Birkbeck, University of London

COGNITION AND COMPUTATION (MA)

Aimed at graduates of either the computational sciences or the psychological sciences, the MA in Cognition and Computation is an ideal foundation for a research career in the cognitive sciences.

It studies the cognitive processes and representations underlying human thought, knowledge and behaviour, and integrates a wide range of disciplines and methodologies with the core assumption that human cognition is a computational process, implemented in neural hardware.

Key topics include: the nature of computational explanation; general principles of cognition; methodology of computational modelling; theories of the cognitive architecture; symbol systems; connectionism; neural computation; and case studies in computational cognitive modelling.

The programme involves intensive training in experimental design and methodology, building computational models, and carrying out a substantial piece of original research.