Cognitive and Brain Science

At the biological core of all life on Earth is the gene. The unique combination of genes in each individual ultimately forms the basis for that person's physical appearance, metabolic capacity, thought processes, and behavior. Therefore, in order to understand how life develops and functions, it is critical to understand what genes are, how they work, and how they are passed on from parents to offspring. In this course, we will begin by investigating the theories of inheritance first put forth by Mendel, then progress to our current concepts of how genes are transmitted through individuals, families, and whole populations. We will also examine chromosome structure and the mechanisms and molecular functions of genes and DNA within cells, as well as how mutations in DNA can lead to physical abnormalities and diseases such as Trisomy 21, hemophilia, or others. Finally, we will discuss the role of genetics in influencing complex phenotypes such as behavior or traits such as intelligence. Classes will be supplemented with weekly lab work.

What do TikTok, Bitcoin, ChatGPT, self-driving vehicles, and Zoom have in common? The answer lies in this course, which focuses on how digital technologies have rapidly altered (and continue to alter) daily life. In this course, we will develop a series of core principles that attempt to explain the rapid change and forge a reasoned path to the future. We will begin with a brief history of privacy, private property, and privacy law. Two examples of early 20th-century technologies that required legal thinking to evolve are whether a pilot (and passengers) of a plane are trespassing when the plane flies over someone's backyard and whether the police can listen to a phone call from a phone booth (remember those?) without a warrant. Quickly, we will arrive in the age of information and can update those conundrums: A drone flies by with an infrared camera. A copyrighted video is viewed on YouTube via public WiFi. A hateful comment is posted on reddit. A playful TikTok is taken out of context and goes viral for all to see. An illicit transaction involving Bitcoin is made between seemingly anonymous parties via Venmo. A famous musician infuriates their fanbase by releasing a song supporting an authoritarian politician—but it turns out to be a deepfake. A core tension in the course is whether and how the internet should be regulated and how to strike a balance among privacy, security, and free speech. We will consider major US Supreme Court cases that chart slow-motion government reaction to the high-speed change of today's wired world. In fall, students will meet weekly with the instructor for individual conferences; in spring, individual conferences will be biweekly. 

In recent years, the field of artificial intelligence (AI) has made astonishing technical progress and has begun to assume an increasingly widespread and important role in society. AI systems can now (at least to some extent) drive cars; recognize human faces, speech, and gestures; diagnose diseases; control autonomous robots; converse fluently in English; instantly translate text from one language to another; beat world-champion human players at chess, Go, and other games; and perform many other amazing feats that just a few decades ago were only possible within the realm of science fiction. This progress has led to extravagant expectations, claims, hopes, and fears about the future of AI technology and its potential impact on society. In this course, we will attempt to peer beyond the hype and to come to grips with both the promise and the peril of AI. We will consider AI from many angles, including historical, philosophical, ethical, and public-policy perspectives. We will also examine many of the technical concepts and achievements of the field in detail, as well as its many failures and setbacks. Throughout the course, students will be asked to read texts, write responses, do follow-up research, and participate in classroom discussions. This is not a programming course, and no background in computer programming is expected or required.

This lecture will be a rigorous introduction to computer science and the art of computer programming, using the elegant, eminently practical, yet easy-to-learn programming language Python. We will learn the principles of problem solving with a computer while gaining the programming skills necessary for further study in the discipline. We will emphasize the power of abstraction and the benefits of clearly written, well-structured programs, beginning with imperative programming and working our way up to object-oriented concepts such as classes, methods, and inheritance. Along the way, we will explore: the fundamental idea of an algorithm; how computers represent and manipulate numbers, text, and other data (such as images and sound) in binary; Boolean logic; conditional, iterative, and recursive programming; functional abstraction; file processing; and basic data structures, such as lists and dictionaries. We will also learn introductory computer graphics, how to process simple user interactions via mouse and keyboard, and some principles of game design and implementation. All students will complete a final programming project of their own design. Weekly hands-on laboratory sessions will reinforce the concepts covered in class through extensive practice at the computer.

Compilers are often known as translators—and for good reason: Their job is to take programs written in one language and translate them to another language (usually assembly or machine language) that a computer can execute. It is, perhaps, the ideal meeting between the theoretical and practical sides of computer science. Modern compiler implementation offers a synthesis of: 1) language theory: how languages (both natural languages and programming languages) can be represented on, and recognized by, a computer; 2) software design and development: how practical software can be developed in a modular way—for example, how components of one compiler can be connected to components of another compiler to form a new compiler; and 3) computer architecture: understanding how modern computers work. In this course, we will write a program implementing a nontrivial compiler for a novel programming language (partly of our own design). Topics covered will include the difference between interpreters and compilers; regular expressions and finite automata; context-free grammars and the Chomsky hierarchy; type checking and type inference; contrasts between syntax and semantics; and graph coloring as applied to register allocation. Conference work will allow students to pursue different aspects of compilers, such as compilation of object-oriented languages, automatic garbage collection, compiler optimizations, just-in-time compilation, WebAssembly, and applications of compiler technology to natural-language translation.

This course will be an introduction to computer programming through the lens of old-school, arcade-style video games such as Pong, Adventure, Breakout, Pac-Man, Space Invaders, and Tetris. We will learn programming from the ground up and demonstrate how it can be used as a general-purpose, problem-solving tool. The course will emphasize the power of abstraction and the benefits of clearly written, well-structured code, covering topics such as variables, conditionals, iteration, functions, lists, and objects. We will focus on event-driven programming and interactive game loops. We will consider when it makes sense to build software from scratch and when it might be more prudent to make use of existing libraries and frameworks rather than reinventing the wheel. Some of the early history of video games and their lasting cultural importance will also be discussed. Students will design and implement their own low-res, but fun-to-play, games. No prior experience with programming or web design is necessary (nor expected, nor even desirable).

The field of artificial intelligence (AI) is concerned with reproducing in computers the abilities of human intelligence. In recent years, exciting new approaches to AI have been developed, inspired by a wide range of biological processes and structures that are capable of self-organization, adaptation, and learning. These sources of inspiration include biological evolution, neurophysiology, and animal behavior. This course is an in-depth introduction to the algorithms and methodologies of biologically-inspired AI and is intended for students with prior programming experience. We will focus primarily on machine-learning techniques—including genetic algorithms, reinforcement learning, artificial neural networks, and deep learning—from both a theoretical and a practical perspective. Throughout the course, we will use the Python programming language to implement and experiment with these algorithms in detail. Students will have many opportunities for extended exploration through open-ended, hands-on lab exercises and conference work.

Our existence lies in a perpetual state of change. An apple falls from a tree, clouds move across expansive farmland, blocking out the sun for days; meanwhile, satellites zip around the Earth, transmitting and receiving signals to our cell phones. Calculus was invented to develop a language to accurately describe the motion and change happening all around us. The ancient Greeks began a detailed study of change, but they were scared to wrestle with the infinite; so it was not until the 17th century that Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz, among others, tamed the infinite and gave birth to this extremely successful branch of mathematics. Though just a few hundred years old, calculus has become an indispensable research tool in both the natural and social sciences. Our study begins with the central concept of the limit and proceeds to explore the dual processes of differentiation and integration. Numerous applications of the theory will be examined. Weekly group conferences will be run in hands-on workshop mode. This course is intended for students interested in advanced study in mathematics or sciences, students preparing for careers in the health sciences or engineering, and any student wishing to broaden and enrich the life of the mind. 

Variance, correlation coefficient, regression analysis, statistical significance, and margin of error—these terms and other statistical phrases have been bantered about before and seen interspersed in news reports and research articles. But what do they mean? How are they used? And why are they so important? Serving as an introduction to the concepts, techniques, and reasoning central to the understanding of data, this course will focus on the fundamental methods of statistical analysis used to gain insight into diverse areas of human interest. The use, misuse, and abuse of statistics will be the central focus of the course; and specific topics of exploration will be drawn from experimental design theory, sampling theory, data analysis. and statistical inference. Applications will be considered in current events, business, psychology, politics, medicine, and many other areas of the natural and social sciences. Statistical software will be introduced and used extensively in this course, but no prior experience with spreadsheet technology is assumed. Group conferences, conducted in workshop mode, will serve to reinforce student understanding of the course material. This course is recommended for any student wishing to be a better-informed consumer of data, and strongly recommended for those planning to pursue advanced undergraduate or graduate research in the natural sciences or social sciences. 

Our subject will be the worlds of childhood. In this course, we will implement different psychological theories to highlight different aspects of those worlds. Freud, Erikson, Bowlby, and Stern will provide perspectives on emotional development. Skinner, Bandura, Piaget, and Vygotsky will present various approaches to the problems of learning and cognition. Chess and Kagan will take up the issue of temperament and its interaction with experience. Chomsky and others will deal with the development of language. Bronfenbrenner and his colleagues will emphasize the importance of considering the contexts of children’s development in family, school, community, and culture. We will also look at some systematic studies that developmental psychologists have carried out to confirm, test, and critique various theories: studies of parent-infant relationships, the development of cognition and language, and the emergence of intersubjectivity. In several of these domains, studies done in cultures other than our own will cast light on the question of universality versus cultural specificity in development. Another major way of learning the worlds of childhood is via direct experience with children. In this course, all students will do fieldwork at the Early Childhood Center (ECC). At times, the course will draw on students' written ECC observations to support or critique theoretical concepts. The fieldwork will also provide the basis for developing conference work. Typically, conference projects will combine student interests, library readings, and fieldwork observations. Children’s friendships, what makes children laugh, the functions of language, and a case study of a single child are included among the many diverse topics of past student projects. With the permission of the head teacher, creating an activity for the children at ECC in music, dance, or science may be possible as a conference work option.

What makes linguistic communication possible? Do other primates "talk"? How do we understand messages from one another despite uncertainty and noise? In this course, we will consider central questions about language: Are we the only ones who have it? When did we learn it? How does artificial intelligence mimic it? This course will start with an introduction to comparative research with other species (nonhuman primates, whales, and insects), allowing students to consider many possible forms of communication. Next, we will look at humans. What can studies with babies and children tell us about the nature of our communication system? Finally, we will explore how large language models, such as ChatGPT, produce text that might look and feel like human writing. What have these models learned, and how should we study them? Students should come prepared to engage with the topic of communication from multiple perspectives, including empirical/scientific and critical. Through weekly small-group conferences, students will develop projects that relate the course to their collective interests, such as learning and communicating in Toki Pona (a philosophical artistic-constructed language), researching the limits of artificial intelligence language models, observing and analyzing children’s communication, or designing a behavioral intervention study that implements and evaluates different communication practices.

In recent decades, dialogues among architects, designers, psychologists, and neuroscientists have markedly increased in frequency, leading to the creation of a new field of interdisciplinary study: neuroarchitecture. The formation of the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture in 2002 intensified and facilitated these communications across disciplinary boundaries. The architecture-neuroscience conversation is productive in both directions. Advances in contemporary understanding of the neural dynamics of constructive perception can inform architects; for example, mapping of neural pathways can provide points of access to the variety of largely unconscious processes that contribute to humans’ responses to the built environment. On the other hand, consideration of the complexities and specificities of buildings created by architects, engineers, and builders encourages neuroscientists and psychologists to advance their understandings of how a host of cognitive and emotional processes are integrated. The study of the responses of brains and bodies to buildings brings together work on sensory perception, attention, emotion, imagination, memory, planning, spatial navigation, aesthetics, and language. We will listen in on these lively architecture-neuroscience conversations by sampling from the wealth of new cross-disciplinary writings, such as Ann Sussman and Justin Hollander’s Cognitive Architecture: Designing for How We Respond to the Built Environment and Michael Arbib’s When Brains Meet Buildings: A Conversation Between Neuroscience and Architecture. A vital component of this course will be furthering the conversation by applying the concepts discussed in our readings to our own lived experience of the built environment. Many of the examples presented in weekly lectures will come from the instructor's experiences with the cities of New York and Edinburgh. The examples that students bring to our weekly seminars will draw on their own lived experience of diverse environments. Throughout the semester, we will explore how the design of healthy, sustainable buildings can enhance well-being.

When is sex not a natural act? Every time a human engages in sexual activity. In sex, what is done by whom, with whom, where, when, why, and with what has very little to do with biology. Human sexuality poses a significant challenge in theory. The study of its disparate elements (biological, social, and individual/psychological) is inherently an interdisciplinary undertaking; from anthropologists to zoologists, all angles of study add something to our understanding of sexual behaviors and meanings. From an intersectional perspective, in this course, we will study sexualities in social contexts across the lifespan, from infancy to old age. Race, ethnicity, gender, and social class, among other identities, impact sexuality both individually and structurally. Within each period, we will examine biological, social, and psychological factors that inform the experience of sexuality for individuals. We will also examine broader aspects of sexuality, including sexual health and sexual abuse. Conference projects may range from empirical research to a bibliographic research project.

We must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can and guard against the growing into ways that are likely to be disadvantageous to us, as we should guard against the plague. —William James, 1887, Habit

We all want happy lives filled with meaning and satisfaction. Yet, for many of us, happiness can be difficult to obtain with regularity or to sustain over a long period of time. Happiness is more than a feeling; rather, it is a state of well-being that should last a lifetime. Like exercising to improve physical health, it takes sustained cognitive effort to improve our mental health and engage in practices to promote well-being. We can look to evidence from the fields of psychology and neuroscience that tells us that we are mentally unprepared to: 1) predict what will make us happy, and 2) engage in behaviors that are known to make us happier. This course will cover the psychological and brain-based factors for why happiness feels so fleeting and what we can do to build better and more effective habits that have been shown to lead to longer-term maintenance of a positive mood and well-being. Students will read foundational work in the field of positive psychology by Martin Seligman, Sonja Lyubomirsky, Edward Diener, Daniel Kahneman, and others. We will also discuss studies in neuroscience that show how behavioral interventions in positive psychology can impact the brain’s structure and function—just like building stronger muscles during exercise. Through small-group conferences, students will apply evidence-based practices, such as bringing order and organization to their daily lives, expressing gratitude, and building social bonds (i.e., “cross training” for the mind) in activities called “Rewirements.” For the final project, called “Unlearning Yourself,” students will learn to undo or replace a detrimental habit (e.g., overspending, social-media use, poor sleep hygiene, complaining, or procrastinating) by establishing a plan to cultivate evidence-based practices for sustained well-being. By the end of this course, students will have gained the ability to sift through the ever-booming literature on positive psychology and neuroscience to identify the practices that work best for them, along with an appreciation for the notion that finding and keeping happiness and well-being requires intentional practice and maintenance. Students should come prepared to engage in meaningful self-work. 

How does the human mind represent the world? How do these representations vary across people? Could using a different language change how we experience time—or even how we see color? Seemingly straightforward concepts such as “in” versus “on” mean different things in different cultures; and words such as “two” and “three” may not be linguistically universal. Indeed, this very course description makes culturally-specific assumptions about psychology and implicitly assumes objectivity. At the same time, humans seem to share many central experiences, such as perceiving events, creating categories, and recalling the past. In this course, we will draw on research from psycholinguistics, cognitive development, and cultural psychology to learn cognitive science in a larger context. Critically, we will consider how these fields have been affected by a focus on Western, white, industrialized experiences. The course will investigate the broader social and ethical consequences of these assumed perspectives and explore insights and challenges that emerge when we step out of them. We will draw on primary and secondary sources, including scientific research articles, literature, and recordings. Students will develop projects in conference work that combine their interests with the course content, such as designing an experiment to test cross-linguistic effects on visual attention, analyzing vocabulary from languages other than English, or developing proposals to redesign existing experiments using culturally-informed practices.

Psychological trauma has been described as unspeakable, so cognitively disorganizing and intense that it is difficult to put into words the experience and the emotions that it evokes. Yet, the language that survivors use to describe their traumas provides insight into the psychology impact of trauma and the process of recovery. This course will begin with an overview of theories of trauma, resilience, and post-traumatic growth, as well as an introduction to the study of trauma narratives and how language reflects emotional and cognitive functioning. We will then explore different aspects of the cognitive, emotional, and biological impact of undergoing a trauma and how these changes are reflected in the language that trauma survivors use as they speak and write about their experiences. We will consider works by experts on trauma and language, including Judith Herman, Bessel van der Kolk, and James Pennebaker, as well as current research in the field of trauma and trauma narratives. Through these readings, we will address topics such as what makes an experience traumatic, how representations of trauma in popular culture color our perceptions of trauma and recovery, the role of resilience and growth following a trauma, and what we can learn from attending to the content and structure of language. This course will be of interest to students who are curious about how the words we use reflect our cognitive and emotional functioning, especially for students interested in pursuing topics such as these at an advanced or graduate level. 

Play provides us with an amazing and informative lens for observing the development and complex inner lives of young children. Yet, play is being threatened by increasing amounts of time spent on technology and a growing societal focus on scheduled activities and academic goals. This course will offer an introduction to the many fascinating aspects of play, including the importance of unstructured free play, how play shapes the brain, sensory processing and self-regulation in play, outdoor play, cultural contexts of play, and humor development in play. Through readings, video illustrations, and discussion of student fieldwork at the Early Childhood Center, we will explore the many ways in which play contributes to the complex social, cognitive, emotional, and imaginative lives of children. This course will provide a foundation for Early Therapeutic Approaches for Young Children and Families (PSYC 7220). Fieldwork at the Early Childhood Center is required for this course.

Your heart beats faster, your palms sweat, and your pupils dilate—all at once. Is this because you are exercising? Or did someone on whom you have a crush just walk into the room? Psychophysiology is the experimental study of these bodily, or peripheral, signals, which are theorized to be important “readouts” of a person’s mood (e.g., fear, happiness, anger). In this course, students will gain a foundational understanding of the psychological concepts of emotions, the biological processes that give rise to peripheral autonomic arousal (automatic bodily activation), and how these responses are naturally regulated by the brain and body in an attempt to reach homeostasis (internal stability). In fall, we will explore major theories of emotion and conceptual aspects of the “mind-body” connection, including the James-Lange theory, Feldman Barrett's theory of constructed emotion, Damasio's somatic marker hypothesis, and Thayer and Lane's neurovisceral integration model, among others. In spring, we will read scientific articles in the field of human psychophysiology, which deals with measuring bodily functions in various contexts, as well as case studies of individuals with brain damage—specifically in brain areas such as the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (from work by Antonio Damasio and others) and the insula (from work by Sahib Khalsa and others). Students will also engage in hands-on labs to collect psychophysiological data (e.g., heart rate, respiration, electrodermal activity to measure sweating, pupillary responses). For fall conference projects, students will write an in-depth literature review on a topic of their choice, relating emotions to the measurements of various bodily responses. In spring, students will propose a research study that addresses a gap in the literature that they explored in fall and present their proposed research study at the Sarah Lawrence College Science and Math Poster Symposium at the end of the semester. This course may appeal to students interested in scientific studies of emotions, clinical psychology, neuroscience, neuropsychology, physiology, and conducting hands-on lab-based work.

By the time you read this course description, you have most likely learned more than 40,000 English words. That is at least an average of six words per day—and many more if you are multilingual. How is this possible? Were you born with this ability, or did you learn it? This course will be about how humans come to develop language so early and so quickly among striking environmental variation. For example, caregivers in the United States often alter and repeat their words when talking to children, while caregivers in other communities speak almost exclusively to other adults. And yet, children in both settings successfully learn language on similar timescales. How is this possible? At the same time, no two children are exactly alike. The course will explore how the spectrum of neurodiversity sets many learners on their own developmental and communicative path. We will centrally consider how language learning must be flexible to modalities by learning about babies in deaf communities who rapidly learn to comprehend and produce sign. Crucially, we will always begin by looking at data and methods: How do you actually measure a neonate’s language abilities? Or an adults? Each week, we will try out some of these experimental methods, such as artificial-language learning, and work with ministudies to collect our own data. The conference project will ask students to propose their own theory of the kind of learning mechanism that can operate under such diverse inputs. The existing proposals will be evaluated to generate critiques and improvements. The course will bring these ideas beyond the seminar room, drawing connections to second-language learning in adults, early-childhood education, and social and economic structures. Conference projects will root novel theoretical proposals of language learning in data and will be developed in conversation with existing theories of nature versus nurture, domain-specificity, and modality.

Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak. — John Berger

Psychologists and neuroscientists have long been interested in measuring and explaining the phenomena of visual perception. In this course, we will study how the visual brain encodes basic aspects of perception—such as color, form, depth, motion, shape, and space—and how they are organized into coherent percepts, or gestalts. The main goal will be to explore how the study of visual neuroscience and art can inform each other. One of our guides in these explorations will be the groundbreaking gestalt psychologist Rudolf Arnheim, who was a pioneer in the psychology of art. The more recent and equally innovative text by the neuroscientist Eric Kandel, Reductionism in Art and Brain Science, will provide our entry into the subject of neuroaesthetics. Throughout our visual journey, we will seek connections between perceptual phenomena and what is known about brain processing of visual information. This is a course for people who enjoy reflecting on why we see things as we do. It should hold particular interest for students of the visual arts who are curious about scientific explanations of the phenomena that they explore in their art, as well as students of the brain who want to study an application of visual neuroscience.

Mindfulness can be described as the awareness that arises from paying attention to the present moment in a nonjudgmental way. For thousands of years, mindfulness has been cultivated through the practice of meditation. More recently, developments in neuroimaging technologies have allowed scientists to explore the brain changes that result from the pursuit of this ancient practice, laying the foundations of the new field of contemplative neuroscience. Study of the neurology of mindfulness meditation provides a useful lens for study of the brain in general, because so many aspects of psychological functioning are affected by the practice. Topics will include: attention, perception, emotion and its regulation, mental imaging, habit, and consciousness. Students interested in the scientific study of the mind and body may be interested in this course. An important component of the course will be the personal cultivation of a mindfulness practice; to support this goal, one of the two weekly course meetings will be devoted to a mindful movement practice.

We have never known as much about the minds of children as we do now. Using the same tools, our understanding of adult cognition has also led us to surprising conclusions: Babies are often better than adults at distinguishing faces of other races, and toddlers perform spontaneous scientific experiments with their toys. This research has also raised questions: Why do adept adult readers seem to skip over entire words? Can we simultaneously entertain multiple possible interpretations of the sentences that we see and hear? And, as the movie Frozen forces us to consider: How do we finish each other’s sandwiches? In this course, students will learn about classical and cutting-edge methods for studying learning and reasoning. This course will be a deep dive into multiple measures of behavior, starting with measurements of looking behaviors (e.g., real-time eye tracking, habituation paradigms, head-turn methods), reading time, reaction time measures, and naturalistic tasks and interviews with toddlers and children. We will also review the promise of neural methods (fNIRS, fMRI, EEG), as well as their constraints. For each of these methods, we will explore how they shape ongoing debates about how best to design experiments, analyze data, and build inclusive theories that reflect human variation. In conference projects, using one of the studied behavioral methods, students will design an experiment to test their own research question, revise the proposal after peer review, and analyze and present their findings in an APA-style scientific paper. During lab sessions and conference meetings, students will learn to use their chosen behavioral method, implement the experiment, and collect preliminary data. By the end of the course, students will have a strong understanding of several central research methods in psychology, their own perspective of the strengths and limitations of different approaches, and the tools to critically evaluate and communicate about published findings.

This course will explore several therapeutic approaches for young children and their families, with a particular emphasis on the theory and technique of play therapy. While this course will focus most on Child-Centered Play Therapy (CCPT), we will also look at the methodology of other types of approaches, such as filial therapy, cognitive behavioral play therapy, and DIR/Floortime therapy. In addition, course material will highlight cultural considerations, therapeutic work with parents and caregivers, challenges in treatment, self-reflection, self-regulation, sensory processing, interoception, and analysis of clinical case studies. Readings, class discussions, group play-based activities, and video illustrations will provide students with both a theoretical and introductory clinical basis for play-based therapeutic work with young children in early intervention approaches.

Who does not love Frog and Toad? Have you ever wanted to write something like it—or perhaps like Charlotte’s Web or A Snowy Day? Why do our favorites from childhood work so well and so universally? We will begin by reading books we know and books we missed, discussing what makes them so beloved. We will look at read-to books, early readers, instructional books for children, rude books, chapter books, and books about friendship—with the potential of also examining young adult literature and what successful children’s history and biography might look like. We will discuss the place of the visual, the careful and conscious use of language, and notions of appropriateness for various age levels. Invariably, the course will discuss childhood—students' own and as part of an ever-changing set of social theories. We will try writing picture books, early readers, friendship stories, and nursery rhymes such as Mother Goose poems. Class sessions will be both lecture and conversational, and group conferences will involve reviewing our writing. Conference work will involve making a children’s book of any kind, on any level.