MSc Psychology of the Arts, Neuroaesthetics & Creativity

You should normally have (or expect to be awarded) an undergraduate degree of at least upper second class in psychology or a related subject (cognitive science, neuroscience) with a research component. However, we explicitly encourage candidates with interdisciplinary and unusual biographies to apply. Applicants with undergraduate degrees in the visual or performing arts, design, humanities, business, or other non-scientific subjects will be required to demonstrate sufficient background knowledge and experience with psychological or cognitive neuroscience approaches, including statistics. Please contact the programme leader directly if you are unsure as to whether you would qualify for this programme.

As well as the degree requirement above, it is also necessary to have sufficient knowledge of statistics and experimental design to apply for our programme. Many applicants for this course would arrive with a psychology undergraduate degree where the statistics topics would have been covered extensively across three years. Students entering the MSc programme are assumed to have a good knowledge of experimental design, sampling, descriptive statistics, t-tests, ANOVA, correlation, and regression. These fundamental topics won’t be covered in our statistics and experimental design lectures. This leaves room to cover more advanced topics that you will need for writing lab reports across the year and your final project. For candidates with little or no statistical knowledge, we do offer a boot camp that covers more basic statistical tests. This intensive course takes place in the summer.

However, students with little experience in neuroscience/statistical methods should engage with the suggested reading listed below and/or complete a basic statistics course on a platform such as Coursera or Datalab prior to applying so that they can demonstrate sufficient statistical background to enter the programme. Applicants can also engage with learning statistics with jamovi, which introduces many of the statistical concepts covered in the programme as well as the statistical software students will be using.

International qualifications

We accept a wide range of international qualifications. Find out more about the qualifications we accept from around the world.

If English isn’t your first language, you will need an IELTS score (or equivalent English language qualification) of 6.5 with a 6.5 in writing and no element lower than 6.0 to study this programme. If you need assistance with your English language, we offer a range of courses that can help prepare you for postgraduate study.