Research in the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences reflects the uniquely interdisciplinary way in which HASS faculty look at the world.  Funded research spans the investigation of the very small scale to the very large scale. 

• Researchers in the Cognitive Science Department are investigating how perception shapes action and how vision guides the way simple and complex human tasks are accomplished under varying circumstances and constraints; other cognitive scientists are examining  how humans use background knowledge and context to understand language even when what is being said is ambiguous, novel, ungrammatical, and/or metaphorical; other cognitive scientists are collaborating with faculty in the Arts Department to build the cognitive architecture that enables intelligent agents to reason and intuit so that we can better understand how these two cognitive abilities are used by creative artists to create. 
• Faculty in the Science and Technology Studies Department explore minority cultures to identify elements within those cultures that can be used to design and build web-based tools that help K-12 students succeed in math and science. 
• Research originating from the Department of Language, Literature, and Communications explores the influence of various personified technologies on children's social and moral development in an effort to better understand the impacts and develop evidence-based recommendations to guide the design of children's technology. 
• Faculty in the Economics Department are employing new models to analyze the effects of various incentive-based carbon dioxide emissions regulations and exploring the emerging field of neuroeconomics and behavioral economics. 

HASS has recently established new research labs and centers and added doctoral degrees in Cognitive Science and Electronic Arts.  HASS faculty serve as editors of several major academic journals:   Structural Change and Economic Dynamics in the Department of Economics, The Journal of Cultural Anthropology in the Department of Science and Technology Studies; and Cognitive Systems Research  and Topics in Cognitive Science in the Department of Cognitive Science.  Our Department of Cognitive Science is the home for a complete, online, 20 year archive of the Journal of the Cognitive Science Society

HASS students are actively engaged in the research enterprise and regularly attend and present work at major national and international conferences. For a representative list, click here.