Cognitive Program Area

Overview The Department of Psychology at the University at Albany, State University of New York, offers the opportunity for exceptional students to pursue graduate study in Cognitive Psychology. The cognitive area consists of a group of active faculty whose research interests span topics including Human Memory, Visual Attention, Auditory and Visual Word Recognition and Reading, and Second Language Processing and Bilingualism.
Graduate students take courses in the core areas of cognition, memory, perception, psycholinguistics, statistics, and advanced seminars on selected topics. In addition, students benefit from weekly cognitive seminars, informal readings seminars and departmental colloquia.
The small size of the cognitive psychology program is conducive to interaction, and students are encouraged to collaborate with multiple faculty and with other students. The program has a strong research orientation such that when students leave they typically have multiple co-authored publications with faculty in top-tier journals (see the attached listing of faculty publications). Moreover, many of our students conduct research while they are in our program that leads to sole-authored publications (click here) and to their receiving nationally recognized research awards (click here). Students are expected to engage in research throughout their graduate study, beginning in their first year (600A and B research requirements) and culminating in their doctoral dissertations. Because most students who graduate obtain positions in an academic setting, students are encouraged to gain some teaching experience. This experience includes serving as teaching assistants in the early part of their graduate training and teaching courses as the instructor of record in the later part of their graduate careers. The research and teaching experiences our students have during their graduate training make them competitive in the job market once they receive their Ph.D.s. Click here for a listing of positions currently held by former students.
Facilities The Cognitive Program’s research facilities include hardware and software to test subjects in a wide range of experiments that allow presentation of auditory as well as visual stimuli, and collection of manual or vocal responses. Albany has a large volunteer participant pool, providing an ample supply of participants for experiments. Students who are interested in interdisciplinary work will benefit from the Cognitive Program’s affiliations with the Child Research and Study Center, Programs in Linguistics and Cognitive Science and in Information Technology. The University Library contains over 1.7 million volumes and 16,000 journals, an interactive media center, and a state-of-the-art electronic library system. Most offices and labs are networked with the University Computer Center, which has IBM, MAC, VAX and Unix systems available for data analysis and electronic communication.
Financial Aid Students in good standing in the Cognitive Program at Albany typically receive four years of financial support in the form of academic-year assistantships or (in the fourth year) teaching fellowships. Many students supplement their incomes during the summer by working as paid research assistants or by teaching summer courses of their own.
Admissions Individuals interested in obtaining application materials or additional information about the program in Cognitive Psychology at the University at Albany may contact the Dr. Laurie Feldman, Program Director, University at Albany, State University of New York, Department of Psychology, SS369, 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany, NY 12222 (Ph: 518-442-4820; Fax: 518-442-4867).
Typical Course Sequence in Cognitive Psychology Year One: Fall-Spring APSY 510 Stats and Methods APSY 511 Stats and Methods APSY 603 Cognitive Psych Out of Area Course APSY 600 A Research Project APSY 600 B Research Project Out of Area Course APSY 721 Complex Mental Processing Year Two: Fall-Spring Out of Area Course APSY 699 MA Thesis Out of Area Course APSY 624 Human Memory APSY 782 Topics in Cog Psy APSY 565 Psych of language APSY 892 Practicum in teaching APSY 782 Topics in Cog Psy Year Three: Fall-Spring APSY 625 Info Processing APSY 782Q Topics in Cog Psy APSY 782 Topics in Cog Psy APSY 894 APSY 894 Directed readings APSY 894 Directed readings Year Four: Fall-Spring APSY 782 Topics in Cog Psy APSY 782 Topics in Cog Psy APSY 894 Directed readings APSY 894 Directed readings Years Subsequent to the Completion of the Qualifying Examination: APSY 899 Doctoral research
Faculty in Cognitive Psychology Jeanette Altarriba Ph.D., 1990, Vanderbilt University. Psychology of language; second language acquisition; bilingualism; cognition and emotion; cognition and culture; social cognition. Email: ja087@albany.edu Laurie B. Feldman Research Associate Haskins Laboratories Ph.D., 1980, University of Connecticut. Morphology and phonology in word recognition. (Chinese, English, Hebrew, Serbian) second language acquisition of English morphology. Email: lf503@albany.edu James H. Neely, Program Director Ph.D., 1975, Yale University. Semantic context effects on word recognition; implicit and explicit memory; attention. Email: jn562@albany.edu W. Trammell Neill Ph.D., 1977, University of Oregon. Attention; pattern recognition; reading processes; implicit memory; functions of consciousness. Email: neill@albany.edu Frank R. Vellutino Ph.D., 1964, Catholic University of America. Developmental reading; cognitive and linguistic underpinnings of reading and reading disability. Email: frv@albany.edu Links and Documents Current Positions of Former Students Student Awards Student Papers