Author: Rodriguez, Atziri

Fall 2023 new graduate course

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Sentence and Discourse Processing (PSYC 5583)  

  

Fall, 2023 (timeslot to be determined) 

  

Instructor:  Whitney Tabor (whitney.tabor@uconn.edu)  

  

This course provides an introduction to psycho- and computational linguistics at the sentence and discourse levels.   It includes a theoretically-grounded exploration of Deep Learning/Large Language Models (LLMs), linking these to psycholinguistic work on phenomena at the boundary of competence and performance.  The course focuses on a number of structural/semantic phenomena of interest, selected from  case-marking, agreement,  long-distance dependencies, recursion, event-structure, and semantic/pragmatic factors in islandhood among others.  It considers cases where some researchers have argued that competence and performance phenomena are linked, and it asks what implications these phenomena have for the theory of language. 

 

The course will be offered in Fall, 2023.  It is currently listed in the time schedule as occurring on Mondays from 1:30-4:30 but this timeframe will almost certainly change once it becomes clear who plans to take the course.  If you are interested, please send email to whitney.tabor@uconn.edu. 

Save the Date: IBACS Meet & Speak on 4/28

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We are asking you to save the date for the 2023 IBACS Meet & Speak event on Friday, April 28th from 9-4:30pm. This exciting event will be in-person in Konover Auditorium. 

 

Affiliated faculty will give 10-minute talks, most of which are on the research they have carried out, or propose carrying out, with seed funding awarded by IBACS. Affiliated graduate students who have received IBACS funding will present 5-minute “datablitz” style talks. 

 

The event will provide an opportunity to learn more about the diverse interdisciplinary research of IBACS affiliates, provide a forum for cross-disciplinary networking, and will introduce our refurbished EEG Lab and our new UConn Science Alliance Mobile (SAM)! 

 

Schedule 

9:15AM – Welcome

9:30AM – Panel Discussion

10:15AM – Faculty Talks

11:25AM – Graduate Student Data Blitz

12:00PM – Lunch 

1:00PM – Keynote Speaker: Dr. Diego Bohorquez, Duke University

2:30PM to 4:30PM – Tours of the UConn Science Alliance Mobile (UConn SAM) and EEG Lab

 

A more detailed program including speaker names, talk titles, and the focus of the panel discussion will be shared soon. 

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LangFest 2023 – Save the Date!

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We are excited to announce that Language Fest is making an in-person return for 2023, and invite you to join us on the afternoon of Wednesday, April 26th (event times TBD).

 

Language Fest is a University-wide research conference that welcomes the full cross-disciplinary community of language researchers at UConn for a day of sharing results, ideas, methodologies, and fostering future interdisciplinary collaborations. Researchers from all disciplines of the language sciences and at all career stages are welcome and encouraged to submit their work.  

 

Further details about submissions and registration will be provided in early-March 2023.

 

For any questions about Language Fest, please e-mail: langfest@uconn.edu and visit our website https://languagefest.uconn.edu/. 

  

We look forward to your attendance and participation!

IBACS Summer 2023 Call for Seed Grant Applications

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IBACS Summer 2023 Undergraduate Research Grant Program 

The application period for the summer research grant program opens TODAY, Monday February 20th, and the deadline for applications will be 11:59 pm on March 13th, 2023. It is expected that applicants will be conducting research with IBACS faculty members, focusing on any research area associated with the IBACS mission.  Faculty sponsors will need to supply a letter of recommendation. Once the applicant lists the faculty advisor of the project in the form, an email will be sent to the faculty member with directions for how to submit the letter. Applicants must fill out the online application, submit a relatively short research plan and a budget that explains in detail how the funds will be spent.

The budget should be constructed in the following manner:  The total award will be for up to $5,000. $3,500 should go to providing the student with a summer stipend, and it is expected that the student will spend at least 10 weeks of the summer working on this project at UConn.  Up to $1,500 can be allocated for any supplies or materials that contribute to the research, including software, participant costs and any animal expenses. 

Students who received a Fall 2022/Spring 2023 IBACS grant are eligible for the summer award. However, students cannot take the summer IBACS award in combination with any other major summer award (e.g. SURF). Thus, a student can apply for multiple awards, but can only accept one. The results of the grant review will be given to the student awardees in time for them to make a decision about which grant they will accept, in case they receive more than one. 

The IBACS undergraduate award applications are reviewed based on the following criteria:

  • The project description is well written and clearly explains the project.
  • The project clearly focuses on a research area associated with the IBACS mission.
  • The budget is itemized, appropriate to the project described, and reports the total cost of the project (even if it exceeds the funding requested).
  • The advisor is familiar with the student’s project and rates the student’s work to date highly. 
  • Where project applications are equally meritorious, the reviewers will take note of how the student’s project will contribute to the advisor’s research goals.
  • The student and his/her project meet the eligibility criteria.
  • The student has secured research compliance approval(s) if necessary for the project. No award will be issued until documentation of approval(s) is received.
 Please visit our website for more information, including important tax details.

Call for IBRAiN Applications

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The Institute for the Brain and Cognitive Sciences (IBACS) is inviting graduate students to apply for the IBACS-BIRC Research Assistantships in Neuroimaging (IBRAiN) Program. These graduate assistantships are for 10 hours per week during the Fall (2023) and Spring (2024) semesters at the Brain Imaging Research Center (BIRC). During the first year, assistants will be trained in neuroimaging methods, data science, and reproducibility. Assistants will spend the remaining allocated hours at BIRC, supporting users of BIRC facilities. This could involve helping design and implement experimental procedures for fMRI, EEG, TMS etc., recruitment and prepping of participants, data analysis, or overseeing use of equipment by others. Applicants will be expected to commit to the full duration of the assistantship (Fall & Spring). Funds may be available during Summer 2024 to enable IBRAiN students to pursue their own research at BIRC. IBRAiN students also receive an allocation of 20 hours of resource time to be used at BIRC during the course of the fellowship. 

Up to three students will be supported in the 2023-2024 cycle. Students will participate in common training activities, but will primarily specialize in one ofthree roles at BIRC. Applicants should indicate which role(s) they wish to be considered for. 

1. Research software engineer. This role assists researchers in data analysis, particularly functional MRI, using existing software, and engineering and implementing new analytic tools when needed. Qualified candidates will have demonstrated proficiency in Python, MATLAB, or Julia, and Unix like computing environments. 

2. User support. This role assists researchers in using BIRC facilities, including experimental design and setup, equipment training, data management, and maintaining documentation resources. Qualified candidates will have prior experience in designing and running in-person experiments. Familiarity with Python or MATLAB is preferred. 

3. MR Operator. This role assists researchers in obtaining functional and structural MRI data by learning how to operate the Siemens Prisma 3T MRI Scanner to perform brain research studies. Qualified candidates will have demonstrated an understanding of MRI safety, a high level of reliability, and the ability to work with participants across the lifespan.

The deadline for receipt of applications will be midnight on Friday, February 24, 2023

Subject to funding constraints, these assistantships could be renewed for a further year. Please refer to the full details and access the application on ourIBRAiN webpage. 

If you have any questions, please contact the Institute Coordinator, Crystal Mills at crystal.mills@uconn.edu.

COGS Colloquium: Dr. Naselaris on 2/24

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The Cognitive Science Program invites you to a talk on 2/24!

Speaker: Dr. Thomas Naselaris, an Associate Professor from Department of Neuroscience at the University of Minnesota.

Time & Location: 4PM, Friday February 24th, 2023, in Oak Hall Room 117. Light refreshments will be provided. 

RSVP Form 

Talk Title: “Why Do We Have Mental Images?”

 

Abstract: Everyone who experiences mental imagery is the world expert on the contents of their own mental images. We argue that this privileged perspective on one’s own mental images provides very limited understanding about the function of mental imagery, which can only be understood by proposing and testing hypotheses about the computational work that mental images do. We propose that mental imagery functions as a useful form of inference that is conditioned on visual beliefs. We implement this form of inference in a simple generative model of natural scenes, and show that it makes testable predictions about differences in tuning to seen and imagined features. We confirm these predictions with a large-scale fMRI experiment in which human brain activity was sampled while subjects generated hundreds of mental images. We speculate that ongoing mental imagery may impact the structure of noise correlations in the visual system, and present a preliminary analysis of the Natural Scenes Dataset that appears to be consistent with these speculations. 

Bio: Thomas is an Associate Professor in the Department of Neuroscience at the University of Minnesota, and a member of the Medical Discovery Team on Optical Imaging and Brain Science at the Center for Magnetic Resonance Research. He is co-founder and currently Executive Chair of the Conference on Cognitive Computational Neuroscience.

Cog Sci Major Evan Zysman

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A senior in the Cog Sci major, Mr. Evan Zysman, was first author on a poster presentation this month at the Boston University Conference on Language Development. BUCLD is widely considered the most prestigious (and selective) conference in the field of child language acquisition. Evan will now be first author on a paper to be published in the conference proceedings.

COGS & SLAC Talk on 12/16: Jonathan Peelle

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The Cognitive Science and SLAC programs invite you to a talk on 12/16! 

 

 

 

Speaker: Dr. JonathanPeelle, an Associate Professor from theCenter for Cognitive and Brain Health at Northeastern University.

Time & Location: The talk will begin at 4PM, Friday December 16th, 2022, in the Dodd Center Konover Auditorium. Light refreshments will be available at 3:15PM. Please RSVP in advance. Virtual Attendance options are provided in the form. 

Talk Title:“Cognitive consequences of acoustic challenge during spoken communication”

Abstract: Everyday communication is full of acoustic challenges, including background noise, competing talkers, or assistive devices. How do listeners understand speech in the midst of this noise? Evidence from multiple sources is consistent with a shared resource framework of speech comprehension in which domain-general cognitive processes supported by discrete regions of frontal cortex are required for successfully understanding speech. These increased cognitive demands can be captured using behavior, pupillometry, and functional brain imaging. Although frequently studied in the context of hearing loss, these principles have broader implications for our understanding of how auditory and cognitive factors interact during spoken language comprehension.

Bio: Jonathan is a cognitive neuroscientist who studies the neuroscience of human communication, aging, and hearing impairment at the Center for Cognitive and Brain Health at Northeastern University. He also has two podcasts: “The Brain Made Plain” where he interviews cognitive neuroscientists about their work, and “The Juice and the Squeeze” in which he and a co-host talk about different aspects of being in academia.

 

 

Cognitive Science Student Abroad Travel Award Program

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The Cognitive Science Program is excited to announce that it will be continuing the Cognitive Science Study Abroad Travel Award Program for another year!  

  

Travel awards are available to UConn undergraduate students majoring or minoring in Cognitive Science. Priority will be given to students attending the Interdisciplinary Ethnography Field Summer School in Mauritius, the Neuroscience Study Abroad Summer Program in Salamanca, Spain, and UConn Brain & Behavior in Tel Aviv, Israel. Courses taken through these summer programs can be counted towards the Cognitive Science degree. The Cognitive Science program is willing to review other international travel scenarios on a case-by-case basis. 

 

This award program operates with a rolling deadline. Once funds are exhausted, the application will close. 

 

Deadline:  Students may apply for the COGS travel award at any time. However, travel awards will be contingent on (a) applying and being accepted into a study abroad program and (b) sharing an official acceptance notification with us.  

 

Priority consideration will be given to students who (1) are members of a group that is underrepresented at the University of Connecticut; or (2) have overcome obstacles such as socioeconomic, educational, or other societal disadvantages (arising, for example, through prejudice and/or discrimination); or (3) have worked with such groups to help overcome these or other obstacles. 

 

Questions regarding the Cognitive Science Study Abroad Travel Award Program may be sent to the Cognitive Science Director, erika.skoe@uconn.edu. 

 

Please visit the Study Abroad Travel Award webpage for more information, including eligibility requirements and how to apply.  


Reminder: IBACS Summer Grad Fellowship Applications Due 12/2

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The Connecticut Institute for the Brain and Cognitive Sciences (CT IBACS) is inviting applications to its Graduate Fellowship Program.

These summer fellowships are intended for graduate students working on topics with relevance (broadly construed) to the Brain and Cognitive Sciences. IBACS Graduate Fellows attend a short grant-writing workshop and will be expected to submit an application to the NSF GRFP, NRSA (pre- or post-doctoral fellowship), or equivalent.

Deadline for receipt of applications is Friday, December 2nd, 2022.

Graduate students who are not US citizens are eligible to apply and are expected to work with their advisor to develop an external research proposal if they are not eligible for graduate fellowships. Students who were fellows in summer 2021 may apply if they submitted the external grant proposal they developed last year and it was not funded, with the expectation that they will revise their previous grant or develop a new one.

Please refer to the full details here before you apply. If you have any questions, please contact Crystal Mills at crystal.mills@uconn.edu.