Cognition and Perception Overview
How do we extract, interpret, process, store, and retrieve information about the world? The faculty within the Cognition and Perception area focus on these fundamental information-processing questions using a variety of experimental techniques. Areas of faculty expertise include visual perception, attention, language, and reasoning. While all investigators in the Area draw upon traditional behavioral measures, some utilize computational models and modern brain imaging tools such as functional MRI and Event Related Potentials to address how perceptual and cognitive processes are implemented in the brain. Graduate students can expect an exciting, challenging, and rigorous experience – both in the classroom and in the laboratory – uncovering the workings of the human mind and brain.
Cognition and Perception Faculty |
May accept and train new psychology graduate students: |
UW Psychology Faculty
John Baer |
No |
| Research Professor | |
| Brief and preventive interventions for substance use; Process and outcome of addiction treatment; Motivational interviewing; Training evaluation |
David Barash |
No |
| Professor | |
| Animal Behavior, Evolutionary Psychology, Peace Studies |
Kimberly Barrett |
No |
| Senior Lecturer | |
| Race, Ethncity, & Culture in Child Development, Ethnic Identity Formation, Children's Experiences with Racism |
Miriam Bassok |
Yes Cognition and Perception |
| Associate Professor | |
| Learning, Problem Solving, Analogical Reasoning |
Theodore Beauchaine |
Yes Child Clinical Quantitative |
| Robert Bolles & Yasuko Endo Associate Professor & Associate Chair | |
| Child Psychopathology, Biobehavioral Models of Disinhibition & Emotion Regulation, Clinical Research Methods, Taxometrics |
Michael Beecher |
Yes Animal Behavior |
| Professor of Psychology and Zoology | |
| Animal Behavior, Animal Communication, Sensory Processes |
Ilene Bernstein |
Yes Behavioral Neuroscience Developmental |
| Professor | |
| Behavioral Neuroscience, Mechanisms Affecting Learning, Motivation & Taste Preference |
Geoffrey Boynton |
Yes Cognition and Perception |
| Associate Professor | |
| Visual perception and its neural basis |
Eliot Brenowitz |
Yes Animal Behavior |
| Professor of Psychology and Zoology | |
| Animal Behavior, Neuroethology, Neuroendocrinology, Animal Communication |
Jonathon Brown |
|
| Associate Professor | |
| Nature, Origins, & Consequences of Self-Esteem |
Steven Buck |
Yes Cognition and Perception Behavioral Neuroscience |
| Professor | |
| Visual perception, color vision, rod-cone interactions, neural substrate of human vision |
John Cassedy |
No |
| Research Professor Emeritus | |
| Auditory Brainstem Pathways, Integrative Functions of the Inferior Colliculus |
Ana Mari Cauce |
Yes Child Clinical |
| Earl Carlson Professor of Psychology; Professor of American Ethnic Studies; Dean, College of Arts & Sciences | |
| At-risk Children, Adolescents, & Families; Ethnic Minority Youth; Homeless Youth; Adolescent Substance Abuse; Community Psychology |
Sapna Cheryan |
Yes Social and Personality |
| Assistant Professor | |
| Stereotypes, Identity, Diversity, Belonging, Group Status |
Emily Clark |
|
Ellen Covey |
Yes Behavioral Neuroscience |
| Professor | |
| Integration of Auditory Signals by the Mammalian Nervous System, Echolocation in Bats |
Geraldine Dawson |
Child Clinical |
| Professor Emeritus | |
| Currently: Chief Scientific Officer, Autism Speaks, New York, NY Child Neuropsychology, Electrophysiology, Assessment & Treatment of Autism |
Jaime Diaz |
Yes Behavioral Neuroscience |
| Professor | |
| Brain Development, Developmental Psychopharmacology, and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education |
Corey Fagan |
No |
| Senior Lecturer; Director, Psychological Services & Training Center | |
| Psychotherapy with Adolescents & Adult Women, Individual & Family Therapy for Adults & Adolescents |
Fred Fiedler |
No |
| Professor Emeritus | |
| Leadership and group effectiveness, social and organizational psychology |
Ione Fine |
Yes Cognition and Perception |
| Assistant Professor | |
| Learning & Memory, Vision Research, Developmental Biology |
Douglas Fitts |
Yes Behavioral Neuroscience |
| Research Associate Professor | |
| Neurobiology, Salt/Water Regulation, Drinking |
Brian Flaherty |
Yes Quantitative Developmental |
| Assistant Professor | |
| Measurement; Analysis of change over time; Substance use and development of dependence |
William George |
Yes Adult Clinical |
| Professor | |
| Alcohol Use & Sexuality, Sexual Risk-Taking Behaviors, Sexual Assault, Cultural Issues |
Lexi Giblin |
No |
| Lecturer | |
| Eating disorders, body image dissatisfaction, children and adolescents |
John Gottman |
No |
| Professor Emeritus | |
| Children's Emotional Development, Children's Friendships, Family Interaction, Marital Interaction, Social Psychophysiology |
Anthony Greenwald |
Yes Social Personality Cognition and Perception |
| Professor | |
| Unconscious and implicit cognition; prejudice and stereotypes; subliminal priming |
James Ha |
Yes Animal Behavior |
| Research Associate Professor | |
| Primate Development, Behavior, & Reproduction; Corvid (Crow) Social Foraging; Orca Social Behavior |
Renee Ha |
No |
| Lecturer | |
| Foraging, Evolution of Social Behavior in Corvids & Primates, Molecular Genetics |
Earl Hunt |
No |
| Professor Emeritus | |
Individual Differences in Cognition, Cognition in Education & the Workplace, Artificial Intelligence, Computer Simulation Models of Reasoning, Mathematical Models of Thought Current CV |
Kayo Inoue |
|
Susan Joslyn |
Yes Cognition and Perception |
| Senior Lecturer | |
| Decision Making in Applied Settings, Autobiographical Memory |
Peter Kahn |
Yes Developmental |
| Associate Professor | |
| Social and Moral Development. Human-Robot Interaction. The Psychological Effects of Digitized Natural Information |
Cheryl Kaiser |
Yes Social and Personality |
| Assistant Professor | |
| Self, Social Identity, Prejudice, Stigma, Social Justice, Intersection of Social Science and Law |
Lynn Katz |
Yes Child Clinical Developmental |
| Research Associate Professor | |
| Effects of Marital Discord on Children, Antisocial Children, Social Psychophysiology, Family Interaction |
Nancy Kenney |
No |
| Associate Professor & Associate Chair of Psychology Associate Professor of Women Studies | |
| Assisted Reproductive Technologies, Egg Donation, Motherhood,Role of Reproduction on Women's Lives, Social Attitudes, Experiences |
Beth Kerr |
Yes Cognition and Perception |
| Associate Professor & Associate Chair | |
| Cognition, Attention, Human Motor Control and Learning, Human Factors |
Eun Joo Kim |
|
Jeansok Kim |
Yes Behavioral Neuroscience |
| Associate Professor | |
| Neurocognitive effects of stress; Emotional plasticity; Associative learning |
Kevin King |
Not in 2009 Child Clinical |
| Assistant Professor | |
| Pathways to Alcohol and Drug Use and Dependence, Stress and Coping, Developmental Psychopathology, Longitudinal Methods |
Robert Kohlenberg |
Not in 2009-2010 Adult Clinical |
| Professor | |
| Clinical Behavior Modification, Learning, Biofeedback, Psychotherapy |
Randall Kyes |
Yes Animal Behavior |
| Research Professor Head, Div. of Intl. Programs, WaNPRC | |
| Animal Behavior, Primate Behavior/Cognition, Conservation Biology |
Liliana Lengua |
Yes Child Clinical |
| Associate Professor | |
| Understanding the roles of temperament emotionality and self-regulation, appraisal and coping in children's vulnerable or resilient responses to disadvantage, stress, & family disruptions; and examining the interaction and transaction bewteen children's temperament and parenting to predict emotional, social and behavioral adjustment. |
Janxin Leu |
Yes Social and Personality |
| Assistant Professor | |
| Culture, Emotion, Stress, Immigrant Health |
Debbie Leung |
|
Kenneth Levenstein |
|
Marsha Linehan |
Yes Adult Clinical |
| Professor | |
| Behavioral Assessment & Therapy, Suicide & Parasuicide, Borderline Personality Disorders, Drug Abuse, Behavior Therapy with Women |
Laura Little |
No |
| Senior Lecturer & Associate Chair for Teaching and Curriculum | |
| Teaching of Statistics & Methodology, Philosophy of Science |
Joan Lockard |
No |
| Professor Emeritus | |
| Primatology, Primate Social Behavior, Human Ethology, Sociobiology, Evolutionary & Neural Mechanisms of Social Behavior |
Patricia Loesche |
No |
| Lecturer | |
Geoffrey Loftus |
Yes Cognition and Perception |
| Professor | |
| Visual Perception, Relations Between Low-Level Visual & Higher-Order Cognitive Processing, Confidence & Accuracy in Recognition Memory, Eyewitness Testimony, Statistics & Methodology (particularly problems with null hypothesis significance testing), mathematical models of visual perception and memory, and Computer Applications |
G. Alan Marlatt |
Yes Adult Clinical Health Psychology |
| Professor | |
| Cognitive-Behavior Therapy & Assessment, Addictive Behaviors, Relapse Prevention, Harm Reduction, Health Psychology |
Lois McDermott |
No |
| Senior Lecturer | |
| Adult Clinical Psychology; Human Sexuality & Reproductive Physiology |
Robert McMahon |
Yes Child Clinical |
| Professor | |
| Assessment, Prevention, & Treatment of Conduct Disorders; Developmental Psychopathology, Child & Adolescent Tobacco Use, Family Interaction |
Andrew Meltzoff |
Yes Developmental |
| Professor Co-director, UW Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences | |
| Social and Cognitive Development in Infants and Young Children; Memory, Intentionality. |
John Miyamoto |
Yes Quantitative Cognition and Perception |
| Associate Professor | |
| Mathematical Psychology, Preference & Utility Theory, Cognitive Theories of Deductive & Inductive Inference, Medical Decision Making |
Sheri Mizumori |
Yes Behavioral Neuroscience |
| Professor & Chair | |
| Neurobiological Mechanisms of Plasticity, Spatial Learning & Memory |
Scott Murray |
Yes Cognition and Perception |
| Assistant Professor | |
| Visual Perception, Attention, Functional Neuroimaging |
Dana Nelson |
|
| Lecturer | |
Sean O'Donnell |
Yes Animal Behavior |
| Associate Professor, Adjunct Associate Professor of Biology | |
| Neural, Physiological, and Genotypic Effects on Social Organization & Division of Labor in Insects, Evolution of Social Behavior, Tropical Community Ecology |
Adrian O'Loghlen |
|
Jaime Olavarria |
Yes Behavioral Neuroscience |
| Associate Professor | |
| Organization, Function, & Development of Neuronal Pathways in the Mammalian Central Visual System |
Lee Osterhout |
Yes Cognition and Perception |
| Professor | |
| Psycholinguistics, Cognitive Neuroscience |
John Palmer |
Yes Cognition and Perception |
| Research Professor | |
| Perception and Cognition, especially Visual Attention. Quantitative interests include the modeling of accuracy and response time experiments. |
Michael Passer |
No |
| Senior Lecturer | |
| Social Psychology, Teaching of Psychology |
Betty Repacholi |
Yes Developmental |
| Associate Professor | |
| Social-cognitive and emotional development during infancy and early childhood. |
Gene Sackett |
No |
| Professor Emeritus | |
| Primate Behavior, Early Experience & Development |
Barbara Sarason |
No |
| Research Professor Emeritus | |
| Social Support, Stress, Cognitive Coping Skills, Personality Variables, Personal Relationships |
Irwin Sarason |
No |
| Professor Emeritus | |
| Personality, Social Support, Stress & Anxiety |
Yuichi Shoda |
Yes Social Personality |
| Professor | |
| Social Cognition, Generation and Perception of Personality Coherence |
Jane Simoni |
Yes Adult Clinical Health Psychology |
| Professor Clinical Area Coordinator Clinical Practicum Director | |
| Clinical Health & Community Psychology in Stigmatized Populations |
Joseph Sisneros |
Yes Animal Behavior |
| Assistant Professor, Adjunct Assistant Professor Biology | |
| Sensory neurobiology, animal physiology and behavioral biology |
Ronald Smith |
Yes Adult Clinical Social and Personality |
| Professor Director of Clinical Training | |
| Personality, Stress & Coping, Human Performance Enhancement Interventions, Clinical Psychology, Sport Psychology Research & Interventions |
Frank Smoll |
No |
| Professor | |
| Sport Psychology, Leadership Behavior in Youth Sports, Psychological Correlates of Motor Development |
Jessica Sommerville |
Yes Developmental |
| Assistant Professor | |
| early social and physical reasoning; action/perception linkages; role of agency in cognitive development; memory development |
Davida Teller |
No |
| Professor Emeritus | |
| Vision, Color Vision, Visual Development in Infants |
Ann Voorhies |
|
| Lecturer | |
Taejib Yoon |
|
Lori Zoellner |
Yes Adult Clinical |
| Associate Professor | |
| Information processing abnormalities in the anxiety disorders, with emphasis on the prevention and treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder |
Information for Prospective Graduate Students
Graduate school is primarily about obtaining specific training in a specialized area of research and scholarship. Thus, identifying faculty whose research interests closely match your own is an important first step. Listed above are the Area faculty and their current areas of research and scholarship. You are strongly encouraged to contact faculty prior to application about any questions you might have about their research program and their specific plans about admitting graduate students in the coming year.
Please visit the Admissions Data page for admissions information for this area.
Cognition and Perception Area Requirements
In addition to the Departmental course requirements, the Areas may add requirements. Following are the current requirements.
All Cognition and Perception students are required to take the following three courses:
- Psych 506 Core Concepts in Cognitive Neuroscience
- Psych 507 Core Concepts in Cognitive Psychology
- Psych 508 Core Concepts in Perception
The Area also requires three additional courses selected to broaden and deepen your understanding of your research specialty. These courses should be chosen in consultation with your Advisor and Co- Advisor. They can be additional Core Concepts courses in any Area, or other courses chosen from anywhere on campus, within or outside the Psychology Department.
The following Out-of-Area Core Concepts courses may be particularly appropriate for Cognition / Perception students:
- Psych 504 Core Concepts in Behavioral Neuroscience
- Psych 510 Core Concepts in Social Psychology
- Psych 514 Core Concepts in Cognitive and Linguistic Development
- Psych 515 Core Concepts in Personality and Social Development
Seminars and Advanced Seminars:
- Psych 555 Seminar in Cognition/Perception (1st yr students are required to take three quarters)
All Cognition/Perception students are strongly encouraged to participate in additional Seminars and Advanced Seminars, both within and outside their Area, throughout their graduate careers.
Please visit the UW Psychology Graduate Programs page for more information.
