Applied Cognitive psychology

Specialisation of: Psychology
Degree: Master of Science in Psychology
Mode of Study: Full-time
Duration: 1 year
Start date: September and February
Language of instruction: English
Location: Leiden
Croho/isat code: 66604
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Are you interested in addressing and remedying important practical problems in society? Do you want to help raise people’s performance levels? You can use the knowledge you acquire in this programme in the following areas:

Cognitive Enhancement

  • Optimising the cognitive capabilities of people of all ages
  • Advice on the optimal circumstances for performance and learning
  • Studying the effects of drugs on human performance

Cognitive Ergonomics

  • Developing accident-prevention programmes, e.g. safety research in industry and traffic
  • Developing user-friendly tools and interfaces
  • Improving decision-making processes: psychology and law, including the topics of eyewitness memory, false confessions and jury decision-making

The aim of this master’s specialisation is to provide you with a maximum of hands-on experience starting on the very first day. You develop all the practical and intellectual skills necessary to apply psychological knowledge to real-life problems in working environments and organisations.
The main emphasis is on translating theory into practice.

What our alumni say

“The great advantage of this specialisation is that it puts psychology into practice.”

After I graduated from the master’s specialisation in Applied Cognitive Psychology I started working for Governors, a company in Leiden. This is a software development company for risk management tools. I am an Information Ergonomics Researcher and Developer.

My job is to investigate the ergonomic use of our products and to optimise the user-friendliness of the software. I support the developers in the making of software designs and the development of usable features in the products. I also have a lot of communication with our customers to consult with them on their use of risk management software. To familiarise myself with this knowledge, I collaborate with researchers at Leiden University to determine how people investigate and analyse incidents and how they handle risk management.

The change from the University to the real world of business can be quite big, but the great advantage of the Applied Cognitive Psychology specialisation is that it specialises in putting psychology into practice. You have a lot of ‘hands-on’ information that is directly applicable in the real world, which was exactly what I was hoping to get from the programme. I followed courses that were particularly useful in being able to look at usability of computer applications, and gave me a good insight into people’s perception of risk and how you can manage that. In my job, I bring these two subjects together.

Estella Groeneweg, Information Ergonomics Researcher and Developer