Graduate Program - Training
Graduate training in Psychology is part of a close, collaborative relationship between the student, the faculty advisor, and the student's graduate committee. Decisions about specific course work, research training, and teaching responsibilities are based more on the student's research interests and goals than on rigid, pre-defined programs of study. In this way, students can develop interdisciplinary curricula that take advantage of the collective strengths of Brown in the study of brain, mind, and behavior. Although students have considerable flexibility in designing their program of study, students should be aware of the major substantive areas within the Department.
Major Substantive Areas:
Graduate Program in Behavioral Neuroscience
The strong contemporary interest in the neural and physiological bases of behavior are exemplified at Brown by research in areas roughly identifiable as psychopharmacology, neuroethology, and the neuropsychology of learning and memory. Research in these areas examines such things as the neural substrates of learning, motivational processes, reactions to psychological and physical stress, pleasure, pain, and movement. Neuroethology focuses on the neural mechanisms that enable organisms to negotiate their environments, communicate with other organisms, and process biologically significant information.
Students with interests in behavioral neuroscience can take advantage of special opportunities for interdisciplinary studies at Brown. Students who combine Psychology with Neurocience may integrate their work in Psychology with work in neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, and neuropharmacology. Courses and research training opportunities are available in the Department of Neuroscience, as well as other programs in the Division of Biology and Medicine. Students in Psychology can take advantage of these resources by taking courses in the relevant departments and by working with faculty in other departments who share their interests.
Graduate Program in Sensation and Perception
Research in this area focuses on the sensory and perceptual processes that enable organisms to acquire information about their environment. Ongoing research in the Department includes the study of human brightness and color vision, the perception of motion and position, the perception of time, visual recognition and search in humans and pigeons, and the analysis of vocal signals in anurans.
Students interested in working on the neural and physiological substrates of these phenomena have access to courses and collaborative research opportunities in the Department of Neuroscience. Students interested in working on computational models of these phenomena may also take courses in the Department of Computer Science, the Department of Applied Mathematics, and the Department of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences, which has a strong program in computational vision and neural modeling.
Graduate Program in Behavior and Cognition
Researchers in the Department study cognitive functions such as conditioning, learning, memory, attention, and decision making, using human subjects and a range of other species, including rats, pigeons, frogs and aplysia. Some of the current research uses behavioral measures to study principles of associative learning, memory, the processes underlying timing, and attentional processes. As noted above, biological interventions are used in some studies to identify the neural basis of the psychological processes. Other lines of research examine the neuropsychology of human learning and memory, particularly as it is revealed in the patterns of memory deficits observed in patients with different types of brain damage.
Students seeking graduate training in cognition may take advantage of a range of faculty resources in addition to courses and the faculty in Psychology whose research is described below. Students interested in the biological basis of cognition may take courses in Neural Science and faculty in the Department of Neuroscience may serve as members of a student's research committees. Students interested in language and human problem solving may take courses in the Department of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences and may collaborate with faculty members in that Department. Students may also complement their curriculum by taking courses in the Department of Computer Science and the Department of Applied Mathematics.
Graduate Program in Social and Personality
Graduate studies in social psychology emphasize the rigorous training in experimental research for which the Department has been known. Graduate students with interests in social cognition will find faculty working on person perception, attitude change, stereotyping and prejudice. Ongoing research on attitudes examines the role of affect and emotion in the formation and change of attitudes. Research on stereotyping examines the interplay between people's beliefs about themselves and their beliefs about their social environment. Research on person perception examines the factors that influence the accuracy of people's impressions of and inferences about others' personalities.
At Brown, developmental and personality psychology are often allied with social psychology. In the case of social cognition, for example, ongoing research examines individual differences in stereotyping and the accuracy of person perception. Related work explores developmental differences in children's knowledge of their own and others' social behavior. Other research examines how people's age stereotypes differ through early, middle, and late adulthood.