Brain And Cognitive Sciences

 The Brain & Cognitive Sciences area offers graduate and undergraduate students a unique opportunity for research training. The area boasts a number of faculty members who investigate human psychology from a biological perspective, providing students with opportunities to investigate the physiological processes underlying learning, memory, visual perception, and visuomotor control. Members of this area also offer training in developmental neuroscience and psychobiology, neuropsychology, cardiovascular psychobiology and stress, neurotoxicology, psychopharmacology, neurological impairments, and fMRI. This area also hosts several specialists in the experimental study of human and non-human mental processes. The Department’s cognitive scientists provide expertise in the domains of text comprehension, visual and auditory perception, selective attention, memory, learning, and categorization. The operant behaviour laboratory offers students the opportunity to study learning in animals (with the current emphasis being on fish) in a controlled environmental space. Research opportunities offered by the Avian Behaviour Laboratory provide a unique opportunity for students to develop skills in the study of animal behaviour in a natural setting.

Members of the Brain & Cognitive Sciences area receive funding from a variety of sources, resulting in cutting-edge research laboratories that utilize modern and diverse techniques. Both M.A. and Ph.D. training provides students with opportunities to develop their ability to think critically and work independently, while still being able to successfully collaborate and work as part of a team. The course requirements in the area are structured around a flexible core curriculum that permits specialization and concentration of research during graduate training. Students are given the opportunity to collaborate with faculty from other areas in the Department of Psychology at the University of Manitoba and with faculty in other Departments of Psychology in the region, such as researchers at the University of Winnipeg and members of the Centre for Visual Neuroscience at the University of North Dakota. The breadth of graduate student training in this area is further enhanced by opportunities to collaborate with researchers in related social, behavioural, and biomedical sciences. For example, members of the Brain & Cognitive Sciences area maintain ongoing research relationships with researchers in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Manitoba and members of the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy.

Below is a complete listing of The Brain and Cognitive Sciences laboratories led by area members. The principal investigator of each laboratory is provided in parentheses. Interested students are encouraged to contact principle investigators for further information.

• Auditory Perception & Cognition Laboratory (Dr. Todd Mondor)
• Avian Behaviour Laboratory (Dr. L James Shapiro)
• Baby Language Lab (Dr. Melanie Soderstrom)
• Basic Operant Behaviour Laboratory (Dr. Joseph Pear)
• Cognitive Development Lab (Dr. Melanie Glenwright)
• Computer Aided Personalized System of Instruction (CAPSI) Laboratory (Dr. Joseph Pear)
• Developmental Neuropsychology Laboratory (Dr. Lorna Jakobson)
• Early Years Reading Lab (Dr. Richard Kruk)
• Laboratory of Behavioural Neuroscience: Emotion and Motivation (Drs. Roger Wilson and Linda Wilson)
• Language Processes Laboratory (Dr. Murray Singer)
• Learning, Memory, and Categorization Laboratory (Dr. Randall Jamieson)
• Memory, Perception and Skill Acquisition Laboratory (Dr. Jason Leboe-McGowan)
• Neurobiology of Learning and Memory Laboratory (Dr. Tammy Ivanco)
• Neuropsychology of Vision, Perception, and Action Laboratory (Dr. Jonathan Marotta)

Adjunct Professors to the Brain and Cognitive Sciences Area are:

Dr. James Clark (Department of Psychology, University of Winnipeg)
Dr. Susan Larsen (Department of Psychology, Concordia College, Moorhead, Minnesota)
Dr. Pauline Pearson (Department of Psychology, University of Winnipeg)
Dr. Doug Williams (Department of Psychology, University of Winnipeg)