The department has carried out research and educational projects in general experimental psychology since its foundation in 1906. Graduate and undergraduate programs are based on experimental psychology, covering fields of perception, cognition, memory, learning, neural mechanisms, and development in both human and nonhuman subjects. Undergraduate students are required to submit a thesis before graduation. Graduate students are expected to have sufficient background knowledge on experimental design to perform a series of experiments and are highly encouraged to develop their original research in-depth. Current research activities in the department include: visual psychophysics, working memory, eye-movement during reading, attentional processing in vision, visual consciousness, comparative study of perception and cognition, evolution of intelligence and affect, cognitive development, cognitive neuroscience of memory, mechanisms of neuronal coding.

The department publishes the peer-reviewed nation-wide quarterly journal Shinrigaku Hyoron (Japanese Psychological Review). Local professional meetings such as the Kyoto International Seminar for Psychology and the Kyoto Psychology Seminar are organized several times a year by the department.

• http://www.bun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/psy/index_e.html