What is expected of first-year students?
Courses: In the first year, graduate students sit in on a weekly seminar and take two semesters of statistics and graduate level cognitive psychology. The first semester of the cognitive psychology course focuses on higher-level cognition (memory, concepts, language, judgment and decision-making, etc) and serves as an introduction to mathematical modeling. The second semester focuses on lower-level cognition (perception, attention, etc) with an emphasis on neuroscience. Research: I involve students in research right away. Indeed, there is a (somewhat flexible) departmental expectation that students will complete a project by the end of the first year. Unless the student has a strong idea for a project, I like to start the student on an on-going project or a project which I have designed (input is welcome, of course). See the research page for some representative research. Part of this first project will likely involve learning to program an experiment, procuring human subject approval,
