Psychology: Cognitive PhD

The Cognitive Psychology PhD program offers an exceptional, research-intensive training environment for students interested in understanding how the mind works. The program faculty are nationally and internationally known for innovative research on sentence comprehension and discourse, speech and language perception, word recognition and lexical access, animal cognition, auditory perception, categorization, learning, and motor control. The program is for individuals who aim to become independent research scientists in cognitive psychology, primarily (but not limited to) in the context of academic careers.

Requirements

A minimum of 72 credit hours, including core cognitive coursework, electives and departmental breadth requirements.
Completion of a pre-dissertation project with your primary advisor. The pre-dissertation project culminates in a written report of an empirical project that is of publishable quality in an academic journal.
Completion of a qualifying project with a mentor other than your primary advisor. The project must be a publishable-quality empirical project or a computational project.
Yearly presentation of ongoing research in the cognitive area’s BrownBag talk series.
Doctoral dissertation and oral defense of the dissertation.

Curriculum

Required Core (9 credits)

PSY 607LEC - Adv Statistics Methods 1 Credits: 3
PSY 608SEM - Adv Statistics Methods 2 Credits: 3
PSY 639SEM - Cognitive Processes Credits: 3

Distribution Courses (6 credits)

Students choose 2 courses (1 from each of two areas outside of student’s program of study):

Elective Courses (20-42 credits)

PSY XXX or other Social Sciences field - Any graduate level courses related to the Cognitive Psychology discipline, as determined by student’s academic advisor.

Additional Requirements (3-36 credits)

PSY 600
- Qualifying project #1 - Learned Research Skill (e.g. learning a programming lang. or a publishable lit. review) - up to 12 credits
- Qualifying project #2 - Publishable Empirical Project - up to 12 credits
- Pre-dissertation Project - up to 12 credits

Culminating Experience (1-12 credits)

PSY 700TUT - Thesis Guidance Credits: 1 - 12

Faculty Mentorship and Supervision

Our program fosters collegial and intellectually stimulating interactions between students and faculty, in order to prepare students to become the next generation of cognitive scientists. The graduate student’s primary faculty contact is with his or her mentor, however, our program is designed to facilitate interaction with a broad range of faculty members outside classes. Students form an Individualized Mentoring Committee in the first year, which is a committee of three faculty members: the advisor and two others (one of whom must be from the cognitive area). In addition, students complete a project that is mentored by faculty members other than the primary advisor (these are termed Qualifying Projects).

Faculty Directory

Instruction Method

In Person (100 percent of courses offered in person)

Full/Part Time Options

Full Time

Credits Required

72 Hours

Time-To-Degree

5 Years

Application Fee

$75

Admissions Tests

N/A

SED Statement

This program is officially registered with the New York State Education Department (SED).

Online programs/courses may require students to come to campus on occasion. Time-to-degree and number of credit hours may vary based on full/part time status, degree, track and/or certification option chosen. Time-to-degree is based on calendar year(s). Contact the department for details.