School of Arts and Sciences
Department of Philosophy

Minor in Cognitive and Brain Sciences

The Minor in Cognitive and Brain Science consists of taking core courses in Philosophy and Psychology with additional courses drawn from the Departments of Child Study and Human Development, Education, and Computer Science. The Cognitive and Brain Science minor augments the program of study of other majors with connections to this interdisciplinary area of study. 

For questions about the Cognitive and Brain Sciences minor, please contact Jaouad Elkamouss or Professor Brian Epstein.

Program Requirements and Policies

  • The minor in Cognitive and Brain Sciences requires seven courses.
  • At least five of the required courses must be in departments different from the student's major.
  • The selection of courses must be approved by the student's advisor. Other courses may be admitted for the minor with the approval of the student's advisor and advisor notification of the DARS coordinator at Student Services.
  • No more than two courses used for any minor, regardless of the number of semester hours they carry, may be used toward a major or another minor.

Course Requirements

  1. PSY 9: Introduction to Cognitive and Brain Sciences
  2. PHIL 15: Introduction to Linguistics and/or COMP 15 Data Structures
  3. PSY 195: Senior Seminar in Cognitive and Brain Sciences (fall only, 2 credits)
  4. The remainder of the seven courses are to be selected from at least two of the following groups:
    1. Psychology Courses:
      PSY 11: Developmental Psychology
      PSY 25: Physiological Psychology
      PSY 26: Animal Learning and Cognition
      PSY 27: Perception
      PSY 28: Cognitive Psychology
      CSHD 51: Intellectual Development of Young Children
      PSY 80: Psychology of Music
      PSY 103: Brain and Behavior
      PSY 118: Topics in Infancy
      PSY 122: Cognitive Aging
      PSY 126: Origins of Cognition
      PSY 129: Cognitive Neuroscience
      PSY 140: Mathematical Psychology
      PSY 142: Seminar in Affective Neuroscience
      PSY 144: Memory and Retention
      PSY 145: Mental Representation
      PSY 180: Music, Language, and the Brain
    2. Philosophy, Linguistics, and Psycholinguistics Courses:
      PHIL 3: Language and Mind
      PHIL 33 or 103: Logic
      PHIL 38: Rational Choice
      PHIL 110/PSY 153: Biological Foundations of Language
      PHIL 111/PSY 150: Semantics
      PHIL 112/PSY 151: Syntactic Theory
      PHIL 113/PSY 132: Cognition of Society and Culture
      PHIL 114: Topics in Logic
      PHIL 117: Philosophy of Mind
      PHIL 126: Theories of Human Nature
      PHIL 133: Philosophy of Language
      PHIL 134: Philosophy of Social Science
      PHIL 170: Computation Theory
      PHIL 191: Foundations of Cognitive Science
      PSY 149: Psychology of Language
      PSY 152: Psychology of Bilingualism
      PSY 155: Phonological Theory
      CSHD 152: Development of Thought and Language
      CSHD 155: The Young Child's Development of Language
      CSHD 177: Bilingual Studies
      CSHD 195: Developmental Disorders in Language and Reading
      CSHD 243: Reading, Dyslexia, and the Brain
      ED/ML/GER 144: Linguistic Approaches to Second Language Acquisition
    3. Computer Science Courses:
      COMP 131: Artificial Intelligence
      COMP 135: Machine Learning and Data Mining
      COMP 150: BBR Behavior-Based Robotics
      COMP 150: MOD Computational Models in Cognitive Science
      COMP 170: Computation Theory
      COMP 171: Human Computer Interaction