Program
Description
part 2 of 2
Cognitive psychology has, for many years, studied information without consideration of the goal structures that determine which alternative information sources to process now, which to process later, and which to ignore altogether. This selection process is based of the value structures represented in the amygdala and limbic structures of the brain, and is closely associated with affect and emotion. With the extensive studies of the limbic system, the amygdala, and prefrontal cortex, recently brought to public attention by LeDoux, in The Emotional Brain, and the Synaptic Self, the outlines of goal driven cognitive models are beginning to emerge, and with it, the links to more precise models of the self, personality, social and clinical psychology. This work rightly belongs under the heading of complex cognition, and fits closely with the interests of many faculty and graduate students, in both the EC and Clinical Psychology subprogram at CCNY. In order to develop strength in the area of complex cognition, the Psychology Dept. recently appointed Profs. Margaret Rosario, Ann Marie Yali, and Chi-Ming Kam. Together with Brett Silverstein, all were elected to the EC faculty where they form the core of the complex cognition group.
Language processing -- perception, recognition, comprehension, and memory form the core of contemporary cognitive and neurocognitive studies. This is the major research focus of Profs. Tartter, Gomes, Deacon and Antrobus. But because of the broad interest in language studies throughout CUNY, the study of language processes is distributed across several programs and many faculty at CUNY. Chief among the programs are Speech and Hearing Sciences, and the Linguistics Program at the Graduate Center. Additional faculty include Prof. Martin Chodorow, a member of both EC, and the Biopsychology Program at Hunter College, and Prof. Octavio Betancourt (Comp. Science at CCNY), who has worked with EC faculty or students on language recognition. Prof. Esther Levin, a new addition to the Comp. Science program at CCNY studies language comprehension and is interested in working with EC students. The collaborative relations among CUNY doctoral programs provide students easy access to courses and faculty in these programs.
Cutting across these areas of cognition and cognitive neuroscience is the study of sleep which has been a major area of research for faculty and students since the inception of EC. Sleep disorders, and biological rhythms, are of interest because they modulate cognitive processing B both in sleep and in waking. In the former case they support the production of dreaming, and memory consolidation; in the latter, they determine the quality of attention and learning in waking perception. Research in this area is carried out by Profs. Art Spielman, William Fishbein and John Antrobus, and by Adjunct Prof. Paul Glovinsky. Most of the clinical sleep disorders research is carried out at New York Methodist Hosp. in Brooklyn and New York Presbyterian Hosp.- Cornell, in Manhattan. Additional work is carried out in collaboration with Distinguished Prof. Robt. Alfano, (Physics, Engineering, and EC).
Both complex cognition and cognitive neuroscience have reached the point where further development within each area, and the opportunity for them to benefit from each other, is constrained by the limited scope of their models. It is no longer useful to model the results of a specific experiment, or even a set of experiments concerned with a single process, unless they speak to the models of neighboring areas of cognition and neuroscience. Connectionist, or neural network, models promise the best solution to this very difficult problem. Prof. Antrobus, in collaboration with Prof. Bala Sundaram (Physics and EC), are currently developing this effort, with help from Prof. Martin Chodorow, and Prof. Octavio Betancourt.
New York State Certification. In the Fall of 2003, EC students and faculty voted to increase the requirements of the subprogram so that all future graduates will automatically be eligible to sit for the State Certification exam in Psychology. The first step in that process has been to add courses, practica, externships and internships that satisfy the States= requirements. As of Fall 2004, all new students will be required to satisfy the requirements listed below. During the 2004-05 academic year, we will discuss these new requirements with the appropriate State offices, and if necessary add additional course requirements. The revised requirements require a minimum of 72 credits, two practica and a one-year predoctoral internship. We want to make it quite clear, that while these new EC requirements are required for the Ph. D. Degree, and are imposed to satisfy the State criteria, the State has not at this time approved these new requirements, and indeed, there is no guarantee that it will.
New York State certification is not essential for most EC graduates. Nevertheless, certification is sometimes an asset for the graduates who carry out the bulk of their research on clinical patient populations. In some cases, research hospitals give hiring preference to psychologists who are State certified even though their work is restricted to research. And in the special case of graduates working with sleep disordered patients, State certification is a prerequisite for certification as Polysomnographers. To do this work, it is helpful that they learn the same patient diagnostic and management skills as do clinical neuropsychologists. Finally, even those graduates who work in academia, may subsequently require State certification in order to supervise graduate students for clinical practice. For some students who plan a career in pure science, the extra courses and internship year may appear to be a burden. However, the internship may be taken in pure research, and thereby produce the added publications that enhance the student=s attractiveness even for a purely academic position.
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