Manvi Jain - My Experiences

Four winter days dedicated to Cognitive Science in India

In December 2023, the Association for Cognitive Science organized a three-day event for the 10th iteration of Annual Conference of Cognitive Science at IIT Kanpur from 9th to 11th day of the month. On 12th December, the Judgment and Decision Making India conference was organized on the same campus by professors from IIT-D and IIT-K.

The conference was studded with talks and posters on various themes of Cognitive science like learning and memory, language, emotion, disorders and interventions, attention and perception, and so on. The keynote talks added flavor to the overall experience of the conference. I am excited to write an overview of all the talks and posters I found interesting and I was able to comprehend. So let's begin with my favorites: the keynote talks titled 'Splitting attention into its atomic components' by Prof. Sridharan Devarajan from IISc Bangalore and 'Dogs and their human neighbors in the urban ecosystem' by Prof. Anindita Bhadra from IISER Kolkata, a glimpse of their talks can be seen in the abstract below.

There were many other amazing talks and posters presented by faculties and scholars across the world.

My preparation experience for entrance exams

I would like to share my humble experience with entrance exams for Masters in Cognitive Science in India. I have given GATE Psychology twice, COGJET thrice, IIT Gandhinagar written exam twice, and CUET PG twice (General and Psychology categories). All I know now is that each and every thing that you decided to study and not matters when you sit in front of that screen on D-Day.

Though I am not in much of a position to say about GATE Psychology since I did not qualify it once, but I can certainly speak for other exams like COGJET and CUET. Let's get a clearer picture of each exam separately.

COGJET 2024 opens doors to MSc in Cog Sci and integrated MSc in Cog Sci at CBCS Allahabad, and PhD in Cog Sci at IIIT Hyderabad. For preparation of this exam, I mostly used AP Psychology and UGC NET Psychology book for practice,11th and 12th Psychology NCERT, IGNOU eGyankosh Psychology books for theory. For this exam, one must look into the basics of everything on the syllabus list including programming. No need to get into the complexities of it as such, but you should know the theories well. I liked the YouTube channel called CrashCourse for taking an overview of the topics before getting into readings.

Same preparation style can be used for CUET PG (Psychology) which opens doors to MA Psychology at Central University Rajasthan and several other state universities. For CUET PG (General) you should prepare and practice extensively, the exam is not difficult and easy to clear. Through this exam, you can get admission in MSc Neural systems and cognitive science at University of Hyderabad.

GATE provides entry to IIT Delhi and IIT Kanpur for MSc Cognitive Science. There could be more institutes in the list, please do your research in this regard. A friend of mine with GATE AIR 26 told me that she followed GRE Psychology book for this exam which follows the same syllabus and pattern as the exam.

Working in the most spiritually healthy environment

I belong to Agra in U.P. where more than the Taj Mahal, we appreciate the diversity the city exhibits. A part of this diversity is a small community called Dayalbagh located in the most green part of the city. The people of this community believe in simple, spiritually involved, and sustainable living. I became a part of this vibrant community as an undergrad student of this community's university which believes in spreading education at the minimal cost possible. I continued to associate myself with this community even after graduation when I joined IIT Delhi as a Project Associate. Our project there focused on studying socio-emotional learning in young children, and what better community to study than Dayalbagh when it comes to teaching in a unique way in order to cultivate values? So my team went to Dayalbagh to collect EEG data with some unique students with exceptional training in physical, mental, and spiritual, not to mention, educational aspects. It was here that I got the chance to conduct my self-designed moral cognition game and a modified self-regulation test which went on to become a unique neuromarketing study that I later presented at IIM Ahmedabad next year. There, I worked with children as young as 3 years, and those little kids were as patient as an ocean.

I have published articles online to share my work in collaboration with other talented researchers in the lab. Read them here:

Can children be taught values using game designs? Insights from a neurophysiological experimental study with children. DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/u5qrz

Jain, M., Negi, K., Sahni P., Kumar, J. (2022, December 12). Neural Underpinnings of Decoupled Ethical Behavior in Adolescents as an Interaction of Peer and Personal Values. DOI: https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.05202v1