CHAIR OF THE DEPARTMENT:
Professor Marisa Carrasco
6 Washington Place, Room 550
New York, NY 10003-6634
212-998-7820

ASSOCIATE CHAIR OF THE DEPARTMENT:
Professor Peter Gollwitzer
212-998-7820

DIRECTOR OF GRADUATE STUDIES:
Professor Laurence T. Maloney
212-998-7820

DIRECTOR OF MASTER'S PROGRAM:
Dr. Barry H. Cohen
212-998-7815

COORDINATORS OF DOCTORAL PROGRAMS: Cognition and Perception, Professor Michael S. Landy; Community Psychology, Associate Professor Diane Hughes; Social Psychology, Professor Yaacov Trope

The Department of Psychology at New York University approaches the study of the human mind and human behavior from many perspectives. Psychologists in the cognition and perception program focus on perception, action, memory, attention, language, and thinking. Social psychologists study persuasion and attitude change, stereotyping and prejudice, judgment and decision making, and how relationships form and develop.

Graduate students in the department have the opportunity to obtain sophisticated training from these perspectives and to integrate the approaches in novel ways. At the doctoral level, students select one of the three specialty areas but can declare a minor specialty in a second area or in quantitative psychology. In addition, students from all programs have the opportunity to focus on developmental psychology, which is a cross-cutting concentration rather than a separate program. Developmental psychologists examine both cognitive and social functioning as it changes over the life span.

At the master’s level, students have the opportunity to sample graduate courses in a wide variety of topics and may participate in tracks in either industrial/ organizational psychology or in general psychology.

The department takes advantage of its location in the nation’s premier city by collaborating with important scientific institutions, community agencies, and corporations. New York provides access to almost any population or cultural group psychologists might choose to study. Experiences in this stimulating context supplement the department’s emphasis on basic psychological research.

Faculty

Doris R. Aaronson, Professor. Ph.D. 1965 (psychology), Pennsylvania; M.A. 1959 (mathematics education), Columbia; B.S. 1958 (mathematics), Maryland.
Reading; psycholinguistics; problem solving; bilingualism.

Karen E. Adolph, Professor, Psychology, Neural Science. Ph.D. 1993, M.A. 1989, Emory; B.A. 1986, Sarah Lawrence College.
Infant learning; perceptual-motor development; exploratory activity, problem solving, and social referencing.

Murray Alpert, Research Professor. Ph.D. 1965, New York.
Psychopathology; human psychopharmacology.

David Amodio, Assistant Professor. Ph.D. 2006 (social psychology), California (Los Angeles); M.S. 1997 (social psychology), Wisconsin; B.A. 1996 (psychology and music), Macalester College.
Behavioral regulation in the context of prejudice and stereotyping; social cognition; cognitive/affective neuroscience.

Susan M. Andersen, Professor. Ph.D. 1981 (psychology), Stanford; B.A. 1977 (psychology), California (Santa Cruz).
Social cognition and clinical processes; the role of mental representations of self and significant others in motivation and emotion; private and public aspects of self-knowledge.

Ned Block, Professor, Philosophy, Psychology. Ph.D. 1971 (philosophy), Harvard; B.S. 1964 (physics and philosophy), Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Philosophy of mind; metaphysics; cognitive science.

Peter J. Carnevale, Professor. Ph.D. 1982 (psychology), SUNY (Buffalo); B.A. 1977 (psychology), Delaware.
Conflict and negotiation; mediation.

Marisa Carrasco, Professor, Psychology, Neural Science; Chair, Department of Psychology. Ph.D. 1989 (psychology), M.A. 1986 (psychology), Princeton; Licentiate in psychology 1984 (human experimental psychology), National Autonamous (Mexico).
Visual perception and attention; visual search; psychophysics.

Edgar E. Coons, Professor, Psychology, Neural Science. Ph.D. 1964, Yale; B.A. 1951, Colorado.
Behavioral analysis of neuronal mechanisms mediating hunger, reward, and pain; psychoimmunology and stress; aesthetics.

Clayton Curtis, Assistant Professor, Psychology, Neural Science. Ph.D. 1999, M.A. 1997, Minnesota (Minneapolis); B.A. 1992, Texas (Austin).
Working memory; inhibitory control; event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI); psycho-physiology.

Lila Davachi, Assistant Professor, Psychology, Neural Science. Ph.D. 1999 (neurobiology), M.Phil. 1995, Yale; B.A. 1992 (psychology), Barnard College.
How are memories formed? Why do we only remember some of what we encounter? Why do we remember some events in exquisitely rich detail, only have a sense or feeling that we’ve encountered other events, and still forget others entirely?

Nathaniel Daw, Assistant Professor, Neural Science, Psychology. Ph.D. 2003 (computer science, cognitive neuroscience), M.S. 2000 (computer science), Carnegie Mellon; B.A. 1996, Columbia.
Decision making; learning and neuromodulation; computational models.

Peter Gollwitzer, Professor. Ph.D. 1981, Texas (Austin); M.A. 1977, Ruhr-Bochum; B.A. 1973, Regensburg.
Self theory, global mind-sets, human motivation.

David Heeger, Professor, Psychology, Neural Science. Ph.D. 1987 (computer science), B.A. 1983 (mathematics), Pennsylvania. Postdoctoral fellow 1987-1990, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab.
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI); visual pattern discrimination; stereo depth perception; visual motion perception; visual attention; visual awareness; visual impairments in developmental dyslexia.

Madeline E. Heilman, Professor. Ph.D. 1972 (social psychology), Columbia; B.S. 1967 (child development and family relations), Cornell.
Sex bias in work settings; dynamics of stereotyping; consequences of preferential selection procedures.

Souheil Inati, Assistant Professor, Neural Science, Psychology. Ph.D. 1999, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; B.S. 1992, Yale.
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Scott P. Johnson, Associate Professor, Psychology, Neural Science. Ph.D. 1992 (developmental psychology), M.A. 1988 (developmental psychology), B.S. 1985 (psychology), Arizona State.
Infant development; cognitive development; perceptual development; visual perception; eye movements; attention; computational modeling; neurophysiological foundations of vision and cognition; neurophysiological development.

John T. Jost, Associate Professor. Ph.D. 1996 (social psychology), M.Phil. 1993, M.S. 1992, Yale; M.A. 1993 (philosophy), Cincinnati; B.A. 1989, Duke.
System justification theory; social cognition; interpersonal and group processes.

Michael S. Landy, Professor, Psychology, Neural Science. Ph.D. 1981 (computer and communication sciences), Michigan; B.S. 1974 (electrical engineering and computer science), Columbia.
Visual perception and psychophysics; computer modeling of visual perception.

Laurence T. Maloney, Professor, Psychology, Neural Science. Ph.D. 1985 (psychology, minor in electrical engineering), M.S. 1982 (mathematical statistics), Stanford; B.A. 1973 (mathematics), Yale.
Computational vision; measurement theory and methodology; mathematical models of perception and cognition.

Alec Marantz, Professor, Psychology, Linguistics. Ph.D. 1981, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (linguistics); B.A. 1978 (psycholinguistics), Oberlin College.
Linguistic theory; syntax; morphology; neurolinguistics.

Gary F. Marcus, Associate Professor. Ph.D. 1993 (cognitive science), Massachusetts Institute of Technology; B.A. 1989 (cognitive science), Hampshire College.
Language acquisition; computational models of language and cognition; connectionism; cognitive development.

T. James Matthews, Professor, Psychology, Neural Science. Ph.D. 1970 (experimental psychology), Brown; M.A. 1966 (experimental psychology), Bucknell; B.A. 1964 (psychology), American.
Behavioral and neurobiological analysis of social and affiliative motivation in rats and mice.

Brian McElree, Associate Professor. Ph.D. 1990 (experimental psychology), M.Phil. 1989 (experimental psychology), Columbia; M.A. 1984 (experimental psychology), Western Ontario; B.Sc. 1982 (experimental psychology), Toronto.
Human information processing; human memory; psycholinguistics.

Gregory L. Murphy, Professor. Ph.D. 1982, Stanford; M.A. 1978, B.A. 1978, Johns Hopkins.
Concepts and categories: concept acquisition; conceptual combination; categorization processes. Psycholinguistics: word meaning; pragmatics; metaphor and indirect speech acts.

Gabriele Oettingen, Professor. Habilitation 1996 (psychology), Free (Berlin); Ph.D. 1986 (ethology), M.A. 1982 (biochemistry, physiology), B.A. 1979 (biology), Ludwig-Maximilians.
Self-regulation of goal setting and goal disengagement.

Denis G. Pelli, Professor, Psychology, Neural Science. Ph.D. 1981 (physiology), Cambridge; B.A. 1975 (applied mathematics), Harvard.
Visual perception. What kind of neural computation allows us to recognize objects? What limits what we see?

Elizabeth A. Phelps, Professor, Psychology, Neural Science. Ph.D. 1989 (cognitive psychology), M.A. 1986 (cognitive psychology), Princeton; B.A. 1980 (psychology and philosophy), Ohio Wesleyan.
Cognitive neuroscience of human learning and memory, particularly as it is influenced by emotion.

Liina Pylkkänen, Assistant Professor, Linguistics, Psychology. Ph.D. 2002 (linguistics), Massachusetts Institute of Technology; M.A. 1997 (linguistics), Pittsburgh.
Neurolinguistics; psycholinguistics; semantics, syntax, lexicon.

Bob Rehder, Assistant Professor. Ph.D. 1998 (experimental psychology), M.S. 1995 (experimental psychology), Colorado; M.S. 1990 (artificial intelligence), Stanford; B.S. 1978 (physics), B.S. 1978 (computer science), Washington (St. Louis).
Categorization, causal reasoning, problem solving, skill acquisition, procedural memory.

Patrick E. Shrout, Professor. Ph.D. 1976 (psychology), Chicago; B.A. 1972 (philosophy), St. Louis.
Multivariate statistics; psychiatric epidemiology; psychometric methods; analysis of stress and coping.

Yaacov Trope, Professor. Ph.D. 1974, M.A. 1972, Michigan; B.A. 1970, Tel Aviv.
Judgment and decision making; motivation; causal attribution.

Tom R. Tyler, Professor; University Professor. Ph.D. 1978 (social psychology), M.A. 1974 (social psychology), California (Los Angeles); B.A. 1973, Columbia.
Social justice; organizational/social psychology; psychology of authority.

James S. Uleman, Professor. Ph.D. 1966 (social psychology), Harvard; B.A. 1961 (psychology), Michigan.
Person perception; personality trait inferences and stereotyping; the role of intentions in cognitive processing.

Athena Vouloumanos, Assistant Professor. Ph.D. 2004 (neuroscience), British Columbia; B.Sc. 1997 (biology), McGill.
Language acquisition; speech perception; cognitive development; cognitive neuroscience.

Michael A. Westerman, Associate Professor. Ph.D. 1980 (clinical psychology), M.A. 1977 (clinical psychology), Southern California; B.A. 1971 (philosophy), Harvard.
Interpersonal defense; psychotherapy process; family interaction; philosophical psychology.

David L. Wolitzky, Associate Professor. Ph.D. 1961, Rochester; B.A. 1957, City College (CUNY).
Clinical judgment; cognitive styles; psychotherapy; psychoanalytic theories.

ASSOCIATED AND AFFILIATED FACULTY IN OTHER DEPARTMENTS

Howard Abikoff, NYU School of Medicine; Ann Marie Albano, NYU School of Medicine; La Rue Allen, Applied Psychology (Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development); Elissa Brown, NYU School of Medicine; Jerome Bruner, NYU School of Law; Paul W. Glimcher, Neural Science; Michael Hawken, Neural Science; Lynne Kiorpes, Neural Science; Rachel Klein, NYU School of Medicine; John Krauskopf, Neural Science; Joseph E. LeDoux, Neural Science;Lourdes Linares, NYU School of Medicine; Laurie Miller, NYU School of Medicine; J. Anthony Movshon, Neural Science; Nava Rubin, Neural Science; Malcolm N. Semple, Neural Science; Robert Shapley, Neural Science; Eero Simoncelli, Neural Science; Wendy Suzuki, Neural Science.

FACULTY EMERITI

Murray Glanzer, Martin Hoffman, Robert R. Holt, Lawrence Karlin, Lloyd Kaufman, Irving Sarnoff, Robert E. Silverman, Joan G. Snodgrass.