Yale Campus

Course Concentrations

Overview of Requirements

Fourteen term courses, for a total of thirteen- and one-half course credits, are required for the major. Some of these courses being: Introduction to Cognitive Science (CGSC110), the Junior Colloquium (half credit, CGSC395), the Senior Colloquium (CGSC491), a skills course, four breadth courses, and six depth courses. 

Each student will choose a combination of skills, breadth, and depth courses that must be approved by the director of undergraduate studies in order to assure overall coherence. No course may be used to fulfill more than one requirement for the major.

Full details about these requirements can be found in the Yale Catalog Cognitive Science listing. The rest of this page provides diverse examples of Depth Course combinations. Your own course plan may not look like any of these as these are intended to show several of the most common major themes students pursue in the major, and your theme may be quite different from the examples!

Each semester the Director of Undergraduate Studies provides a list of recommended courses that students may be interested in taking. 

The list of Recommended Courses

Course Themes

This example set of depth courses looks at how cognition varies across different animal species, shedding light on which aspects of human thinking are shared with other animals and which might be distinctive to humans. 

  • ANTH 2480 Evolution of Primate Intelligence
  • ANTH 3435 Primate Diversity and Evolution
  • CGSC 3040 Mental Lives of Babies and Animals
  • MCDB 3200 Neurobiology
  • PSYC 1371 Sex, Evolution, and Human Nature

This theme draws courses from across the university to look at the role of gender in different treatment experienced by males and females at the individual, group, and institutional levels.

  • WGSS 3354 Women and Politics in Post-WWII US
  • CGSC 4250 Social Perception
  • PSYC 4130 Mind, Brain, and Society
  • CGSC 4350 Philosophy for Psychologists
  • SOCY 2102 Social Networks in Society

This example draws each of its depth classes from a different department to gain an interdisciplinary understanding of group behavior. How is the behavior of a 100-person group different from the behavior of 100 individuals?

  • ANTH 4044 American Communities
  • MGMT 7301 Behavioral Decision Making I
  • PSYC 4160 Psychology of Group Life
  • ECON 2159 Game Theory
  • SOCY 2102 Social Networks in Society

This example combines courses from computer science with other disciplines to consider novel ways to design user interfaces for emerging technologies.

  • CPSC 4750 Computational Vision and Biological Perception
  • MGMT 7301 Behavioral Decision Making I
  • CGSC 3150 Modern Unconscious
  • CPSC 1510 The Graphical User Interface
  • CPSC 4720 Intelligent Robots
  • MCDB 3200 Neurobiology

This theme focuses on situations where people show behavior that they would not, on reflection, endorse. Especially when this is due to “rules of thumb” that are typically beneficial, it suggests systematic influences from heuristics, and thus opportunities for interventions to improve decision-making.

  • ECON 3327 Economics of Poverty Alleviation
  • PSYC 4280: Neuroscience of Decision Making
  • MGT 538: Mastering Influence and Persuasion
  • MGMT 7301 Behavioral Decision Making I
  • ANTH 2442 Human Evolutionary Biology and Life History

This example combines classes both from within and outside of affiliated departments to investigate how recent discoveries about psychology can be applied to public policy, with a special focus on the justice system.

  • PLSC 2209 Bioethics and Law
  • PSYC 4160 Psychology of Group Life
  • PSYC 4130 Mind, Brain, and Society
  • CGSC 4350 Philosophy for Psychologists

This theme focuses (not exclusively) on courses from linguistics and computer science to look at how advances in natural language processing in computer systems can inform theories of the human mind.

  • LING 2270 Language and Computation
  • LING 2630 Semantics
  • CPSC 2020 Mathematical Tools for Computer Science
  • CPSC 4710 Trustworthy Deep Learning
  • CPSC 4720 Intelligent Robotics
  • PSYC 3320 The Science and Culture of Memory

This theme draws courses from across the university to investigate the question of the moral beliefs and behaviors people have, and how these compare to ethical theories about the beliefs and behaviors they should have according to moral philosophy.

  • SOCY 2102 Social Networks in Society
  • ANTH 3435 Primate Diversity and Evolution
  • PSYC 4160 Psychology of Group Life

This theme investigates how human numerical ability influences other aspects of human cognition and behavior, and how numerical skills evolved in humans in comparison to other species.

  • PSYC 3317 Language and the Mind
  • CGSC 4030 Habits of Mind
  • LING 2270 Language and Computation
  • CGSC 1390 Mental Lives of Babies and Animals
  • ANTH 2480 Evolution of Primate Intelligence

Interested in learning more?

Contact our office in order to receive more information regarding the programs offered.

Contact the Program Coordinator