The Program in Cognitive Psychology offers research in training leading to the Ph.D. in Psychology, preparing students for jobs in academic and nonacademic settings. Students may pursue study in most areas of cognition, working with a faculty that directs flourishing research programs in basic and applied cognitive topics. Specialization areas represented by faculty research include the following: psycholinguistics, attention, reading and text processing, complex learning, memory, reasoning, social processes in cognition, and cognitive neuroscience. In addition to these basic cognitive topics, many faculty and graduate students work on research problems drawn from issues of learning and instruction. These include research on specific subject matter learning (math, science, and history), computer tutoring systems, and related problems of complex learning. Other topics include political reasoning, argumentation, and socially facilitated learning.
The Learning Research & Development Center (LRDC) is a multidisciplinary research institute with an emphasis on research on learning. Most cognitive faculty and graduate students are associated with LRDC, which provides excellent lab and computer resources. Students holding research appointments in LRDC are able to pursue a wide variety of cognitive research interests.