Cognitive science and society
Track directors: Thérèse Collins, Mehdi Khamassi, Louise Kirsch and Klara Kovarski
Capacity: 5
General organization
The master’s student must register to one of the tracks. These tracks ensure the acquisition of genuine expertise in the concepts, methods, and techniques specific to each discipline, enhancing the clarity of skills associated with the diploma. The program establishes a common cultural foundation from the first year (M1) through a core curriculum and introductory courses to the different disciplines. In the second year (M2), the majority of courses are fully interdisciplinary and open to students from all tracks. Our goal is to cultivate cognitivists equipped with both robust disciplinary expertise and a broad interdisciplinary culture, essential elements for fostering meaningful collaboration across disciplines.
During the M2, all students will do a long internship during the 2nd semester. During the 1st semester, they will prepare for the internship. Spending one day in the lab (or a parent lab in the case of an internship outside Paris), they will work on the bibliography and clarify the research research question and forseen methods and statistical tests. At the end of 1st semester of M2, students will submit a preregistration document to their track directors, and present for 8 min in front of a jury at the end of January. This is crucial to learn more about the reproducibility crisis, and good practices to overcome it. At the end of the 2nd semester, students will submit a full report and present in front of an interdisciplinary jury the work they did during their internship.
Specific to this track
The Cognitive Sciences and Society track explores human cognitive processes and social dynamics within our society. It offers an interdisciplinary approach, combining all the disciplines of the cognitive sciences (psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, linguistics, AI…) as well as other fields that can feed or be fed by the cognitive sciences (design, urbanism…). This course provides a solid methodological and theoretical background, with an emphasis on the concrete applications and reflections of cognitive science in fields such as education, health, ecological transition and public policy. This training enables critical and in-depth analysis of societal issues in the light of evidence-based data, and to provide scientifically valid and/or informed solutions within an ethical framework.
M1 Internships
Internships in this track are optional (S1 and/or S2) and worth 6 ECTS (1 day/week). They may take place in a research laboratory, an institution, or an organization working at the intersection of cognitive science and societal issues. We also encourage internships on fundamental topics of cognitive science. The internship should allow to engage with cognitive science methods in applied (e.g., public policy, education, ecology etc.), interdisciplinary or fundamental contexts (psychology, neurosciences…). We expect students to be involved in the different stages of a project, including the definition of objectives, methodology, data collection or literature review.
Evaluation is based on an oral presentation at the end of the semester (10 minutes followed by questions). It should present the context, objectives, methods, and outcomes of the internship. Students could be required to submit a written report for theoretical topics (literature review).
Key words: society, transfer to society, evidence-based practices, participatory science
New partnerships
The Cognitive science and society (SOC) track of cog-SUP is currently setting up several partnerships with other academic institutions as well as with non-academic organizations which apply cognitive science to society. This opens possibilities for SOC students to (1) have access to additional optional courses, and (2) make long or short internships with these partners so as to learn new fields of application of cognitive science to some of the major current societal issues.
These partners include:
– ENSCI Les Ateliers, proposing a science-design collaboration in a workshop-project (ENSCI-101 below).
– Master Economics and Behavior (UPCité / Univ Paris 1), proposing a joint computational course (NCIA-201 below) plus see their course lists for additional options.
– EHESS, opening several of its courses/seminars to cog-SUP students, including here one on computational social sciences (EHESS-201 below)
More to come hopefully soon…
Non-academic partners proposing collaborations and internships:
– Thibaud Griessinger at ACTE LAB
– Mariam Chammat, Camille Rozier and Camille Lakhlifi at Direction Interministérielle de la Transformation Publique (DITP)
– Gaëtan de Lavilléon and Marie Lacroix at Cog’X
– Emma Vilarem at SCITY
– Albert Moukheiber at CHIASMA
– Chiara Varrazani at OECD
– Rita Abd El Sater at Agence France Développement
– Isabelle Collin at SNCF Transilien
M1 – Semester 1
Master core curriculum
CORE-4 Ethics in cognitive sciences (3 ECTS), Katie Evans, Anouk Barberousse, Raja Chatila
Master options: 3 to 6 ECTS among these options
CORE-1 Experimental approach (3 ECTS), Christophe Pallier
CORE-2Data camp (3 ECTS)
PROG-101Introduction to programming (3 ECTS), Sylvain Charron
Track core curriculum
PSYCH-101 Introduction to cognitive psychology (3 ECTS), Thérèse Collins
PHILO-101 Scientific reasoning (6 ECTS), Anouk Barberousse
Options : 12 to 15 ECTS among these options
INT-101 Internship (1 day/week) (6 ECTS)
LING-101 Introduction au Traitement Automatique des Langues (3 ECTS), Guillaume Wisniewski
NCIA-101 Introduction to Computational Neuroscience and AI (3 ECTS), Mehdi Khamassi, Benoît Girard
NEURO-101 Introduction to Cognitive Neurocience (3 ECTS),Chloé Berland, Pierre Bourdillon
NCIA-201 Bayesian Modeling of brain and behavior (3 ECTS), Jonathan Vacher, Jean Daunizeau
NEURO-201 Neuropsychology as a central paradigm in cognitive science (3 ECTS), Lucie Rose, Paolo Bartolomeo, Laurent Cohen
NEURO-301 Basic methods in Neuroimaging (3 ECTS), Laura Dugué
NEURO-302 Advanced methods in Neuroimaging (3 ECTS), Laura Dugué
PSYCH-301 Methods in psychological science (3 ECTS), Thérèse Collins
ENSCI-101 Workshop-project in cognitive science applied to design (3 or 6 ECTS), Mehdi Khamassi, Thérèse Collins
SCIPO-101 ouverture en 2025 / opened in 2025 Governance, democracy and public policy: Psychology and public policy (3 ECTS), Laudine Carbuccia, Mariam Chammat, Lou Safra
M1 – Semester 2
Master core curriculum
CORE-3 Literature (Meta-)review (3 ECTS), Jonathan Vacher
Master options: 3 to 6 ECTS among these options
CORE-1 Experimental approach (3 ECTS), Sylvain Charron
CORE-2Data camp (3 ECTS)
PROG-202Human experimental workshop (3 ECTS), Mark Wexler
Track core curriculum
PSYCH-202 Psychological functions: perception-action, decision-making, memory (6 ECTS), Louise Kirsch
SOC-301 Applying methods of cognitive psychology (3 ECTS), Thérèse Collins, will open in fall 2025
SOC-201 Supervised project on a major societal issue (3 ECTS), Mehdi Khamassi
Options : 9 to 12 ECTS among these options
INT-201 Internship (1 day/week) (6 ECTS)
PHIL-102 Introduction to the philosophy of cognitive science (6ECTS), Pascal Ludwig
PSYCH-201 Psychological functions: language, numerical cognition, animal cognition (6 ECTS), Thierry Nazzi
NEURO-202 Advanced Cognitive Neuroscience (6 ECTS), Louise Kirsch
NEURO-203 Cognitive Neurophysiology (6 ECTS), Chloé Berland
NCIA-206 Model-based neuroimaging (3 ECTS), Laura Dugué
NEURO-SU-4 Python avancé (6 ECTS), Hédi Soula
INFO-SU-4 Interfaces Humain-Machine (lectures in French, slides in English) (6 ECTS), Gilles Bailly, Baptiste Caramiaux
EHESS-201 Advanced introduction to computational social sciences (3 ECTS), Camille Roth
M2 – Semester 3
Master core curriculum
INT-301 Internship Internship preparation (1 day/week) (6 ECTS)
Track core curriculum
SOC-202 Ecological transition and societal issues (3 ECTS), Karim N’Diaye, Aurore Grandin, Thibaud Griessinger
Options : 21 ECTS among these options
COG-401Attention (6 ECTS), Laura Dugué
COG-402 Decision (6 ECTS), Mathias Pessiglione
COG-403 Cognitive neuroscience of consciousness (6 ECTS), Claire Sergent, Jérôme Sackur
COG-404 Social cognition (6 ECTS), Louise Kirsch, Klara Kovarski
COG-405 Computational psychiatry (6 ECTS), Fabien Vinckier, Philippe Domenech
PSYCH-203 Representations (6 ECTS), Thérèse Collins
PSYCH-204 Neuro-education: advanced introduction to developmental psychology and neurosciences for education (6 ECTS), Elise Klein, Arnaud Cachia
iMOV-SU-2 Physiology of perception (6 ECTS), Oliver Marre, Grégory Gauvain
MSR-SU-1 Motor control (6 ECTS), Emmanuel Guigon, Malika Auvray
BIP-SU-1 Cerveau social et émotions (6 ECTS), Jacqueline Nadel
Development of the nervous system (6 ECTS), Richard Belvindrah, Alexandra Redsam
PAS-1 Hearing: from mechanisms to restauration (6 ECTS), Brice Bathellier
M2 – Semester 4
Master core curriculum
INT-401 Internship Internship (full time) (30 ECTS)