Cognitive Science is a multidisciplinary field integrating behavioral research, computational models, and neuroscience. The Department of Cognitive Sciences at UC Irvine has a tradition of excellence in quantitative approaches to understanding the brain, perception, cognition, and behavior. The department maintains its historic strengths in mathematical psychology, and has expanded to include computational approaches to studying cognition. The department has also grown a strong and broad research program and graduate concentration in cognitive neuroscience, with expertise ranging from language and memory to brain-computer interfaces. The department continues to specialize in vision and auditory research, and has newer research areas in the language sciences, cognitive development, and cognitive robotics.

The Department has a strong focus on research, with many of our 22 faculty holding one or more large extramural grants. Our faculty includes 5 members of the National Academy of Sciences, 9 fellows and 2 William James fellows of the American Psychological Society, 8 American Psychological Association fellows, and 5 fellows of the Society for Experimental Psychology, and 2 recipients of the National Academy of Sciences Troland Award given to young scientists.

The Department has affiliations with other departments, institutes, and centers on campus. These are in areas such as the biological sciences, machine learning, and statistics, and include the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience & Engineering, the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, the Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders, and the Center for Hearing Research.

The department offers a Ph.D. program in cognitive sciences to prepare students for research and teaching careers in academia, industry, and government. The department is regarded as one of the world's leading centers for mathematically oriented research in cognitive sciences. The Ph.D. program places particular emphasis on modern and leading-edge techniques of experimental and theoretical research into the function of the human mind and brain. Special attention is given to providing hands-on research experience and equipping students with sophisticated mathematical and computing skills. There are three tracks within the program: Cognitive Sciences, Cognitive Neuroscience, and Statistics, identified by a distinct Master's degree earned within the program.

There are three undergraduate majors offered in the department: Psychology (B.A.)*, Psychology (B.S.), and Cognitive Sciences (B.S.). While the majors overlap in certain fundamental and basic knowledge bases, they differ considerably in their focus. The B.A. in Psychology is designed to provide students with a strong foundation in general psychology, including the areas of development, clinical, perception, learning, memory, cognitive processes, and neuroscience. The B.S. in Psychology incorporates more science content, as the physical and biological sciences play a critical role in deeper study of the mind and brain. The B.S. in Cognitive Sciences is structured to provide students with a challenging introduction to the broad field of Cognitive Sciences that is strongly grounded in theory emphasizing experimental and computational methods. *New majors are not being accepted into the Psychology (B.A.), as it is being discontinued by the end of Spring 2024.