Research
The worldwide growth in cognitive science research is reflected in the growth of research capacity, the number of core faculty, and graduate students in the Department. Learn about recent and ongoing impactful research happening in our Department by following the links below.
Table of Contents
Graduate Research Showcase
Research Clusters
The Department was founded to support interdisciplinary research in cognitive science. Faculty members are usually involved in a range of different projects. Learn about our current research clusters.
Research Labs
Colloquia Schedule
See our events page.
SONA Recruitment: Q&As for Researchers
Some important information on using SONA is summarized in this document.
What/where is SONA?
SONA is an online application. There are two SONA’s – one for psychology and one for cognitive science. Cognitive science faculty and their student researchers must use the cognitive science SONA.
Who can use the “cognitive science” SONA?
SONA is available to all cognitive science faculty and their students.
How does a researcher (my student, myself, etc.) get access to Sona?
SONA requires a researcher ID and a password. To get the ID/password, please email the Sona administrator – their email can be found at the bottom of the SONA page.
What happens once I get my login information?
Once you get your login information and log into SONA by entering it on the SONA webpage, you can add information about your study and set up time slots so that participants can sign up. The SONA admin will send you the SONA manual that describes how to do this step. It is the researcher’s responsibility to read the manual and set up their study.
Can I email the SONA administrator if I need help setting up my study in SONA?
It is the researcher’s responsibility to set up their studies in SONA – the SONA administrator does not provide support for this process beyond providing links to the documentation. Please note that beyond the SONA manual you will be provided, there is a great deal of documentation available online (e.g., on using Qualtrics in conjunction with SONA).
What if my study is a Survey (e.g. Survey Monkey)?
You need to set-up your study in SONA and link it to Survey (see the SONA manual).
Can online studies be set up through SONA?
Yes (also see next item).
Is there support for online research provided at Carleton?
Carleton provides free access to Qualtrics, which is software for setting up surveys online and collecting data through these surveys. For more information on getting this software, please contact the ethics office. Once you get the software, please refer to the SONA manual and Qualtrics documentation for setting up your study.
How do much and what way can participants recruited via SONA be compensated?
The standard compensation is course credit (currently for CGSC 1001). Please be sure to follow the guidelines outlined here when determining the amount of credit. In particular, please do not alter the amount of credit given for participation outlined in these guidelines. SONA participants can also be paid in lieu of course credit.
Do I need ethics approval to recruit via SONA?
Yes, ethics approval is needed to recruit participants using SONA.
When is SONA available?
Currently, SONA is available whenever CGSC 1001 is offered (typically during the fall, winter, spring, and summer terms, but please check the calendar for exact dates).
Technical Reports
This is a service for the distribution, tracking, and citation of unpublished or draft material related to cognitive science. The documents here are checked for formatting and appropriateness of content, but are not otherwise reviewed in any way. By submitting a document, the authors grant permission to distribute it on this site, but the copyright remains with them. Although this service is intended primarily for the cognitive science community centered around Carleton, we will consider submissions from elsewhere.
Submissions should be made by email in either Word (preferred) or PDF formats to Professor Jim Davies. Be sure to include the author’s name and contact information on the first page of the document.
Some reasons for submitting a tech report:
- You are presenting a paper at a conference that does not publish its proceedings, but you want to distribute the full paper anyway.
- You have a paper under review somewhere that you would like to distribute in draft form.
- You have a paper you are thinking of submitting to a conference or journal but want to distribute for feedback first.
- Somone wants to cite your paper (or you want to cite your own paper) but it hasn’t yet been published, or may never be published.
- You have a paper with some original ideas that you would like to distribute, but for whatever reason, you don’t want to (or feel you can’t) publish it in a journal or conference proceedings.