts, with particular attention to the underlying structure of the arguments.

A crucial part of neuroscience is understanding how function has its foundation in anatomy. This course traces neuroanatomical pathways through the central nervous system. It emphasizes the primate brain, especially the human brain. The course covers how nuclei, ganglia, and layered structures such as cortex are arranged physically in the brain, the fiber pathways by which they connect to each other, and how this connectivity relates to their function. The material will encompass systems within the brain stem, sensory systems, motor systems, higher cognitive systems, and the interconnectivity and interaction of these systems.

An intensive introduction to fundamental topics in neuroscience, including neuronal excitability, synaptic physiology, neural networks, and circuits that mediate perception, action, emotion, and memory. We will examine neuroscience at scales ranging from single neurons, to the activity of small sets of neurons, to the organization of brain and behavior. The course will address broad questions including: How does information enter the brain? What neural pathways transmit these signals? How is information processed and used to construct an internal model of reality? How does the brain choose and execute the correct behavioral response?

Much of what we know about the brain systems underlying perception, attention, memory, and language has been first derived from patients with brain lesions or other brain pathology. Despite our advances in functional brain imaging the study of clinical cases in neuropsychology is still important to determine the causal role of certain brain regions in contributing to a given cognitive process.

Advanced seminar that reflects current research on brain and behavior.

The study of human nature from the viewpoint of psychological science. Topics range from the biological bases of human perception, thought and action to the social-psychological determinants of individual and group behavior. This course can be used to satisfy the science and technology with laboratory general education requirement.

This sequence is designed to provide Sophomores with an in-lab research experience over two semesters, with PSY 230 in the Fall being the prerequisite for PSY 231 in the Spring. PSY 230 is a non-credit bearing class while PSY 231 carries a full unit of credit (both are graded P/D/F). Students will gain an introduction to research within a Psychology lab. Students are expected to spend a minimum of 6 hours per week engaged in research and attend weekly meetings as outlined by the mentoring faculty. At the end of each semester, students will submit a written report of their research experience (PSY 230) and present their findings (PSY 231).

Babies, who look like helpless blobs, are capable of impressive feats of learning. 3-year-olds, who can't cross the street alone, know an astounding amount of information about their environments. We will focus on landmark studies that elucidate how children's biology, cognition, language, and social experiences interact to set the stage for what we do and who we are. Is the baby's world a 'blooming, buzzing confusion', or do babies enter the world prepared to make sense of their environments? How can we understand the collaboration between nature and nurture during development?

This course covers foundations of the research process for experimental Psychology: reviewing and evaluating published journal articles, refining new research questions, conducting pilot studies, creating stimuli, sequencing experiments for optimal control and data quality, analyzing data, and communicating scientific methods and results clearly, effectively, and professionally in APA style. Lectures survey time-tested excellent methods, and labs provide opportunities to recreate interesting experiments and innovate, building toward an original research final project.

Conversation is one of the most ubiquitous and distinctly human behaviors. From infancy to old age, humans converse constantly. Through these exchanges we learn about the world, build social connections, and update beliefs and behaviors. Conversations represent a crucial frontier in the scientific quest to understand the human mind and the societal imperative to help people thrive. Grounded in work from psychology, this course explores questions about the why, what, and how of naturalistic human communication.

This course is an integrative treatment of memory in humans and animals. We explore working memory (our ability to actively maintain thoughts in the face of distraction), episodic memory (our ability to remember previously experienced events), and semantic memory (our ability to learn and remember the meanings of stimuli). In studying how the brain gives rise to different kinds of memory, we consider evidence from behavioral experiments, neuroscientific experiments (neuroimaging, electrophysiology, and lesion studies), and computational models.

Principles of psychology relevant to the theory and practice of education. Through readings, discussion, and classroom observations, students study theories of development, learning, cognition (including literacy), and motivation, as well as relevant individual and group differences; assessment; and the social psychology of the classroom. The course focuses on two main topics: 1) how learning at multiple school levels is influenced by one's own characteristics, experiences, and various learning contexts; and 2) how the practice of teaching is, in fact, a clinical practice and what that means for educators, students, schools and society.

We will take a modern, integrative view of animal learning phenomena from experimental psychology, analyzing them through the lens of computational models of reinforcement learning and current neuroscientific knowledge. The goal is to explore how theoretical concepts apply to every-day attempts to change people's minds, and demonstrate how computational modeling is a useful framework for understanding human behavior. To maximize learning and skill acquisition, the course will include group work and class presentations, and will use alternative grading (your learning will be motivated by progress towards your own goals, rather than by grades).

The objective of this course is to provide advanced students in cognitive science, psychology, and computer science with the skills to develop computational models of human cognition. Computational modeling is one of the central methods in cognitive science research, and can help to provide insight into how people solve the challenging problems posed by everyday life, as well as how to bring computers closer to human performance for some of these problems. The course will explore three ways in which researchers have attempted to normalize cognition: symbolic approaches, neural networks, and probability and statistics.

Attitudes matter. Throughout the history of the world, people have taken extraordinary steps to support a set of attitudes and beliefs that helped to bring about a better world. Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King led societies to new views of human dignity by their written words and their behaviors. Every day, people advocate for their ideals. They persuade and organize in the service of bringing about a world that is closer to the paragon in which they believe.

This course will provide an overview of several theoretical orientations to psychotherapy and critically evaluate how the effects of therapies are measured and studied. Cognitive-behavioral approaches to psychotherapy will be explored in depth. Application of research findings to clinical practice will be examined closely, including issues related to psychotherapy integration and the treatment of diverse populations in various settings. The course will also include reviews of the current state of psychotherapy research for a number of psychological disorders and consider current controversies in the area of treatment outcome research.

Empirical research is at the core of our work as psychological scientists. The primary goal of your independent work is to make sure you learn how to understand, conduct, and communicate empirical research. The yearlong thesis course aims to assist you in attaining this goal via assignments that promote consistent investment in and attention to the thesis throughout the academic year. PSY majors will complete PSY 498 in the fall (graded P/D/F) and PSY 499 (letter graded) in the spring. In the fall, seniors submit a thesis progress & planning form and partial draft; students must receive a passing grade in PSY 498 to enroll in PSY 499.

Cognitive Proseminar: Introduction to graduate level cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience for first year graduate students in psychology. Course serves as the basis for more advanced graduate courses on specific topics in this area.

This graduate-level course covers foundations of statistics in psychological research. It is required of all first-year students in the psychology Ph.D. program. The purpose of this course is to introduce students to statistics with an emphasis on modeling. We cover many of the most widely applied data analysis models in psychology. We focus on data visualization, effect size estimation and interpretation, and using statistical analysis to inform scientific research questions. We develop practical skills related to data management, reproducibility, and statistical programming through the use of R, R Markdown/Quarto, and Github.

This seminar series explores the overlap of psychological science, computational methods, and statistics through a diverse set of interactive activities. External guest speakers present colloquium talks on emerging methods as well as novel insights into established approaches, complemented by hands-on tutorials or in-depth discussions. Other sessions feature student-led presentations on data analysis challenges and solutions in ongoing or published work, highlighting an often-overlooked aspect in scientific presentations. The student sessions may also include tutorials on useful statistical methods or tools.

Current research and issues in cognition, perception, and learning. Seminar participants present ongoing research and discuss current topics of interest in the literature.

An advanced seminar that considers current research in social psychology. Contemporary research conducted by the seminar participants is discussed.

Research internship at a host institution to perform scholarly research relevant to student's dissertation work. Research objectives are determined by advisor in conjunction with outside host. A mid-semester progress review and a final paper are required. Enrollment for full-time internships is limited to post-generals students for up to two semesters, contingent on department approval.

An introduction to the main issues and research findings underlying decision-making and judgment under uncertainty. The focus is on the contrast between the normative theory of judgment and choice, and the psychological principles that guide decision behavior, often producing biases and errors. Among other topics, we will consider political, medical, and financial decision-making, poverty, negotiations, and the law, along with the implications of the findings for the rational agent model typically assumed in economics, throughout the social sciences, and in policy making.