Cognitive Science at the University of Chicago is designed to embody an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the mind and brain. Students gain a broad knowledge of the field by taking courses in each of the five main disciplinary areas—computer science, linguistics, philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience—and then develop further focus and depth of understanding by taking additional courses in two of these disciplinary areas.
Cognitive science explores the nature of cognitive processes such as perception, reasoning, memory, attention, language, decision-making, emotion, motor control, and problem-solving. The goal of cognitive science, stated simply, is to understand how minds work, in humans, animals, and machines. Cognitive science emerged in the latter part of the 20th century at the intersection of computer science, linguistics, neuroscience, philosophy, and psychology, and is an inherently interdisciplinary endeavor, drawing on tools and ideas from the social sciences, the physical and biological sciences, and the humanities. Topics of research include (but are not limited to) cognitive development, cognitive processing, judgment and decision-making, language and communication, the neurological bases of cognition, perception, and memory, philosophy of mind, and artificial intelligence. A defining feature of cognitive science is its emphasis on integration among fields, for a truly interdisciplinary study of the mind. Students will be trained in formal methods of analysis and modeling that are common in majors in the physical and biological sciences, but often absent from majors in the humanities and social sciences; at the same time, students will also be trained in the advanced reasoning skills that define humanistic inquiry but are often absent from more technical or applied degrees.