This course will analyze and evaluate through a psychological lens the psychosocial causes and consequences of significant current events that impact different Asian groups in the U.S., such as pandemic-spurred anti-Asian sentiment and educational policy (e.g., the debate over magnet schools moving to lottery systems rather than test based), as well as long-standing "everyday" experiences common to Asian Americans (e.g., navigating biculturalism, microaggressions and model minority stereotypes) that may impact identity and mental health.

Music can get your feet tapping, trigger a cascade of memories, mire you in nostalgia, or leave you with an earworm. What happens when tools drawn from cognitive science are applied to understanding these experiences? What can music tell us about the human mind, and what can psychology and neuroscience tell us about music? This course will provide an introduction to music cognition, emphasizing the potential and the challenges that characterize work at the intersection of science, the humanities, and the arts. Students will gain experience posing their own questions at this intersection, and identifying appropriate methods to answer them.

Cognitive neuroscience is a young and exciting field with many questions yet to be answered. This course surveys current knowledge about the neural basis of perception, cognition and action and will comprehensively cover topics such as high-level vision, attention, memory, language, decision making, as well as their typical and atypical development. Precepts will discuss the assigned research articles, pertaining to topics covered in class with an emphasis on developing critical reading skills of scientific literature.

This course will provide an introduction to the scientific study of sensation and perception, the biological and psychological processes by which we perceive and interpret the world around us. We will undertake a detailed study of the major senses (vision, audition, touch, smell, taste), using insights from a variety of disciplines (philosophy, physics, computer science, neuroscience, psychology) to examine how these senses work and why. We will begin with physical bases for perceptual information (e.g., light, sound waves) and proceed to an investigation of the structures, circuits, and mechanisms by which the brain forms sensory percepts.

Introduction to a mathematical description of how networks of neurons can represent information and compute with it. Course will survey computational modeling and data analysis methods for neuroscience. Example topics are short-term memory and decision-making, population coding, modeling behavioral and neural data, and reinforcement learning. Classes will be a mix of lectures from the professor, and presentations of research papers by the students. Two 90 minute lectures, one laboratory. Lectures in common between NEU 437/NEU 537.

Plasticity refers to the nervous system's ability to change its structure and function in response to intrinsic or extrinsic influences. Plasticity is necessary for healthy brain development and is an important player in brain damage and disease, as too little or too much can underlie the inability of the brain to effectively repair itself. This course will consider recent research into these topics exploring molecular, cellular and circuit-level mechanisms of synaptic and structural plasticity during development and adulthood, under conditions of health as well as damage and disease.

A survey of modern neuroscience that covers experimental and theoretical approaches to understanding how the brain works. This semester builds on 501, focusing on how the circuits and systems of the brain give rise to cognition. The course covers the neural mechanisms responsible for vision, long-term memory, sleep, motor control, habits, decision making, attention, working memory, and cognitive control. How these functions are disrupted in neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric disorders are also covered. This is the second term of a double-credit core lecture course required of all Neuroscience Ph.D. students.

Advanced seminar that reflects current research on brain and behavior.

An exploration of original texts in the history of ideas about the workings of the human mind starting in Antiquity and leading to the development of the empirical discipline of psychology in the 19th century and some of its modern trends. Subsequent developments, including the child study movement, are explored though 20th century writings, culminating with Sartre's philosophical psychology and sources in Eastern thought to put the Western trajectory in perspective.

Science searches for patterns in data. Quantitative methods are tools for finding and evaluating these patterns. This course introduces foundational concepts in quantitative methods, including data visualization and common statistical tests used in psychological research.

The scientific study of social behavior, with an emphasis on social interaction and group influence. Topics covered will include social perception, the formation of attitudes and prejudice, attraction, conformity and obedience, altruism and aggression, and group dynamics.

Principles of psychology relevant to the theory and practice of education. Through selected readings, discussion, and classroom observations, students study theories of development, learning, cognition (including literacy), and motivation, as well as individual and group differences in these areas; assessment; and the social psychology of the classroom. The course focuses on how learning by children and adolescents at the elementary, middle, and secondary school levels is influenced by their own characteristics and experiences and the various contexts in which they learn: family, school, community and culture.

The cognitive processes underlying the use and understanding of language, and in learning to speak. Topics include speech production and perception, grammar and meaning, knowledge and words, and pragmatic aspects of language.

An overview and examination of the cognitive science of human values and applications to contemporary global challenges. Interdisciplinary course highlighting research from cognitive neuroscience, psychology, behavioral economics, data science, and public health. Topics include utility and value, reinforcement learning, risky decision making, time preferences and self-control, social decision making, and applications to pandemics, polarization, technology, and the climate crisis.

The objectives of this course are to understand the bio-psycho-social/processes that influence health-related behaviors, health and wellness, and health-care delivery. Topics to be examined include the psycho-physiological, neuro-psychological and socio-cultural bases of health and illness; pain; adaptation to chronic illness; stress; personality and illness; death, dying, and grief; substance use; obesity and nutrition.

This course will review key psychotherapeutic skills from dominant therapeutic modalities. We will learn about the theoretical and empirical backing for each skill and then practice applying them to achieve goals in our own lives. Students will gain knowledge of the science and practice of psychotherapy as well as concrete skills in applying therapeutic techniques in their own lives.

This course explores the neural foundations of social cognition in natural contexts. Highly controlled lab experiments fail to capture and model the complexity of social interaction in the real world. Recent advances in artificial neural networks provide an alternative computational framework to model cognition in natural contexts. In contrast to the simplified and interpretable hypotheses we test in the lab, these models do not learn simple, human-interpretable rules or representations of the world.

Cyborgs are created when biological brains are enhanced with technology. This course will explore a wide range of mind-machine interactions. Are search engines changing the structure of human memory? Is your laptop or smartphone part of your mind? Are human brains flexible enough to update motor and sensory systems, expanding the self to include artificial limbs, exoskeletons, remote-control devices, night vision, wearable computing, etc.? How do experiences in virtual reality impact psychology? As technology advances we are all becoming cyborgs. Now is an exciting time to study the interactive interface of technology and mind.

Understanding how people believe and how what they believe impacts their behavior has recently become a central topic across the social sciences. This recent interest was spurred by the recent misinformation epidemic that has been consuming our communities. How do people change their beliefs? What factors facilitate the endorsement of conspiracy theories? How do people influence each other's beliefs during communication? How do beliefs propagate through social networks? As part of this course, we will explore a multidisciplinary framework to understand the endorsement and propagation of true and false beliefs through social networks.

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.

Introduction to graduate level social psychology for first year graduate students in psychology. This course will serve as the basis for more advanced graduate courses on specific topics in this area.

Through a combination of lectures, tutorials, and workshops, this course introduces a wide-array of statistical methods that are increasingly used in psychological science. Students learn how to interpret and use methods such as, but not limited to, network analysis, regression discontinuity design, text analysis, machine learning, and directed acylic graphs (DAGs).

Psychological methods keep evolving: psychology researchers constantly adopt new statistical methods, computational tools, and research practices. This course covers the latest advances in research methods in psychological science through a series of lectures, tutorials, and seminars. Lectures are generally given by a guest speaker who introduces methodological and statistical issues relevant to psychology research. Tutorials provide students with the necessary computational skills to build reproducible and transparent research programs. Finally, students discuss timely topics in psychological methods in the context of seminars.

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.

Prejudice is one of the most contentious topics in modern American society. There is debate regarding its causes, pervasiveness, and impact. This goal of this course is to familiarize students with the psychological research relevant to these questions. We will review theoretical perspectives on prejudice to develop an understanding of its cognitive, affective, and motivational underpinnings. We will also discuss how these psychological biases relate to evaluations of, and behavior toward, members of targeted groups. In addition, research-based strategies for reducing prejudice will be discussed.