Welcome

Cognitive science is concerned with how humans, animals, and computers acquire, represent, manipulate, and use information. As an interdisciplinary field it combines research and theory from three central disciplines (computer science, cognitive psychology, and philosophy), two closely related disciplines (linguistics and neuroscience), and several more distantly related disciplines (e.g., biology, math, and anthropology).

Complex issues of cognition are not easily addressed using traditional intra-disciplinary tools. Cognitive researchers in any discipline typically employ a collection of analytic and modeling tools from across traditional disciplinary boundaries. Thus, the methods and research agenda of cognitive science are broader than those of any of the fields that have traditionally contributed to cognitive science. The COGS Program at Williams is designed to offer a coherent program of study in cognitive science and provide students with the broad interdisciplinary foundation needed to approach issues of cognition.

To complete the COGS concentration requires taking two core courses and four electives. You can learn more about the requirements by going to the Cognitive Science page in the Course Catalog and opening the Curriculum PDF.