An examination of relevant research and contemporary methodologies examining phenomena encountered in the justice system. Topics include jury decision-making, violence and risk assessment, eye-witness evidence, insanity, psychopathy and anti-social personality disorder, sentencing, treatment of special offender groups, and criminal profiling. Students will learn how to apply the scientific method to examine behaviours that occur in a legal context.

Readings, laboratory exercises, and research projects designed to familiarize students with methodologies relevant to empirical research in social/personality psychology.

In this course you will develop an in-depth understanding of the role of emotions in human psychology. You will learn theories of emotion, emotional regulation, expression and experience, the role of emotion in decision-making, and the relationship between emotion, cognition and behaviour.

Examines research evidence concerning the impact of psychological factors on physical health and illness.

This advanced course provides an in-depth examination of current theory and research related to the origin, diagnosis, classification and treatment of adulthood psychological disorders. Readings and discussion will provide a biopsychosocial framework from which to explore contemporary explanations of psychopathology. Students will investigate how culture, societal norms, and environmental factors may shape what is considered to be abnormal adult behaviour.

Considers concepts of normal, abnormal and delayed development. Schemes of classification and diagnosis, approaches to identification of causes, antecedents, and consequences, as well as contemporary treatment methods are critically evaluated. In addition, resilience in the face of adversity will be addressed, since risk and traumatic events often do not lead to disorders. The emphasis is on rigorous research as a primary source of knowledge about psychological disorders and empirically supported treatment.

Considers the theories and techniques of the major classic and contemporary approaches to psychological treatment (psychotherapy) for personality and behavioural disorders, research supporting and/or growing out of the theories, and critical examination of these theories.

An exploration of the role of psychology in forensic science (the application of scientific inquiry into criminal investigation). Topics, which will vary from year to year, could include the assessment of criminal responsibility, competency issues, psychiatric disorders associated with crime, criminal profiling, behavioural analysis of a crime scene, prediction of dangerousness, workplace and family violence, sexual assault/abuse/rape, recovered memories, detection of malingering and deception, deindividuation and bystander intervention, social psychology of the jury, use of psychological tests in legal cases, witness preparation/interrogation, and the psychologist as expert witness.

A survey of contemporary theory and research related to exceptionality with a special emphasis on disability and educational issues. Topics include controversial psychosocial issues, legal, family, and multicultural issues, disability across the lifespan, communication disorders, hearing and visual impairment, autism, and acquired brain injury.

An examination of contemporary theory and research related to the origin, prevention, and treatment of psychological disorders from a biological perspective. The course will focus on the role of behaviour genetics, structures in the brain, and biochemistry in the nervous system in specific disorders (e.g., schizophrenia, mood and anxiety disorders, aggression, premenstrual syndrome, sleep disorders) and will discuss alternative approaches to their treatment (e.g., psychopharmacologic versus behaviourally-oriented therapies).

Application of the theory of biological evolution to understanding the origins and structure of the human mind.

An introduction to animal behaviour from a biological perspective, stressing ecological and evolutionary aspects of behaviour. The course will review the neural, endocrine and physiological mechanisms mediating animals' natural behaviours, as well as how gene-environment interactions during development modify these behavioural mechanisms.

The course will focus on the development and adult organization of brain mechanisms underlying the perception of social information and production of diverse social behaviours in mammalian species. Circumstances and events that can lead to diminished function and psychopathology in humans will be considered.

This course is an introduction to the scientific study of human sexuality. Topics covered may include sexual development, sexual orientation, sex practices, sexuality across the lifespan, sexual dysfunction and sexually transmitted diseases.

An introduction to the genetic analysis of behaviour. The concepts and methods of classical Mendelian genetics, quantitative genetics, and recombinant DNA technology-based reverse and forward genetic approaches will be discussed as they relate to the analysis of animal behaviour.

A comparative survey of cognitive processes in animals from an ecological and evolutionary perspective. The course will examine topics including perception, working and reference memory, simple associative and complex relational learning, and concept formation.

In this course, you will become familiar with theory and principles underpinning approaches to measuring the brain. The course will focus on techniques used in human neuroscience research. Students will gain skills relevant to the processing, visualization, analysis, interpretation, and reporting of brain data.

In this course, you will be guided through hands-on laboratory exercises to learn how behavioural paradigms, along with anatomical, genetic, and physiological methods, can be used to answer questions relevant to behavioural neuroscience research.

This course covers selected topics pertaining to higher cognitive processes including expertise, consciousness, creativity, and human and artificial intelligence.

Your everyday life hinges on the ability to encode perceptual information around you (what’s in the fridge?) and build a model of the world in your mind (need to buy milk) so that you can retrieve information later when you need it (at the grocery store). How does your mind and brain support this fundamental yet complex mental ability? In this course, you will learn how human memory works, drawing on key findings in cognitive psychology and recent advances in neuroscience.

In this course, students will learn how to design and propose original experiments to answer scientific questions of their interest in the field of cognitive psychology. Students will discover the mechanisms involved in the processing of information by engaging with various methodologies used by cognitive psychologists and learn to analyze real data using advanced computational and statistical software.

How can understanding perception help to explain what we do in the world? In this course, we will consider questions from engineering and human factors through the lens of perceptual research, tackling the human side of design and engineering problems. Topics include driver behaviour, interface design, data visualization and the perceptual and psychological foundations that dictate their success or failure.

An examination of the psychological foundations of music perception and performance. Consideration of processing differences between naive and experienced listeners, biological foundations of music processing, cultural contributions to music processing, theoretical perspectives on the origins of music, music and emotion, and the non-musical implications of musical training.

In this course, students will learn how to develop and design experiments to answer scientific questions of their interest in the study of perception. Students will learn psychophysical methods, which relate the physical properties of the world to perceptual experience, and apply these advanced methods by carrying out experiments and analyzing data.

An introduction to the biological and psychological aspects of pain, as a multidimensional bodily sensation, an adaptive solution to threatening stimuli and a clinical problem. Pain will be introduced from a phenomenological perspective, focusing on the ways in which social, situational, psychological and organismic factors can alter pain. An awareness of the current challenges and unanswered questions in pain research and management will be fostered.

Epigenetics encompasses the study of stable alterations in gene activity that occur independent of changes to genetic sequence. Epigenetics has been implicated in all aspects of behaviour, from responding to maternal behaviour in early life to mediating cognitive function in aging and dementia. This course will describe how epigenetics shapes development, learning, memory, stress response, and mental illness in animal and human models.

This course will review major topics in cognitive neuroscience, with an emphasis on human function. Sample topics include issues such as memory disorders and models of memory, split brain research, language and aphasia, attention, emotion, and executive functions.

This course is an introduction to the field of Behavioural Neuroendocrinology -- the study of relationships between hormones, the nervous system, and behaviour in a variety of species from a comparative perspective. Behavioural/functional systems may include reproductive behaviour, social behavior, biological rhythms, eating, and stress.

An examination of experimental findings and theory documenting the plasticity of the brain and its relationship to behaviour. The course will discuss the molecular, synaptic, cellular and circuitry components of neural plasticity in relation to learning and experience.