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The Cognitive Sciences (CGS) Program blends traditional areas of cognitive and social psychology. The program deals with human and animal cognition, emotional responsivity, personality, and social thought and action. Faculty research deals broadly with processes that underlie decisions and action in real-life contexts. Specific faculty interests include learning and memory, aggression and violence, communication and language, attention, skilled task performance, metacognition, false memories, eyewitness accuracy, decision making, inequity perception and response, comparative cognition, individual differences, emotion and psychopathology, issues of sex and gender, cross-cultural similarities in social perception and social behavior, stereotypes and prejudice, psychophysiology of emotion, cognitive aging, affective forecasting, cooperation and prosocial behavior.  The photos on this page illustrate just a few of these specific research interests, which utilize a variety of apparatus and techniques including psychophysiology, eye-tracking, implicit association testing, spectral sound analysis, electroencephalography (EEG), neuroimaging (fMRI), transcranial magnetic stimulation, psychometric methods, transcranial Doppler sonography, virtual reality / virtual environment hardware, and a host of other research paradigms.

All students are required to take core courses in cognitive and social psychology. They may also take tutorial and seminar courses in such topics as false memory, stereotypes and prejudice, culture and social perception, nonhuman primate language, comparative cognition, and the relation between hormones and personality. A principal aim of the program is to help students develop an integrative view of issues and possibilities that bridge traditional areas of psychology. Toward this end, each student must select a primary and a secondary emphasis from among the cognitive and social foci of the program. Students must state their primary and secondary interests by the end of the first year, and applicants should state tentative primary and secondary interests when applying for admission.

The CGS program seeks students who wish to pursue careers in cognitive psychology, social psychology, social cognition, cognitive and social neuroscience, comparative cognition, applied cognition/human factors, and general-experimental psychology.  Coursework is also available in cognitive and social development. The program expects to accept 2 to 3 students per year. Contact individual program faculty members for more information about opportunities for admission. The program provides education in traditional areas of psychology and prepares students for college or university teaching. It also provides students with training in research methods and statistics, preparing them for research and work in a variety of settings. Recent graduates of the Cognitive Sciences program have been hired into faculty positions in college or university psychology departments, postdoctoral positions within research laboratories, or human-factors positions in industry. 

Stipends and Financial Assistance

All current students receive an annual stipend between $13,500-24,000 including a complete tuition waiver. Cognitive Sciences students are eligible to receive funding from the Brains and Behavior Graduate Fellow Program, from human factors internship at a local business, from laboratory and teaching assistantships, and from a number of ongoing grants and research contracts.

Hard Data Café

In a bi-weekly colloquium series called The Hard Data Café students and faculty meet together to discuss research or to hear invited speakers.  Faculty members use this informal time to discuss their latest research in social, cognitive, comparative, or emotion psychology.  Students may use the Hard Data Café sessions as an opportunity to get input on ongoing experiments or to practice for upcoming professional presentations or job talks.  Each year, speakers are invited from other programs within the department, from other departments within the university, and from neighboring universities like Georgia Tech, Emory, and the University of Georgia.  The Hard Data Café also features nationally recognized scholars with research interests in the social, cognitive, or emotional bases of behavior. 

Faculty and Faculty Interests

Faculty members include Sarah Brosnan, Kim Darnell, Yuki Fujioka, Heather Kleider, Michael Owren, Dominic Parrott, Ann Pearman, Tracie Stewart, David Washburn, and Rihana Williams---plus Emeritus faculty. For further information about the interests of the program faculty, see Faculty Interests (Cognitive Sciences).

Resources, Laboratories and Centers

Behavioral Science Laboratory
Comparative Economics and Behavioral Studies Laboratory
Individual Differences in Executive Attention Laboratory
Memory and Eye-Witness Accuracy Laboratory
Psychology of Voice and Sound Laboratory
CGS Virtual Reality Laboratory
Social Neuroscience Laboratory
Social Cognition Laboratory
Sonny Carter Life Sciences Laboratory
Language Research Center
Tracking Eye Movements annd Vocabulary Acquisition Laboratory