Cognitive Science: Finding Articles & Journals

Recommended Databases

Good databases to start your search.

Tip: The databases on ProQuest (ERIC, LLBA, MLA, PsycINFO, Sociological Abstracts) or EbscoHost (Academic Search Complete, PsycINFO) can be searched together by "choosing databases", but you will lose database-specific search fields, such as the age group limiter in PsycINFO. Same with the Web of Science/INSPEC cross search.

PubMed
Indexes 5,500 journals in the biomedical/health sciences and related disciplines.

ACM Digital Library & Guide to Computing Literature
Bibliographic information, abstracts, and full text of works published by the Association for Computing Machinery, 1947 to present. The Guide to the Computing Literature indexes journal articles and conference proceedings from additional societies and commercial publishers, including IEEE, Springer, Elsevier, SIAM, and more.
CogNet Library
A growing collection of searchable electronic texts for cognitive, brain, and computer sciences from MIT Press and others.
IEEE Xplore
Full-text access to IEEE & IEE/IET transactions, journals, magazines & conference proceedings, IEEE standards, and IEEE e-books. Browse by journal title, conference name, author. Citing articles of IEEE papers now listed. Includes titles in cognition, communication, and data science.
Inspec
NOTE: Institution-wide access to this resource will end on December 31, 2025.
Indexes 22+ million journal articles and conference papers in physics, electrical engineering and electronics, and computer science. Also good for related disciplines like geophysics, astronomy, mechanical engineering, biomedical engineering, ocean engineering, and acoustics. Indexes IEEE conference papers and standards. ****You can now cross search with Compendex for a more comprehensive search of the engineering literature; duplicate results can be removed.
MLA International Bibliography
Indexes journal articles, monographs, book chapters, and dissertations in language and literature, including linguistics.
PsycINFO
Provides access to scholarly literature in the psychological, social, behavioral, and health sciences. Includes journal articles, books, chapters, and dissertations. Includes approximately 2,500 journals. Updated weekly. NOTE: Includes full-text jrnl articles from PsycARTICLES and Psychology:A SAGE Full-Text Collection.
Web of Science
Indexes over 18,000 journals in all subjects (coverage back to 1900 for science and social science journals), as well as 80,000 books and more than 180K conference proceedings. Includes the popular "cited reference search" to identify papers which have cited a previously published work or author. Can also sort by "times cited" and find related articles based on commonly cited works.
ERIC (Education Resources Information Center) via ProQuest *Preferred Platform* (1966-present)
Sponsored by the U.S. Dept of Education; provides access to educational-related literature. Coverage includes journal articles and non-journal sources in education which are not available online. If not online, write down the ED# located in the 'Accession Number' field of the record, and check the ERIC documents microfiche cabinets located in the Geisel Library Reference Area.
Education Source
1929-present. Includes more than 2,850 academic periodicals, full text for more than 1,800 journals, 550 books and monographs, education-related conference papers, book reviews and over 100,000 controlled and cross-referenced names of educational tests. Coverage spans all levels of education from early childhood to higher education.

Google Scholar and Full Text Access

1. Go to the Google Scholar homepage and click icon of 3 parallel bars in the top left corner of the screen.

2. Choose Settings or the gear icon in the top right of the menu.

3. Select Library Links from the left-side menu.

4. Search for University of California, San Diego - Get It at UC.

5. Click check box next to this option and Save.

When you search for articles, you will now see an extra column with additional links on the right. Where you see Get it at UC, you may click it to view the Get it at UC menu from which you can get the full text through the library databases. From this menu, choose whichever online option is available.

(Note: If you are not logged into the VPN (see home page of this guide), when you choose an article, you will be asked to log in with your UCSD username and password and/or pay for access. Be sure to log into the VPN first.)