Overview of the science of language, especially its theoretical underpinnings, methods, and major findings. Areas covered include: the relation between sound and meaning in human languages, social variation in language, language change over time, universals of language, and the mental representation of linguistic knowledge. Students are introduced to a wide variety of language phenomena, drawn not only from languages resembling English, but also from many that appear to be quite unlike English, such as those native to the Americas, Africa, Asia, Australia, and the South Pacific.

Catalog Distribution: (ETM-AS, SSC-AS) (KCM-AG, SBA-AG)

Full details for COGST 1105 - Introduction to Linguistics

This course is for anyone who listens to music or plays music and wonders what's happening in your brain that makes you feel the way you do. Starting with the music each of you knows and loves—the soundtrack to your life—we'll tackle questions like: What is the relationship between speech and music? Do animals have music, too? How does the brain process aspects of music, including rhythm, melody, harmony, and form? Why does some music trigger an emotional response? What does it mean to say that music is an embodied behavioral act? What is the relationship between music and memory? Through lectures, discussions, experiments, compositions, recording technologies, student presentations/performances and writing assignments we'll explore how/why you've chosen the particular tunes on the soundtrack of your life, and how your brain processes musical thoughts and experiences.

Catalog Distribution: (ALC-AS) (CA-AG, LA-AG)

Full details for COGST 1212 - Music on the Brain

Basic perceptual concepts and phenomena are discussed with emphasis on stimulus variables and sensory mechanisms. All sensory modalities are considered, vision is discussed in detail.

Full details for COGST 2050 - Perception

One of four introductory courses in cognition and perception. A comprehensive introduction to current thinking and research in developmental psychology that approaches topics from both psychobiological and cognitive perspectives. We will use a comparative approach to assess principles of development change. The course focuses on the development of perception, action, cognition, language, and social understanding in infancy and early childhood.

Catalog Distribution: (ETM-AS) (KCM-AG)

Full details for COGST 2090 - Developmental Psychology

Provides an introduction to the psychology of language. The purpose of the course is to introduce students to the scientific study of psycholinguistic phenomena. Covers a broad range of topics from psycholinguistics, including the origin of language, the different components of language (phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics), processes involved in reading, computational modeling of language processes, the acquisition of language (both under normal and special circumstances), and the brain bases of language.

Catalog Distribution: (ETM-AS) (KCM-AG)

Full details for COGST 2150 - Psychology of Language

Covers sentential languages, the truth-functional connectives, and their logic; first-order languages, the quantifiers "every" and "some," and their logic.

Catalog Distribution: (SMR-AS)

Full details for COGST 2310 - Introduction to Deductive Logic

There is no getting away from the brain. Everything a person does, creates, thinks, feels, believes, and experiences (including making sense of course descriptions!) depends on it. But, how? How could a three pound mass of cells and the body in which it exists "see," "decide," or "remember," let alone navigate a busy city, play soccer, or write poetry? This course will provide students with the foundational concepts and tools they will need to begin to address these questions, providing insight into how modern cognitive neuroscientists understand the brain, how it works, and how the mind emerges from all of this. Students will learn core principles of modern human cognitive neuroscience (e.g., brain structure versus function, connectivity, reuse) and their application to cognition (e.g., action, perception, attention, memory, emotion, language, cognitive control, and consciousness). Topics in neuroanatomy, human neuroscience methods, and neurological conditions will also be covered.

Catalog Distribution: (ETM-AS) (KCM-AG)

Full details for COGST 2350 - How the Brain Makes the Mind

This course is an introduction to the moral mind from philosophical and psychological perspectives. Many traditional philosophical problems about morality are being illuminated by current work in cognitive science. In this course, we will look at several of these problems. In each case, we will begin with a presentation of the philosophical problems, and we will proceed to examine recent empirical work on the topic. A wide range of topics will be covered, including moral judgment, agency, the self, and punishment.

Catalog Distribution: (ETM-AS) (KCM-AG)

Full details for COGST 2415 - Introduction to Moral Psychology

This course states and motivates the observation that cognition is fundamentally a computational process and explores the implications of this idea. Students are introduced to a variety of conceptual tools for thinking about cognitive information processing, including statistical learning from experience and the use of patterns distilled from past experience in guiding future actions. They learn to apply these tools to gain understanding of perception, memory, motor control, language, action planning, problem solving, decision making, reasoning, intelligence, and creativity.

Catalog Distribution: (ETM-AS) (KCM-AG)

Full details for COGST 3140 - Computational Psychology

In this course, we will explore how language interacts with power: how does language reflect, shape, threaten and reinforce power relations in human society? From childhood through old age, language is an ever-present source of symbolic power. We use it to develop and express our identities, to position ourselves in hierarchies, and to establish group membership and exclusion throughout life. Language shapes ourselves, our families, our social lives, and our institutions. Understanding how people use language can provide a window into hidden aspects of both individuals and the social world.

Full details for COGST 3150 - Language and Power

This course is an introduction to both phonetics (the study of the physical properties of the sounds of human language) and phonology (the organization and patterning of those sounds). The first part of the course focuses on the main areas of phonetics: articulation, acoustics, and perception. Students acquire basic skills, such as production and perception of speech sounds, transcription using the International Phonetic Alphabet, and instrumental analysis of speech. In the second part of the course students are introduced to key concepts in phonology, including rules, representations, and analysis of sound patterns. Throughout the course aspects of the sound systems of a wide range of world languages are studied.

Catalog Distribution: (ETM-AS) (KCM-AG)

Full details for COGST 3302 - Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology

Our present technology allows us to transmit and display information through a variety of media. To make the most of these media channels, it is important to consider the limitations and abilities of the human observer. The course considers a number of applied aspects of human perception with an emphasis on the display of visual information. Topics include "three-dimensional" display systems, color theory, spatial and temporal limitations of the visual systems, attempts at subliminal communication, and "visual" effects in film and television.

Catalog Distribution: (ETM-AS) (KCM-AG)

Full details for COGST 3420 - Human Perception: Application to Computer Graphics, Art, and Visual Display

Although the hippocampus has been the subject of intense scrutiny for nearly 50 years, there remains considerable disagreement about functional contributions the hippocampus makes to learning and memory process. This course will examine the diverse functions attributed to the hippocampus with an eye toward integrating the differing viewpoints in the literature. After a brief historical overview, students will discuss cutting-edge literature on the hippocampal role in spatial navigation, learning, and memory, and context processing.

Catalog Distribution: (BIO-AS) (OPHLS-AG)

Full details for COGST 4230 - Navigation, Memory, and Context: What Does the Hippocampus Do?

Computational models of natural languages. Topics are drawn from: tree syntax and context free grammar, finite state generative morpho-phonology, feature structure grammars, logical semantics, tabular parsing, Hidden Markov models, categorial and minimalist grammars, text corpora, information-theoretic sentence processing, discourse relations, and pronominal coreference.

Catalog Distribution: (SMR-AS)

Full details for COGST 4240 - Computational Linguistics I

A seminar series examining current and classical ideas in human sciences and the humanities.  Themes vary from semester to semester.

Full details for COGST 4310 - Topics in Cognitive Science

Offered to students who are currently conducting research or planning to do research in the near future on one of the three topics-memory, self, or emotion. The course examines current data and theories concerning the topics from a variety of perspectives and at multiple levels of analysis, particularly focusing on the interconnections among these fields of inquiry. The "scale of observation" is viewed as occurring within the person (brain mechanisms, including genetics), at the level of the person (content-goals, beliefs, desires, etc.), and between persons (relationships and group interaction-including culture).

Full details for COGST 4350 - Mind, Self, and Emotion

What is the relationship between what words mean and how they are used? What is part of the grammar and what is a result of general reasoning? Pragmatics is often thought of as the study of how meaning depends on the context of utterance. However, it can be difficult to draw a line between pragmatics and semantics. In this course, we will investigate various topics that walk this line, including varieties of linguistic inference (including entailment and implicature), the pragmatics and compositional semantics of presupposition, anaphora and dynamic semantics, the semantics and pragmatics of focus, indexicals, and speech acts.

Catalog Distribution: (ETM-AS) (KCM-AG)

Full details for COGST 4425 - Pragmatics

The class offers an introduction to the experimental methods and data analysis techniques commonly used in linguistics. Topics covered in the course will include basics of experimental design and statistical inference for hypothesis testing, as well as practical training on a variety of experimental paradigms used in syntax and semantics/pragmatics.

Catalog Distribution: (SDS-AS) (OPHLS-AG)

Full details for COGST 4477 - Experimental Methods in Language Sciences

Experience in planning, conducting, and reporting independent laboratory, field, and/or library research in an interdisciplinary area relevant to Cognitive Science.

Full details for COGST 4700 - Undergraduate Research in Cognitive Science

Provides a research workshop in which undergraduate students who are engaged in research in a particular area relevant to cognitive science can meet across disciplines to learn and practice the essentials of research using interdisciplinary approaches. In this workshop, students critique and discuss the existing literature in a field of inquiry, individual students present their research designs, methods, and results from their independent research studies, debate the interpretation of their research results, and participate in the generation of new research hypotheses and designs, in a peer group of other undergraduate students involved in related research.

Full details for COGST 4710 - Cognitive Science Research Workshop

The course will cover advanced topics in research on the emotions from central neural and peripheral physiological perspectives, with an emphasis with how emotions shape different aspects of cognition and behavior.

Full details for COGST 4720 - Current Research in Emotion, Cognition, and Brain

This course constitutes an introduction to natural language processing (NLP), the goal of which is to enable computers to use human languages as input, output, or both. NLP is at the heart of many of today's most exciting technological achievements, including machine translation, question answering and automatic conversational assistants. The course will introduce core problems and methodologies in NLP, including machine learning, problem design, and evaluation methods.

Catalog Distribution: (SMR-AS)

Full details for COGST 4740 - Natural Language Processing

Moral Psychology in Action is an applied psychology course for students who want to make a difference in the world through ethical leadership and positive contributions in organizations, and who are drawn to scholarly work on psychology, ethics, and morality.  The course is experiential and takes place mostly outside the classroom through students' individualized partnerships in community organizations, businesses, and institutions.  Learning outcomes include enhanced critical reflection, intercultural competence, ethical practice, and the practice of applied moral psychology research methods.

Full details for COGST 4940 - Moral Psychology in Action

This seminar surveys the study of how the mind/brain works, drawing primarily from six disciplines: philosophy, psychology, developmental science, neuroscience, linguistics, and computer science. It consists of lectures and discussions of readings by Cornell cognitive science faculty.

Full details for COGST 6101 - Cognitive Science Proseminar

This course states and motivates the observation that cognition is fundamentally a computational process and explores the implications of this idea. Students are introduced to a variety of conceptual tools for thinking about cognitive information processing, including statistical learning from experience and the use of patterns distilled from past experience in guiding future actions. They learn to apply these tools to gain understanding of perception, memory, motor control, language, action planning, problem solving, decision making, reasoning, intelligence, and creativity.

Full details for COGST 6140 - Computational Psychology

What is the relationship between what words mean and how they are used?  What is part of the grammar and what is a result of general reasoning?  Pragmatics is often thought of as the study of how meaning depends on the context of utterance.  However, it can be difficult to draw a line between pragmatics and semantics.  In this course, we will investigate various topics that walk this line, including varieties of linguistic inference including entailment, presupposition, and implicature), anaphora, indexicals, and speech acts.

Full details for COGST 6425 - Pragmatics

The class offers an introduction to the experimental methods and data analysis techniques commonly used in linguistics. Topics covered in the course will include basics of experimental design and statistical inference for hypothesis testing, as well as practical training on a variety of experimental paradigms used in syntax and semantics/pragmatics.

Full details for COGST 6477 - Experimental Methods in Language Sciences

One of four introductory courses in cognition and perception. A comprehensive introduction to current thinking and research in developmental psychology that approaches problems from both psychobiological and cognitive perspectives. We will use a comparative approach to assess principles of development change. The course focuses on the development of perception, action, cognition, language, and social understanding in infancy and early childhood.

Full details for COGST 7090 - Developmental Psychology