-ACT Research Group

-Center for Cognitive
Brain Imaging

-Center for the Neural
Basis of Cognition

-CHILDES System

-Children's School

-Infant Cognition
Laboratory

-Infant Language
and Learning Lab

-Lab for the Study of
Stress, Immunity
and Disease

-Learning and Problem
Solving Lab

-Pittsburgh
Mind-Body Center

-Pittsburgh Science
of Learning Center

-PsyScope

-Speech Perception &
Learning Laboratory

-Consciousness & 
Biology

Cognitive research draws on a variety of empirical methods, including protocol analysis
and eye movement monitoring, in addition to traditional behavioral methods. The studies
involve a variety of populations, including experts and novices in particular content
domains, bilinguals, and neuropsychological patients, such as those with visual neglect
or aphasia. The theoretical work often involves computer simulation, drawing on both
symbolic and connectionist computational approaches. Both introductory and more
advanced experience in these methods is available through research projects courses
and workshops. Other on-going cognitive research examines the neural underpinnings of
cognition, using functional neuroimaging of normal individuals and patients with particular
deficits performing well-specified cognitive tasks.

Research groups frequently interact with groups in other departments with related interests,
including researchers in computer science, human-computer interaction, and robotics at
CMU, and in the neurosciences at the University of Pittsburgh. The graduate program in
cognitive psychology encourages the analysis of the functional and neural mechanisms
underlying cognition using a variety of methodologies, populations, and computational
formalisms.

Cognitive Neuroscience
Cognitive neuroscience is a flourishing field that lies at the interface between traditional
cognitive psychology and the brain sciences. At Carnegie Mellon the two fields are strongly
integrated, as the description of Cognitive Psychology indicates. Our approach is
characterized by attempts to derive cognitive-level theories from a variety of types of
information, including the computational properties of neural circuits, patterns of behavioral
damage following brain injury, and measures of brain activity during the performance of
cognitive tasks. Specific foci of current research include perception and attention, reading
and language processing, learning and memory, and executive control of cognitive
functions. The research involves a number of techniques, including neuropsychological
analyses of patients with brain damage and mental disorders, computational modeling,
functional neuroimaging, and experiments on the relation between brain development and
cognition in human infants and other vertebrate species.

Students concentrating in cognitive neuroscience complement their training in psychology
with coursework and research experience in neuropsychology and neuroscience. For more
intensive training in this area, students may participate in the "Neural Processes in
Cognition" program, which is a 5-year program jointly administered by the University of
Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon.

Developmental Psychology
Understanding human behavior requires understanding how that behavior came to be.
Developmental psychologists at Carnegie Mellon study the behavioral capabilities that
infants bring to the world and the processes that allow the vast expansion of these
capabilities in infancy, childhood, and adolescence. Particular emphasis is placed on the
cognitive and perceptual-motor processes that produce development in such areas as
problem solving, mathematical and scientific reasoning, language, visual perception,
and locomotion.

What unifies the various research programs is a common effort to understand how
developmental change occurs. In service of this goal, many different experimental and
observational methods are used, including analyses of patterns of errors, verbal protocols,
hand gestures, eye movements, and exploratory behavior. Several research programs
utilize computer simulations to promote explicit theories of the skills and knowledge that
underlie children's behavior, the processes that put these skills and knowledge to work,
and the processes that govern the acquisition of more advanced competence.

There is considerable overlap of interests among the cognitive and developmental faculty,
and it is quite common for graduate students to work with faculty in both areas. Students
interested in development also often interact with researchers in the computer science
program at Carnegie Mellon, and at the Learning Research and Development Center at
the University of Pittsburgh. Thus, the program offers a wide variety of opportunities to
study many aspects of development in infants, toddlers, children, and adolescents.

Social / Personality / Health Psychology
Humans are fundamentally social beings. They are also individuals with unique histories,
experiences and perceptions. Their social and cognitive behaviors, the nature of their
relationships and their health are influenced not only by the social contexts in which they
find themselves but also by the personality traits they bring to those situations. The
social/personality psychologists in the department are interested in the areas of emotions,
health, relationships, stress and coping. Included in their work are studies on the nature of
relationships, the functions of emotions within relationships, the impact of personality
characteristics and social support on health, and the impact of stress on relationships and
health. Within the area of health psychology, studies are being done on the role of 
psychological and social factors in heart disease, cancer and infectious diseases.
Within the area of relationship research, studies are being done on psychological
processes occurring in newly forming relationships, friendships, romantic relationships
and marriages.

The program builds upon traditional research and training experiences in the  social/personality psychology laboratory as well as on the faculty's current interests and
opportunities in applied social research. Researchers in the department interact and
collaborate with researchers at other educational and medical institutions. A current
training program in health psychology involves researchers at the University of Pittsburgh
and in Carnegie Mellon's Department of Social and Decision Sciences as well as those
within the psychology department.