Doctorate
1. Mandatory Disciplines (4 credits, 60 hours)
Concentration Area: Experimental Psychology
Advanced Studies in Behavioral Analysis (4 credits, 60 hours)
Summary: Conceptual development and recurring research problems in the recent literature of behavior analysis. Conceptual and methodological interaction of behavior analysis with the Neurosciences. The pragmatism, the cognitivisms, the self-organization and behavior analysis. Comparative analysis. The behavior analysis and the society of the future.
Concentration Area: Eco-Ethology
Advanced Studies in Eco-Ethology (4 credits, 60 hours)
Summary: Epistemology and the history of thought about the behavior on analytic philosophy and psychology.
2. Mandatory disciplines for both concentration areas
Guidance Training I (10 credits, 150 hours)
Summary: Orientation monitoring of Masters Dissertation.
Guidance Training II (1 credit, 15 hours)
Summary: Elaboration of opinion about mid-term examinations of masters dissertation.
Guidance Training III (10 credits, 150 hours)
Summary: Writing and submitting at least one article derived from the thesis for indexed journal with editorial board, as main author.
Advanced Research I (10 credits, 150 hours)
Summary: Research activity under guidance. Elaboration of report containing the activities developed in first semester, starting from the month of admission.
Advanced Research II (10 credits, 150 hours)
Summary: Research activity under guidance. Regarding the student’s second semester in the program.
Advanced Research III (10 credits, 150 hours)
Summary: Investigation theme definition with an extensive listing of relevant literature.
Advanced Search IV (10 credits, 150 hours)
Summary: Preparation and examination of the doctoral thesis project.
Advanced Search V (10 credits, 150 hours)
Summary: Preparation and examination of the doctoral thesis project.
Advanced Search VI (10 credits, 150 hours)
Summary: Preparation and examination of the doctoral thesis project.
Advanced Search VII (10 credits, 150 hours)
Summary: Preparation and examination of the doctoral thesis project.
Advanced Search VIII (10 credits, 150 hours)
Summary: Preparation and final examination of the doctoral thesis.
Master’s Degree
1. Mandatory disciplines (6 credits, 90 hours)
Concentration Area: Experimental Psychology
Experimental Behavior Analysis Foundations (3 credits, 45 hours)
Summary: The definition of behavior. Behavior selection by consequences. Stimulus control. Ground stabilization schemes. Social contingencies. Complex human behavior.
Experimental Behavior Analysis Methodology (3 credits, 45 hours)
Summary: Techniques and procedures used in behavior research. The experimental planning: experimental and statistical control in the experimental behavior analysis. The methodology of the subject as their own control. The scientific importance of experimental data: direct and systematic replication. Experimental variability and stability criteria.
Concentration Area: Ethology
Ethology Foundations (3 credits, 45 hours)
Summary: Historical foundations of Ethology. The four causes in Ethology. Functional and proximal approach of behavior. Ontogeny of behavior. Foundations of sociality.
Ethology Methodology (3 credits, 45 hours)
Summary: Basic notions of Conservation Biology. Ecology, ethology, sociobiology and field methodologies. Research planning: definition of problems and hypotheses; the design of the research in theory and in practice; data analysis, descriptive statistics, test of hypotheses and presentation of results.
2. Mandatory disciplines for both concentration areas
Supervised Research I (10 credits, 150 hours)
Summary: Research activity under guidance. Report elaboration. Discipline corresponding to the first semester, starting from the date of student’s admission in the program.
Supervised Research II (10 credits, 150 hours)
Summary: Research activity under guidance. Report elaboration. Discipline corresponding to the second semester, starting from the date of student’s admission in the program.
Supervised Research III (10 credits, 150 hours)
Summary: Elaboration of dissertation research project, it ends with the mid-term examination. Discipline corresponds to the third semester, starting from the date of student’s admission in the program.
Supervised Research IV (10 credits, 150 hours)
Summary: Writing dissertation. Discipline corresponding to the fourth semester, starting from the date of student’s admission in the program.
Elective disciplines (Master’s degree and PhD)
Learning and Emergence of Verbal Relations (3 credits, 45 hours)
Level: Master’s degree
Summary: Behavior analysis in the formation of stimuli equivalence classes and ordinal classes. Experimental studies in the production of behavioral sequences: the emergence of verbal, numerical and ordinal relations.
Verbal Behavior (3 credits, 45 hours)
Level: Master's degree
Summary: Functional analysis of verbal behavior. Basic verbal operating. Autoclitic processes. Multiple control and production of verbal behavior.
Sound Communication (4 credits, 60 hours)
Level: Master's degree
Summary: The discipline covers the general principles of animal communication, with theoretical background based on information theory. We'll cover the production, transmission and reception of sound communication signals. The biological aspects of BioAcoustics are related to ethology, physiology, neurosciences, and also integrates the ecology, regarding to the understanding of the relationships between the characteristics of sounds produced by the animals and the nature of the environment in which they are used and the functions to which they were assigned. This branch of science covers the evolution and ontogeny of sound communication, studying of questions of phylogeny and learning processes. The development of the study of acoustic signals and the establishing of BioAcoustics as science allowed the application of this powerful tool to study biodiversity and animal behavior. This discipline will cover the acoustic’s principles and details of the brain processing of sound information on birds. We will make a demonstration of recording techniques in field research. Will be presented examples of complete studies in sound communication from insects to primates and the students will be encouraged to relate the principles presented with your individual research.
Preparation of Scientific Papers (3 credits, 45 hours)
Level: Master's degree and PhD
Summary: Introduction to the bases for the preparation of scientific papers; search tools; planning and drafting papers; submission, review and evaluation of scientific papers.
Stimulus Equivalence (3 credits, 45 hours)
Level: Master's degree
Summary: The formation of classes of equivalent stimuli and their control variables. The complexity and super selectivity of stimuli (restrict control). Interactive effects of arrangement of training, nodality and topography of answers. Analysis of relations of control stimuli: relation of correct comparison model (check control) and incorrect comparison model (control by rejection). Reading as equivalence relations.
Social Interaction and Development I (3 credits, 45 hours)
Concentration area: Ethology
Level: Master's degree
Summary: Ethological approach. The concepts of social, interaction, relationship and group. Nature and function of the adaptations of the newborn to social life. Theory about clinging. Friendship between children.
Social Interaction and Development II (3 credits, 75 hours)
Level: Master’s degree
Summary: Delimitation of a research problem based on the themes worked in Social Interaction and Development I. Collect, analyze and present the results of the pilot study.
Quantitative Parametric Methods in Behavioral Research (6 credits, 90 hours)
Level: Master's degree
Summary: Foundations of statistical inference and significance tests. (1) historical perspective; (2) Classes of variables, scales and the main designs of experimental and not experimental research; (3) descriptive statistics; the Z score and Gaussian curve areas; (4) tests of significance and the basis of inference; (5) correlation and regression; 6) Student's t distribution; (7) the distribution F and variance analysis; (8) the use of statistical packages for PCs.
Teaching Practice (5 credits, 75 hours)
Concentration area: Eco-Ethology and Experimental Psychology
Level: PhD
Summary: The discipline of Teaching Practice aims to provide opportunity for graduate student exercises, under supervision, activities related to the teaching of another undergraduate-level discipline. Specifically, at the end of the Teaching Practice discipline, the student should be able to: 1) Plan an undergraduate discipline, describing its summary, its objectives, its content; the bibliography, the method of teaching; and the evaluation instruments; 2) Run the discipline planning in the classroom; and, 3) Draw up a report describing the activities described under objectives 1 and 2.
Advanced Topics in Stimulus Control (3 credits, 45 hours)
Level: Master's degree
Summary: Training classes of equivalent and ordinal stimuli; theory of coherence of topographies of stimuli control; variables of procedures for the teaching of reading, writing and mathematics; stimulus control in the production of behavioral sequences symbolic behavior.
Selected Topics in Eco-Ethology (3 credits, 45 hours)
Concentration area: Ethology
Level: Master's degree and PhD
Summary: Transcription technology and video analysis; delimitation of register and analysis categories; management of audiovisual database of projects; concurrent data mapping, qualitative and quantitative analysis of observational data.