Overview and aims of the Doctorate in Psychology and Cognitive Science



The Ph.D. Program in Psychology and Cognitive Science aims at training prospective scholars to become highly skilled and innovative researchers. Training is focused on the basic and applied research in psychology, psychophysiology, and cognitive science, as well as on the methodological aspects of the experimental, empirical, and laboratory psychological research. The PhD Program is a full-time course of study. Degree requirements include attending seminars and classes, given by members of the Board and by other Italian and foreign scientists, and conducting experimental studies (each year) that will be included in the final dissertation. Students take three years to complete degree requirements and defend their dissertation. Each year, students must be admitted to the successive year (or to the dissertation defense) upon a positive evaluation of their work from the Program Board.
Students begin active research at an early stage and work closely with faculty throughout the course of study. Each student chooses one supervisor among the academics in the Ph.D. Board, who will be the main responsible for his/her training and for providing lab space and facilities, whereas one or two co-supervisors are appointed by the Ph.D. Program Board.
The Program includes two curricula:

Curriculum A: cognitive processes, individual differences, states of consciousness. It aims at training researchers interested in the basic psychological processes (e.g., attention, memory, decision making), in the study of personality and individual differences, in the psychophysiology of sleep, sleep deprivation and dreaming, and in the history of psychology, from both a basic and an applied (e.g., ergonomics and human factors) research perspectives. Behavioural, psychophysiological, and neuroimaging methods will be thoroughly addressed in the program.

Curriculum B: cognitive processes, music cognition, decision making, attention. It aims at training researchers interested in the empirical study and modelling of basic cognitive processes, normal and pathological, through the lifespan, in the study of the musical cognition, of the decision making processes, with a special emphasis on the modelling of the cognitive processes underlying the decision making in risky situations, of the cooperative and competitive behaviours, and in the study of cognition, communication, and training in disabilities and critical situations.