3221 Social Science Plaza B; (714) 824-7569
John I. Yellott, Department Chair
The Department of Cognitive Sciences is committed to the investigation of the abstract, complex structures that underlie human cognition: language, thought, memory, learning, and perception. The main areas of research strength within the Department are visual and auditory perception, experimental psychology, and mathematical psychology.
Students should be aware that psychology courses are offered in several different departments and programs. Students interested in general psychology including the areas of development, clinical, perception, learning, memory, and cognitive processes are advised to consult the course listings here in the Department of Cognitive Sciences section. These courses are designed to provide students with a strong foundation in general psychology. Students interested in other areas of psychology are advised to consult the course listings in the School of Social Ecology section.
In anticipation that the number of students who are qualified to elect Psychology as a major will exceed the number of positions available, students applying for admission for fall 1998 should be sure to file their application before November 30, 1997.
Continuing-Student Applicants: Students who were not admitted to the Psychology major upon their admission to the University may apply for entry into the major during the first five weeks of any quarter after their freshman year. Applications must be filed in the School of Social Sciences Undergraduate Counseling Office. To be considered for admission into the Psychology major, students must have completed the following: (a) the lower-division writing requirement and (b) the requirements of two additional campus breadth categories. Students applying to the major should have an overall grade point average of at least 2.7. NOTE: Acceptance into the major is not guaranteed. In the event that more applications are received than can be accommodated, applicants may be subject to screening beyond these minimum criteria.
Excellence in Psychological Research: Psychology majors doing independent research under Psychology 199 may be eligible for participation in the Excellence in Psychological Research program. Participants have the opportunity to present their research papers published in a peer-reviewed student journal. Guidelines for the program are available from the Department of Cognitive Sciences office.
University Requirements: See pages 5155.
School Requirements: See page 321.
Departmental Requirements for the Major in Psychology
School requirements must be met and must include 18 courses (70 units) as specified below:
A. Psychology 9A-B-C.
B. Two introductory courses (eight units) in the social sciences chosen from Anthropology 2A or 2B, Economics 1, Linguistics 3, Political Science 6A, 6B, or 6C, Sociology 1, or, by petition, one or two quarters of Social Science H1E, H1F, or H1G, when topic is not psychology.
C. A one-quarter course and laboratory in experimental psychology or research methods selected from 112A and 112LA, 112D and 112LD, or 115A and 115LA.
D. Four upper-division psychology core courses are required (16 units). These courses are designated with the ending number "0" and include the following: Psychology 120A, 120D, 120H, 120P, 130A, 140C, 140L, 140M, and 140N. NOTE: Psychology 110E cannot be used to satisfy core course requirements.
E. Seven additional courses (four or more units each) with emphasis in psychology, distributed as follows:
(1) No more than one of the seven may be lower-division. Psychology 7A may not be used to fulfill this requirement.
(2) Three of the upper-division courses used to satisfy requirements D and E must be taken from one of the following modules: Psychology 110119 (Research Methodologies), 120129 (General Psychology), 130139 (Perception and Sensory Processes), 140149 and 150159 (Learning and Cognition and Semiotics and Language combined), and 170179 (Interdisciplinary Studies).
(3) Certain courses offered in the School of Biological Sciences and the School of Social Ecology may be used in partial satisfaction of this requirement. Such courses must be chosen from the approved list of psychology-related courses in these disciplines.
NOTE: Psychology majors are strongly encouraged to take Biological Sciences 1A-B and 35 in satisfaction of the natural sciences portion of the breadth requirement (Category II). Furthermore, it is strongly recommended that students who intend to pursue postbaccalaureate work in psychology take the sequence Psychology 112A-B-C or 115A-B. Most psychology graduate programs require statistics (which, at UCI, may be satisfied by taking Social Science 10A-B-C, Psychololgy 10A-B-C, or Social Science 100A-B-C), but some require calculus (which, at UCI, may be satisfied by taking Mathematics 2A-B-C).
Honors Program in Psychology
The two-year honors program in Psychology is open to selected juniors who are majoring in Psychology. It provides basic training in research methods and culminates with the opportunity for basic research in some area of psychology under faculty supervision. The program has a limited number of openings and seeks to attract outstanding students who plan to undertake postgraduate education in some field of the psychological sciences. Admission to the program is based on a formal application that is normally submitted in the spring quarter of the sophomore year. Applicants should have an overall grade point average of at least 3.2 and a grade point average of at least 3.5 in psychology courses, although this requirement may be waived in unusual cases.
During the junior year, students who participate in the program are expected to enroll in Honors Experimental Psychology (H111A-B-C), and in the fall quarter of the Honors Seminar in Psychology (H101A). As seniors, following successful completion of these junior-year requirements, Psychology honors students are enrolled in the Honors Seminar in Psychology (H101B-C) in the fall and spring quarters. Participants in the honors program are expected to complete course work beyond the breadth requirement in one or more of the following areas: biological sciences, mathematics, computer science, physical science, linguistics, philosophy. The honors seminar may be used to satisfy two of the courses required by Part E of the Psychology major requirements. To graduate with Honors in Psychology, a student must successfully complete the requirements for the B.A. degree in Psychology with an overall grade point average of 3.2 and a grade point average of at least 3.5 in Psychology courses. In addition, Honors students must successfully complete a senior honors thesis as part of the senior-year course work.
Psychology Minor Requirements
Requirements for the minor in Psychology are met by taking seven psychology courses (28 units) as specified below:
A. Psychology 7A.
B. Three upper-division psychology courses chosen from the following core courses in Psychology: 120A, 120D, 120H, 120P, 130A, 140C, 140L, 140M, 140N.
C. Three additional psychology courses (four or more units each) no more than one of which is a lower-division course.
D. In addition, the School mathematics and computer science requirement (School requirement A) must be satisfied.
Participating Faculty
William Batchelder: Mathematical models of learning and memory, mathe-matical psychology, and measurement
Bruce Berg: Psychoacoustics of complex sounds, auditory attention
Myron Braunstein: Visual perception and computer applications
Michael Butler: How people learn and how they can learn better
Charles F. Chubb: Visual perception, motion processing, psychophysics, neural network models
Carol M. Cicerone: Visual perception and the physiological bases of visual perception, with emphasis on human color vision and retinal mechanisms of sensitivity regulation
Barbara Dosher: Memory, information processing, perception
Michael D'Zmura: Visual perception, color vision, attention and image understanding
Jean-Claude Falmagne: Mathematical behavioral sciences
Gregory Hickok: Neural organization of language and other cognitive systems
Donald Hoffman: Human and machine vision, recovery of three-dimensional structure from image motion, visual recognition of objects by their shape
Gavin Huntley-Fenner: Relationship between language and thought, with an emphasis on cognitive development
Tarow Indow: Mathematical models in visual space, color space, and human memory
Geoffrey J. Iverson: Cognitive science and mathematical models
Mary-Louise Kean: Linguistic theory and biological foundations of higher mental processes
David LaBerge: Attention, mathematical models of response time, brain imaging
R. Duncan Luce: Mathematical behavioral science; measurement theory, utility theory, response times
Virginia Mann: Speech perception and its development, the development of reading ability, development of dyslexia
Louis Narens: Measurement, logic, and metacognition
George Sperling: Vision, perception, information processing
W.C. Watt: Cognitive semiotics
Charles E. Wright: Motor control, motor learning
John I. Yellott, Jr.: Mathematical psychology and visual perception
The Department of Cognitive Sciences offers an integrated course of study leading to a Ph.D. in Psychology, with a specialization in cognitive science, to prepare students for research and teaching careers in academia, industry, and government. The emphasis is on modern techniques of experimentation and theory construction. Special attention is given to providing hands-on research experience and equipping students with sophisticated mathematical and computing skills. The Department has 23 faculty; two are members of the National Academy of Sciences, and many serve as editors or editorial board members of leading professional journals, and as members of NSF and NIH study panels. Many Cognitive Sciences faculty are also members of UCI's Institute of Mathematical Behavioral Sciences, and the Department is generally regarded as one of the world's leading centers for mathematically oriented research in cognitive psychology. One sign of this is the fact that six of its members serve on the Board of Editors of the Journal of Mathematical Psychology.
In addition to meeting the general requirements for admission, applicants should have acquired a background in mathematics equivalent to at least one year of calculus. (That background is required for completing the program's research methods courses.) Advanced courses in some of the following fields are considered highly desirable: computer science, mathematics and the physical sciences, biology, logic, and linguistics. Standard requirements for admission include Graduate Record Examination (GRE) scores for tests taken within the past five years, official transcripts of all college course work, and three letters of recommendation. Applicants from non-English speaking countries must also take the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and achieve a score of 550 or higher; and if applying for a teaching assistantship, the Test of Spoken English (TSE) must also be taken and a score of 50 or more achieved.
To receive full consideration for fellowship and assistantship awards, applications must be received by January 15. Late applications may be considered until July 1 on a space-available basis. Since the program starts in the fall quarter, students are not normally admitted in the winter or spring, though exceptions may be made. Application materials may be obtained by contacting the Cognitive Sciences Graduate Advisor.
Each student is expected to take two three-course graduate sequences in the first year. One is a three-quarter research methods sequence covering the areas of probability, statistics, and experimental design (Psychology 203A-B-C). The other is a proseminar sequence covering areas such as learning, memory, perception, and linguistics (Psychology 202A-B-C). Suitable substitutes may be made with written approval of the Department's Director of Graduate Studies. Additional advanced course work in other fields relevant to the student's interests will supplement the required courses. Students are expected to enroll in the Cognitive Sciences Research Seminar (Psychology 201A-B-C) during all quarters in residence prior to passage of the advancement-to-candidacy examination.
In addition, students must take at least six more courses prior to advancement to candidacy. These courses must be taken from at least three of the following five modules: Foundations (Psychology 200209); Human Cognition (Psychology 210229); Methodologies and Models (Psychology 230249); Human Performance (Psychology 250269); and Sensation and Perception (Psychology 270289).
Each student is expected to carry out theoretical/empirical research during the first two years. By the end of the second year, each student should have completed a research project of a scope and nature that is potentially publishable in a professional journal. Every student is assigned a faculty advisor, and the advisor is responsible for assisting in the planning and other facets of the project. Students are required to write a paper based on their research project and to present a talk to the Cognitive Sciences Research Seminar by the end of the spring quarter of their second full year in the graduate program. (Another forum for the second-year talk may be substituted with the written approval of the Graduate Director.)
At the end of each academic year the faculty of the Department meet to discuss and provide feedback on the progress of each student in the program.
Formal permission to begin a Ph.D. dissertation research project (a step known as "advancement to candidacy") is contingent on passgage of an examination, normally taken at the end of the third year or the beginning of the fourth year in the program. The advancement-to-candidacy examination is based on a written dissertation proposal prepared by the student, and consists of an oral examination and, at the faculty's option, a written examination as well.
Knowledge of one foreign language appropriate to the student's research interests is also required.
Prior to submission of the final version of the dissertation the student is expected to defend the dissertation in a public colloquium.
