Courses

This course provides an introduction to the science of the mind. Everyone knows what it's like to think and perceive, but this subjective experience provides little insight into how minds emerge from physical entities like brains. To address this issue, cognitive science integrates work from at least five disciplines: Psychology, Neuroscience, Computer Science, Linguistics, and Philosophy. This course introduces students to the insights these disciplines offer into the workings of the mind by exploring visual perception, attention, memory, learning, problem solving, language, and consciousness. 

Full details for COGST 1101 - Introduction to Cognitive Science

Designing Human-Centered, Healthy and Hospitable Environments is a three-week course examining design innovations and some impacts on management/operations in hospitality, communication, business, healthcare, and senior housing. During this course students will learn how design impacts organizations and every aspect of daily life. Using case studies, familiar examples, and interactions with a variety of leaders from design, healthcare and hospitality fields, students will engage with design thinking and explore new career pathways.

Full details for COGST 1112 - Change-making: Designing Healthy & Hospitable Environments

Environmental Psychology is an interdisciplinary field concerned with how the physical environment and human behavior interrelate. Most of the course focuses on how residential environments and urban and natural settings affect human health and well-being. Students also examine how human attitudes and behaviors affect environmental quality. Issues of environmental justice and culture are included throughout. Hands-on projects plus exams.

Full details for COGST 1500 - Introduction to Environmental Psychology

Introduction to psychology from a biological perspective, which focuses on brain mechanisms of behavior. Topics include the structure and function of the nervous system, physiological approaches to understanding behavior, hormones and behavior, biological bases of sensation and perception, learning and memory, cognition, emotion, and communication.

Full details for COGST 2230 - Intro to Behavioral Neuroscience

Focuses on networks of brain regions that are organized around the integration of processes related to emotion and motivation. The course first explores brain pathways for processing visual, auditory, body and face movements, and tactile stimuli that comprise the raw material used to judge the emotional significance of external events. Next, brain regions involved in the (1) emotional evaluation of that sensory input, and (2) emotional expression once a significant event is identified are described. Then, brain processes underlying the special nature of human emotional experience (subjective feelings) are explored. All of these basic emotional processes are extended by placing them within widespread brain networks that modulate emotional behavior. There is an emphasis on social contexts and the development of social emotions, including social bonding and social rejection. The manner in which emotional stress influences learning and memory, with implications for PTSD, concludes the course.

Full details for COGST 3660 - Affective and Social Neuroscience