MSc. Cognitive Science Courses

Cognitive science is a new approach in the study of mind and brain. Scientists in this field try to find a deeper understanding of perception, thinking, memory, language comprehension, judgment, other cognitive faculties and also effective phenomena in cognition. They also try to analyze mechanisms and procedures involving in the occurrence of these phenomena thoroughly.

Considering that cognitive science is an interdisciplinary field, which is created by the interactions of different majors (i.e. psychology, computer science, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, philosophy of mind, linguistics and anthropology) students in this major should gain knowledge and experience in all the aforementioned fields.

Cognitive psychology:

Cognitive psychology is a field in which cognitive faculties such as problem solving, attention, memory, perception, language and decision making are analyzed. Subjects such as how humans percept, diagnose and solve problems, how humans understand inputs from senses e.g. visual, how does human memory works and what is its structure are amongst the matters which are significant to the researchers. Cognitive psychologists consider mind as data processing machine and their approach to the study of mind and brain is based on the similarities between brain and computer functions.

Cognitive Neuroscience:
Cognitive neuroscience focuses on the cognitive faculties and is highly dependent on methods and findings of neuroscience. It desires to know how mental activities take place in the brain. So scientists in this field perform laboratory and objective examination to explore hypotheses about face recognition, language, attention, reasoning, etc. Finally they present possibilities on how these specific activities might take place in the brain.

Studies in this field is based on the brain of healthy people and sometimes people with brain injury. These methods are dependent on novel devices such as fMRI, rTMS, tDCS, EEG, etc. When people are involved in completing a cognitive task, neuroimaging techniques or brain scans provide images from the brain which shows active brain regions and networks involved in processing and completing the task.

Cognitive Neuroscience:
Cognitive neuroscience focuses on the cognitive faculties and is highly dependent on methods and findings of neuroscience. It wants to know how mental activities take place in the brain. So they perform laboratory and objective examination on hypothesis about face recognition, language, attention, reasoning, etc. Finally they present possibilities on how these specific activities might take place in the brain.

Studies in this field is based on the brain of healthy people and if necessary people with brain injury. This methods are dependent on up to date devices such as fMRI, rTMS, tDCS, EEG, etc. Especially when people are involved in completing a cognitive task, neuroimaging techniques or brain scans provide images from the brain which shows active brain regions and networks involved in processing and completing the task.