Overview
The University of California, Santa Barbara offers a PhD Emphasis in Cognitive Science. Doctoral students from twelve affiliated departments (Anthropology, Communication, Comparative Literature, Computer Science, Education, English, Geography, Linguistics, Media Arts & Technology, Music, Philosophy, and Psychological and Brain Sciences) may choose to participate in the emphasis program by completing extra coursework, presenting their research, and taking cognitive science-related questions as central to their studies.
The Cognitive Science Program reflects the intersecting, interdisciplinary interests of affiliated faculty and students in the College of Letters & Sciences, Gevirtz Graduate School of Education, and the College of Engineering from the departments listed above, as well as participating faculty from several additional departments (incl. Electrical & Computer Engineering, Sociology, and Counseling Clinical & School Psychology). The Program provides an organizational structure that facilitates sharing of research interests and collaboration among faculty, departments, and students.
Students who meet the Cognitive Science Emphasis requirements will graduate with a Ph.D. from their home department, along with wording on their transcript stating they have earned a Graduate Emphasis in Cognitive Science.
What is Cognitive Science?
Cognitive Science is the interdisciplinary study of mind and cognition. The field brings together approaches from a number of existing disciplines that individually explore questions of mind and cognition, including psychology, linguistics, computer science, philosophy, anthroplogy, and neuroscience. The study of cognition benefits from incorporating theoretical insights and sharing methodologies from various disciplinary perspectives. Cognitive science is founded on the principle that powerful new insights develop at the intersections among disciplines, and that interdisciplinary collaboration will serve to preserve and strengthen all participating disciplines.
Cognition is dependent both on the internal architecture and functioning of the intelligent agent, whether human or nonhuman animal, or machine, and the nature of the environment in which it is embedded. Central to the discipline is the notion of mental representations (broadly conceived), and the processes that generate and transform these representations. Topics of study include but are not limited to perception, action, learning, memory, knowledge of our own and other minds, concepts, language, reasoning, decision-making, problem solving, inference, imagination, and emotion.
