Experimental Psychology, PhD

Cognition, Brain, & Behavior

Contact:

Amy Criss, Ph.D.
477 Huntington Hall
acriss@syr.edu
(315)443-3667

Faculty

Kevin Antshel, Benita A. Blachman, D. Bruce Carter, Catherine A. Cornwell, Amy H. Criss, Jeanne Denti, Joseph Ditre, Tanya L. Eckert, Craig K. Ewart, Les Gellis, Richard M. Gramzow, Randall S. Jorgenson, Michael Kalish, Lawrence J. Lewandowski, Stephen Maisto, Brian K. Martens, Christopher B. Miller, Leonard Newman, Tibor Palfai, Aesoon Park, Natalie Russo, Lael Schooler, Bradley Seymour, Laura VanderDrift, Peter A. Vanable and Corey White.

The Cognition, Brain, & Behavior (CBB) program offers graduate training leading to a Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology. Research in the area is centered on using rigorous methods and theory to understand fundamental mechanisms underlying cognitive and neural processing. Research on cognitive and perceptual processes, such as visual perception, memory, attention, knowledge development, concepts and categories, problem solving, and decision making, contributes to our understanding of human behavior in individual and social environments and provides the structure on which to build applications to improve health and behavior.

Students receive research training at the forefront of Psychology. Students are assigned a primary advisor upon entry to the program and are required to actively participate in program of research supervised by a core faculty member through the duration of their program of study. Participation in these groups is designed to facilitate the development of research skills and professional development necessary for a career in psychological science. Required milestones include completion of a first year research project, Master’s proposal and defense, qualifying exam, and Dissertation proposal and defense.

Program Requirements

The curriculum is designed to provide students with the essential coursework and laboratory research experience necessary for an academic or research career. The program of study for the Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology requires a minimum of 90 graduate credit hours, distributed as follows:

Statistics Core (6 credits):

PSY 655 - Experimental Design and Statistical Methods I 3 credit(s)
PSY 756 - Experimental Design and Statistical Methods II 3 credit(s)

Department Core (9 credits):

Three courses chosen from areas outside of the student’s major area of study.

Independent Research, Other Recommended Courses (24 credits):

Students are encouraged to work closely with one or more faculty members in a research program, and to develop a program of research.

Master’s Thesis (6 credits)

Dissertation (18 credits)

Satisfactory Progress in the Program

Students are required to propose their master’s thesis by September 30th of their second year, and to propose their doctoral dissertation by September 30th of their fourth year. Students having completed a research master’s thesis elsewhere may not be required to do another thesis, but must undertake and complete a research project in their first year of study at Syracuse. Students must complete the master’s thesis (or equivalent research project for students admitted with an earned master’s degree) by May30th of their second year. Students take a Ph.D. qualifying exam by May 30th of their third year with the Ph.D. dissertation proposal. Thesis and dissertation research is supervised by a committee consisting of three faculty members. The dissertation committee consists of the student’s research advisor, who must be a member of the Cognition, Brain, and Behavior (C.B.B.) program, and two other faculty members. Students are expected to defend the dissertation by the end of their fifth year.

Admissions and Financial Support

Admission to the graduate program in Cognition, Brain, and Behavior (C.B.B.) depends on the quality of the applicant’s prior academic record, the applicant’s career plans and research interests, and the applicant’s GRE scores. Financial support is available for all well-qualified graduate students by means of research assistantships, teaching assistantships, or fellowships.