Author: Crystal Mills

Post doctoral positions at Indiana–developing visual environments

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Post-doctoral fellow position(s) to the study of the natural visual environments of infants and young children and their implications for visual, cognitive and language development and machine learning at Indiana University.    The larger collaborative project involves analyses of the properties of a very large corpus of head camera images (500 million) collected by infants 1 to 24 months of age with respect to low, mid and higher level properties, the examination of the statistical structure of early learned visual categories (and their in-home naming by parents), the design and implementation of computational experiments using machine learning and computer vision models, as well as experiments with infants testing novel predictions from these analyses and models.  The post-doctoral fellow(s) will take part in the intellectually rich cognitive science, computational neuroscience, vision, developmental, and computer science communities at Indiana University under the Emerging Areas of Research Initiative titled Learning: Brains, Machines and Children.  Collaborators on the larger project include Linda Smith, David Crandall, Franco Pestilli, Rowan Candy, Jason Gold, and Chen Yu. 

This is an excellent opportunity for individuals with past training in one or more of the following:  infant statistical learning, infant visual development (including face and object perception), visual neuroscience, adult vision, computer vision. Other areas of training with computational and/or experimental backgrounds will be considered.

Please apply to Linda Smith, smith4@indiana.edu, with Visual Environments in the subject heading by sending a cover letter stating your interest in this project, your cv, and a research statement.  References will be requested after initial contact.

The filling of these position(s) are open in their timing; although we hope to appoint one position this fall, January or this spring are also possible start dates. 

Linda B. Smith
Distinguished Professor
Psychological and Brain Sciences
1101 East 10th Street
Indiana University
Bloomington IN 47405
www.iub.edu/~cogdev

Message from Dean Juli Wade: CLAS Research Conversations

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Dear CLAS faculty:

 One of the priorities of CLAS is to facilitate interdisciplinary scholarship, and the diversity of disciplines within the college provides substantial and unique opportunities.   In an effort to stimulate connections that will lead to novel cross-cutting research (and potentially graduate training), CLAS will host CLAS Research Conversations this academic year based on faculty ideas for areas of synergy.

These events will be held 3:30-5pm on the 3rd Wednesday of each month.  The first half of the event will involve 5-minute talks by several faculty members describing their work on the topic and related areas of interest – 3 slide maximum (and no cheating with animation)!  The second half will allow time to discuss opportunities and next steps as a group and in smaller conversations.  CLAS will provide beverages and appetizers.

 Proposed ideas for topics should be submitted to mackenzie.murphy@uconn.edu and should span at least 4 CLAS departments.  The document must include a paragraph of rationale, proposed speakers, and a list of up to 20 additional faculty members to invite.  The CLAS dean and associate deans will review the proposals and may add faculty members who work in related areas for events that go forward.   Our office will issue invitations and take care of the logistics related to hosting.   The proposer(s) is(are) expected to emcee.

 The first event will be on October 16th in the Heritage Room of the Library (4th floor), and they will continue throughout the year in the same location as long as solid ideas are proposed (11/20, 12/18, 1/22, 2/19, 3/18, 4/15, 5/20).   Please submit proposals at any time for dates that are good for you; they will be reviewed as they come in.  We are looking forward to seeing what develops!

 Juli

Juli Wade

Dean

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

University of Connecticut

215 Glenbrook Rd., U-4098

Storrs, CT 06269

Postdoc vacancy in early child development/ neuroscience/ mHealth

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We are looking for a talented and motivated postdoctoral researcher in developmental psychology/neuroscience and autism to work on an international project on early child development. The researcher will be joining a multi-institution project funded by the Medical Research Council UK, led by the University of Reading. Partner institutions on this project include the universities of Cambridge, Harvard, Liverpool, Birkbeck, Keele, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Sangath NGO, and Malawi College of Medicine.

The aim of this project is to develop, test, and refine a mobile platform (i.e. app) that incorporates measures of key domains of human behaviour (e.g. cognition, social-emotional behaviour) in 0-6-year-old children. This platform would be used in low-resource settings in India and Malawi to collect normative data from a large sample of children, to eventually help identify children who might have neurodevelopmental/mental health issues. The postholder is expected to contribute to the design and piloting of the mobile platform, as well as analyse data collected by the platform to be reported in conferences and peer-reviewed publications. The appointed individual will receive strong mentoring from well-established scholars as part of this project and be supported in developing new ideas. 

More details on the vacancy and the application process are available at https://jobs.reading.ac.uk/displayjob.aspx?jobid=5316
Deadline for applications: 07 September, 2019
—
Bhismadev Chakrabarti, PhD

Professor of Neuroscience & Mental Health
Research Director, Centre for Autism
School of Psychology & Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading

+44 (0)118 378 5551 | www.reading.ac.uk/autism | www.bhismalab.org

Call for IBACS Seed Grant Applications: Due 10/1

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The Connecticut Institute for the Brain and Cognitive Sciences (CT IBACS) is pleased to announce a new call for applications to its seed grant fund. Full details (and forms for the required letter of intent) can be found on the Institute website.

 The seed fund is intended to fund activities in the Brain and Cognitive Sciences (broadly construed) that are likely to lead to applications for external funding, or which otherwise contribute to the mission of the Institute. Successful applications will typically involve collaborations that require expertise across laboratories and traditional disciplinary boundaries. The Institute does not usually fund research that might normally be considered to fall within the scope of a single lab or discipline.

Applications for small grants (<$10,000) can be submitted at any time; applications in excess of $10,000 should be submitted by October 1st. 

Please submit letters of intent as soon as possible, and at least 2 weeks prior to the seed grant application deadline, to allow time for review and feedback.

The Institute also invites applications for affiliate memberships.

Doctorate and Post-Doctorate Opportunities

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 A two year postdoctoral research fellowship is available within the Super Linguistics research group, in the department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies, University of Oslo:

<https://www.jobbnorge.no/en/available-jobs/job/169242/post-doctoral-research-fellowship-in-linguistic-explorations-beyond-language>

Application deadline: September 20th 2019.

Of specific interest are interdisciplinary proposals that combine formal linguistic approaches with approaches from areas such as (but not limited to) musicology, psychology, philosophy, primatology, cognitive science, human movement science, robotics, or informatics.

Note that it is possible to apply for this position with a PhD from linguistics, philosophy, musicology, psychology, biology (ethology), cognitive science, human movement science, robotics, informatics, or other relevant field. 
 
______________________________________________________________________________
 
 *HAMBURG*
    
    DOCTORAL POSITION – in English; German not required
    
    https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.uni-hamburg.de%2Fuhh%2Fstellenangebote%2Fwissenschaftliches-personal%2Ffakultaet-psychologie-und-Bewegungswissenschaft%2F31-08-19-447-en.pdf&amp;data=02%7C01%7Ccrystal.mastrangelo%40uconn.edu%7C7cccb93a253f443879ea08d722806449%7C17f1a87e2a254eaab9df9d439034b080%7C0%7C0%7C637015808165908108&amp;sdata=hPvAaOoFWNlgNDoVXuG8a%2Fi7bhXeX4QOqvy5aNPrtGE%3D&amp;reserved=0
    
    
    POSTDOCTORAL POSITION – in English; German not required
    
    https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.uni-hamburg.de%2Fuhh%2Fstellenangebote%2Fwissenschaftliches-personal%2Ffakultaet-psychologie-und-Bewegungswissenschaft%2F31-08-19-435-eng.pdf&amp;data=02%7C01%7Ccrystal.mastrangelo%40uconn.edu%7C7cccb93a253f443879ea08d722806449%7C17f1a87e2a254eaab9df9d439034b080%7C0%7C0%7C637015808165908108&amp;sdata=KlhzGQIRTPoMJhfZ8kRRu%2BWHEz7GmErJj1Cttj6i1kk%3D&amp;reserved=0
    
    

CogSci Colloquium: Marjorie Solomon

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The Cognitive Science Colloquium Series is proud to present Marjorie Solomon, Professor and the Oates Family Endowed Chair in Lifespan Development in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and the MIND Institute at UC Davis

Friday, September 20th, 4pm, Oak 117

Dr. Solomon will provide a talk entitled “Executive Control in Children, Adolescents, and Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Behavioral and Neural Mechanisms”

Abstract: Many individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) exhibit executive control deficits, meaning that they fail to maintain appropriate task context representations so they can inhibit impulsive responding, behave flexibly, and thereby effectively pursue their goals. Although individuals with typical development are thought to experience significant maturation of executive control processes during adolescence, those with ASD are thought to exhibit executive control impairments that persist into adolescence and young adulthood and are associated with clinically significant difficulties in social and adaptive functioning, and attention deficit, internalizing, and ASD symptoms. Given the challenges inherent in the transition to adulthood, it is critical to better understand the precise nature and development of executive control deficits in those with ASD, and their associations with behavior. This talk will briefly review behavioral and neuroimaging studies of executive control in ASD, and present new neuropsychological and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) results from the first wave of a large longitudinal cohort sequential study of individuals with ASD and typical development ages 12-22 years. We seek to clarify the neural signatures of executive control deficits in those with ASD and to investigate how the development of executive control impacts the transition to adulthood in these individuals.

If you are interested in meeting with Dr. Solomon during the day, and/or coming to dinner Friday night, please contact Dr. Naigles: letitia.naigles@uconn.edu

CogSci Colloquium: Mark S. Seidenberg

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The Cognitive Science Colloquium Series is proud to present Mark S. Seidenberg, Vilas Research Professor and Donald O. Hebb Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

Friday, April 26th, 4pm, Oak 117

Dr. Seidenberg will provide a talk entitled “The Science and Politics of Learning to Read”

Abstract: A remarkably high percentage of children and adults acquire only basic reading skills, causing innumerable problems for individuals and society. Low literacy has multiple causes, some of which seem intractable (e.g., poverty). I nonetheless think we could be doing much better than we are. Part of the problem is a disconnection between the cultures of science and education. Scientists know a great deal about how reading works and children learn, little of which has had any impact on teacher education or classroom practices. I’ll look at these cross-cultural differences, how they developed, and what might be done to overcome them.

If you are interested in meeting with Dr. Seidenberg, please contact Dr. Altmann: gerry.altmann@uconn.edu


Postdoc Opportunity at Princeton University

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The Department of Psychology at Princeton University is seeking a postdoctoral researcher to work in the Princeton Baby Lab <http://babylab.princeton.edu/> with Dr. Casey Lew-Williams. The postdoc will be supported by an NIH grant on the complexities of language input, processing, and learning in bilingual infants and toddlers. The successful candidate will collaborate with Dr. Krista Byers-Heinlein’s lab at Concordia University in Montreal, and also benefit from interacting with many wonderful scientists at Princeton, both in the Baby Lab and in our growing cognitive science community. In addition to this project, the postdoc will build their own research program on early learning. Methods in the lab include eye tracking, pupillometry, dual-brain functional near-infrared spectroscopy, and analyses of caregiver-child speech.
 
Candidates for this position should have a PhD in a relevant field (e.g., developmental/cognitive psychology, linguistics, education, communication sciences & disorders). They must also have evidence of publication-quality graduate research. Knowledge of statistical and programming software (e.g., R, Matlab) is preferred. Conversational proficiency in Spanish is also preferred but not required. Please contact Casey Lew-Williams (caseylw@princeton.edu <mailto:caseylw@princeton.edu>) with any questions.
 
The start date will be between July 1, 2019 and January 1, 2020. The appointment is for one year with the possibility of renewal based on funding and satisfactory performance. Apply online at https://careers.princeton.edu<https://careers.princeton.edu/> using requisition #D-19-PSY-00003. Please submit a cover letter (including a description of research interests and email addresses for three references), CV, and two papers or posters of your research. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis.
 
This position is subject to the University’s background check policy. Princeton University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.

CogSci Colloquium: Richard Wilson

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The Cognitive Science Colloquium Series is proud to present Richard Ashby Wilson, Professor of Law and Anthropology and Gladstein Chair of Human Rights at UConn.

 

Friday, February 22nd, 4pm, Oak 117

The Psychology of Incitement and Hate Speech: A Dialogue Between Law and Social Science

 

We live in an era of nativist populism, characterized by speech that incites violence on social media, and an escalation in hate crimes. Recent social science research has identified a correlation between online incitement and offline hate crimes in the United States and Europe. What kinds of speech are the most likely to instigate acts of violence? The current research identifies revenge propaganda as the most likely type to instigate atrocities. We coded 242 speeches by a Serbian politician for references to revenge, nationalism, stereotyping, dehumanization, justice, victimization, past atrocities, political institutions and direct threats. After reading one speech or a control, participants answered questions about empathy, intentionality, and whether violence is morally justifiable. Only speeches focusing on revenge and past atrocities intensified justifications of violence. Only revenge speech increased overall negative attitudes towards the out-group. On the level of personality, those who are more politically conservative, feel the world is unjust, engage more in violent media and are male are more likely to justify violence. These findings have implications for the elusive goal of preventing atrocities. The regulatory framework established fifty years ago in the United States is showing signs of severe strain, and this research draws upon behavioral research to construct a systematic evidence-based framework for analyzing the risk that inciting speech will result in imminent lawless action.

 

If you are interested in meeting with Professor Wilson on 2/22, please contact Dr. Xygalatas:  dimitris.xygalatas@uconn.edu