Cognitive Science (Humanities) MA (Hons)

Philosophers and scientists have long speculated about the nature of the human mind and the role of language in making the human mind what it is. Recent developments, across fields as diverse as robotics, brain imaging, anthropology and speech technology, bring a host of new perspectives to our quest to understand our own inner workings. Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary attempt to understand the human mind. It focuses on abilities such as: - Reasoning - Perception - Memory - Awareness - Emotion - Attention - Judgement - Motor control - Language use Cognitive science brings together and forms connections between these, through use of methods such as computer modelling, linguistic analysis, philosophical reasoning, robotics, neuroimaging and psychological experiments. It brings together scholars from linguistics, psychology, philosophy, neuroscience and computer science. The University of Edinburgh played a key role in founding this discipline, by exploiting and enriching long-standing connections between the disciplines that contribute to the study of human cognition. You will be taught by the researchers who both laid the foundations, and are still making key advances in the field. The programme content is regularly reviewed to ensure our students learn about current developments. Our Cognitive Science (Humanities) programme requires you to undertake a selection of basic courses covering material in: - Linguistics - Philosophy - Psychology - Computer science At Honours level, in Years 3 and 4, you will choose from a wide variety of more advanced courses in this range of disciplines, with the opportunity to specialise in one domain for your Honours dissertation project. Our goal is to help you come to a broad understanding of issues such as the relationship between language and thought, the relationship between mind and brain and the philosophical implications of our increasing ability to look inside the working brain and to model its activities in computers and robots.