Temple University's Brain, Behavior, and Cognition Cluster trains students for careers in research and teaching in a variety of academic and applied settings. Faculty members in this area, as well as related faculty within the Psychology Department and adjunct faculty at near-by institutions, are conducting research on a wide range of phenomena. Faculty research interests range from molecular and genetic analysis of behavior to systems behavioral analysis.

There are three primary Ph.D. training tracks or specializations in the Brain, Behavior, and Cognition Cluster: Behavior Analysis and Learning, Cognition and Perception, and Neuroscience.

1) Behavior Analysis and Learning; faculty research interests include: human nonverbal communication; stimulus control of operant behavior; optimal foraging; time integration.

2) Cognition and Perception; faculty research interests include: motion, object, and event perception; the psychology of food; investigations of the cognitive mechanisms underlying production and comprehension of language; the nature and development of spatial representation and reasoning; early memory for childhood events; varieties of memory and consciousness; the nature of thought processes involved in problem solving and creative thinking.

3) Neuroscience; faculty research interests include: The pre and postsynaptic molecular substrates of long-lasting memories; preclinical (animal) psychopharmacological studies of drugs and molecular targets of drugs affecting learning and memory; the functioning of learning and memory in normal and clinical populations (including patients with circumscribed lesions and patients with neurodegenerative diseases).

In addition to the Ph.D. training tracks listed above, faculty in the Brain, Behavior, and Cognition Cluster also carry out research in the areas of Comparative and Evolutionary Psychology. Faculty research interests in these areas include: interactions between humans and other species; aggression and violence and the rituals that are effective in limiting them; neurobiology of evolved prosocial behaviors in animals, including parental behavior and altruism to non-kin. A strength of the Brain, Behavior, and Cognition Cluster is that faculty research examines issues germane to psychology at multiple levels, providing students with a unique opportunity to integrate research issues and concepts across a variety of perspectives.

Students begin research upon entering a track or program within the Cluster. Students' support during the first year may involve a research assistantship, which allows students to become actively involved in the ongoing research of a faculty member. Students are encouraged to become familiar with the research of all members of the Cluster, and of related and adjunct faculty, so that the student will have maximum freedom in choosing a research area for concentration. Research requirements include, in preparation for the dissertation, the production of a publishable project by the end of the second year.

Coursework is designed to expose the student to material across the broad spectrum of psychological thought represented in the department, as well as providing advanced training in disciplines of Psychology. Advanced seminars are available in the Psychology Department in the areas of memory, perception, psycholinguistics, creativity, neuroscience, behavior analysis, and cognitive development, among others. Flexibility is maintained in advanced course offerings, so that they can be shaped to meet student and faculty needs and interests. In addition, informal student-faculty seminars serve to keep students abreast of the most recent developments.

Doctoral training in the Brain, Behavior & Cognition Cluster is also designed to give the student the opportunity to learn to teach. Students are typically first given assignments as assistants in introductory psychology, which involves supervised training in teaching. This is followed by assisting in an undergraduate laboratory course, again under the close supervision of a faculty member. Advanced students are given the opportunity to teach undergraduate content and laboratory courses of their own, so that our students usually complete their degrees with an impressive teaching record. Graduates have taken positions at universities, institutions, and industry around the world.

For further information or questions concerning the Brain, Behavior, & Cognition Cluster contact:

Dr. Robert Weisberg
Director, Brain, Behavior, and Cognition
Email: weisberg@temple.edu

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Faculty

Interests: Object and event perception: Visual segmentation and grouping in illusory contours and partially occluded objects; how humans perceive point-light walkers and recognize actions; the psychology of food.


Robert Weisberg, Ph.D., Princeton University--Cognition and Perception.
Email: weisberg@temple.edu
Web Page: http://www.temple.edu/psychology/FacultyWebs/Weisberg/weisberg.html

Interests: Laboratory studies of insight and fixation in problem solving; case studies of creative thinking in music, art, invention, and science.

Diana S. Woodruff-Pak, Ph.D., - Neuroscience

email: pak@temple.edu
Web Page: http://www.temple.edu/psychology/FacultyWebs/Woodruff-Pak/woodruff-pak.html

Interests: Neurobiology of learning, memory and aging.

 

Adjunct Faculty

Saul Axelrod, Ph.D, School of Education, Temple University

Toby Jarbe, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, Temple University

Myrna Schwartz, Ph.D, Moss Rehabilitation Hospital.

Margo Storm, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, Temple University