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01:830:305 · Psychology · School 01 — New Brunswick School of Arts and Sciences
Cognition examines how people perceive, attend, remember, categorize, imagine, use language, and solve problems, tying those mental processes to experimental methods and brain systems.
How hard?
Students rate teaching
SIRS · 1,964 responses · 2014–2025
Spring 2027
2 open in snapshot · 2 instructors
When it meets
Busch
Checked-in sections · current seat counts are unavailable.
TTh 2:00 PM · Busch · 1 section · 1 open
AI-generated overview
Higher means more demanding · AI summary
6 units · topic sequence may vary by instructor
Rutgers sample syllabi start by defining cognition as something that can be studied experimentally rather than only talked about philosophically. Students are usually introduced to classic behavioral methods, then to the brain systems and neuroscience tools used to ask how mental representations are formed and used.
The course then usually turns to how information gets selected in the first place. Perception, attention, and consciousness are taught as linked limits on mental processing: what enters the system, what gets prioritized, and what becomes available for reportable awareness.
Memory is typically the biggest block of the semester. Expect the course to separate encoding, short-term and working memory, long-term memory, retrieval, and false memory so that remembering is treated as a family of processes rather than a single storage box.
Recent syllabi often place cognitive development after memory so students can ask how these systems change across the lifespan. This part broadens into concepts, semantic knowledge, and categorization, showing how the mind organizes information once it has been perceived and retained.
This section moves from stored knowledge to active manipulation. Thinking and intelligence focus on problem solving and reasoning, creativity adds open-ended generation, and mental imagery asks how internal representations can be inspected or transformed even when the stimulus is absent.
Late-semester cognition usually turns to communication and lifespan change. Language connects concepts, memory, and perception in a high-level symbolic system, while aging and dementia force students to ask which cognitive capacities remain stable, which decline, and how scientists distinguish normal aging from disorder.
Public r/rutgers discussion usually frames Cognition as manageable when students keep up with lecture material and do consistent weekly review, but also notes that the feel of the course depends a lot on the instructor. Compared with some other cognitive-core options, commenters often describe Cognition as straightforward in structure even when the subject matter is abstract.
The course repeatedly returns to the fact that thoughts and representations are not observed directly; they are modeled through experiments, response patterns, and neural measures.
False-memory and retrieval units usually make clear that remembering depends on cues, context, and reconstruction rather than a perfectly preserved internal video.
Selective attention and consciousness topics emphasize that human cognition is powerful partly because it filters aggressively, which also means it misses things.
Language, intelligence, imagery, and creativity make more sense once students see them as operations on information that was previously encoded, categorized, and stored.
Common pitfall
Instead
Keep asking what mental process each brain region, task, or experiment is supposed to explain.
Common pitfall
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Separate encoding, working memory, long-term storage, retrieval, and distortion so you can explain what goes wrong at each step.
Common pitfall
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Practice linking each topic to a classic task, finding, or research question, because cognition arguments are usually evidence-based comparisons.
Common pitfall
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The material becomes much clearer when students rewrite it into diagrams, process maps, and short study guides before each unit exam.
2 open · Busch
| Section | Status | Instructor | Meeting | Campus |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0116524 | Open | Hemmer | Monday 10:20 AM-11:40 AM at PH 115; Thursday 10:20 AM-11:40 AM at PH 115PH 115 | Busch |
| 0216525 | Open | Sarah Carton | Tuesday 2:00 PM-3:20 PM at COR 101; Thursday 2:00 PM-3:20 PM at COR 101COR 101 | Busch |
Historical student surveys
Teaching
3.90
Course quality
3.90
Response rate
36.2%
Coverage
67 offerings · 2014–2025
| Instructor | Offerings | Teaching | Quality |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sarah Carton | 16 | 4.06 | 4.06 |
| Jacob Feldman | 9 | 4.37 | 4.29 |
| Glass A. | 7 | 3.50 | 3.50 |
| Arnold Glass | 7 | 3.17 | 3.29 |
| Arnold Glass | 4 | 3.50 | 3.55 |
| Pernille Hemmer | 3 | 4.63 | 4.60 |
Catalog and planning context
Credits
3
Current campuses
Busch
Current availability
2 open of 2
Catalog terms
Fall, Spring, Summer
Core codes
SOEHS
Loaded terms
6
((21:830:101 and 21:830:102) or (01:830:101))<em> OR </em> ((21:830:101 and 21:830:102) or (50:830:101))
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