Join us at the IBACS Meet & Speak on 4/29

Posted on April 6, 2022October 23, 2024 by Rodriguez, Atziri

We are excited to officially invite you to attend the IBACS 2022 Meet and Speak event on Friday, April 29th from 2-6pm. This event will be in-person in Bousfield A106.

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 previously awarded by IBACS. Affiliated graduate students who have received IBACS funding will be presenting 5-minute “datablitz” style talks.

The IBACS Meet & Speak will provide an opportunity to learn more about the diverse research that IBACS affiliates are engaged in, and will provide a forum for cross-disciplinary networking. We hope you can join us, please register here for all or part of the event.

Schedule

2:00PM – Introduction

2:10PM – Faculty Talks (10 minutes each)

3:00PM – Graduate Student Data Blitz (5 minutes each)

3:30PM – Keynote Speaker: Dr. Takao Hensch, Harvard University

4:30PM – Panel Discussion: Featuring Takao Hensch, Erika Skoe, and Natale Sciolino

5:00PM – Wine and Cheese Social in Atrium

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

Now Accepting IBACS Spring Seed Grant Applications

Posted on February 17, 2022October 23, 2024 by Rodriguez, Atziri

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.

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. Note that funding is primarily intended to cover direct research costs such as supplies, participant fees, or per diems, as well as student support. The review criteria promote innovative, novel, and collaborative projects in the field of brain and cognitive sciences that require expertise across laboratories and traditional disciplinary boundaries. Postdocs can also apply, with a faculty mentor as co-PI. We have further expanded this year’s seed grant solicitation to include COVID recovery. This addition in scope is intended to provide funds to recover or restart relevant projects that were interrupted due to COVID-19. Full details on the seed grant program, including applications (letter of intent and full seed app) and allowable costs, please check our website.

Applications for small grants (less than $10,000) can be submitted at any time; applications in excess of $10,000 (but no more than $25,000) should be submitted by April 1^st.

Please submit letters of intent as soon as possible, but at least 2 weeks prior to the seed grant application deadline (by 3/18/22), to allow time for review and feedback.

The Institute also invites applications for affiliate memberships.

Any questions should be directed to the Institute Coordinator, Crystal Mills at crystal.mills@uconn.edu.

COGS, IBACS & BIRC Colloquium: Dr. John Hale on 2/18

Posted on February 10, 2022April 6, 2022 by Crystal Mills

Please join us virtually on 2/18 for John Hale’s talk co-sponsored by the Cognitive Science Program. IBACS, and BIRC. Registration in advance is required. Details are below:

Speaker: John Hale, Department of Linguistics, University of Georgia

Time: 4pm, Friday, February 18, 2022

Talk Title: Grammar, Incrementality and fMRI Timecourse

Abstract: What is the physical basis of human language comprehension? What sort of computation makes a stream of words come together, one after another, to yield a communicative or literary experience? This question sets up a scientific challenge for the brain and cognitive sciences. With functional neuroimaging, it is possible to extract a timecourse of brain activity from particular regions and ask how well alternative (psycho)linguistic theories account for the measured signal. This can be done over prolonged periods of time, for instance during the spoken recitation of a literary text. On the basis of such timecourses, this talk argues that our conceptualization of grammar should go beyond simple word-sequences and naive phrase structure. It presents an incremental parsing strategy that is more consistent with neuroimaging data than the simple ones presented in books like Hale (2014). The overall methodology can serve as a positive example of how brain data, syntactic theory and parsing algorithms may productively co-constrain one another.

Bio: John Hale, the Arch Professor of World Languages and Cultures at the University of Georgia, is a professor in the Department of Linguistics at UGA. A computational linguist, he has made significant contributions to the theory of sentence processing over the past two decades and is the author of a valued textbook in the field (Automaton Theories of Human Sentence Comprehension, 2014). Strongly committed to cultivating the vital and also changing character of intellectual pursuit in current times, Professor Hale collaborates with DeepMind and has been active in promoting interaction between industry and academia as a way of getting to the bottom of questions about the nature of mind.

Zoom Registration Link: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEvfuyrqDItG92U2pqStUoZe77wc0hO4owu

Meeting opportunities: John will be available during the day of his talk (Feb 18) and also during part of the preceding day for individual or small-group meetings on Zoom. Please contact whitney.tabor@uconn.edu if you are interested in meeting with John.

Announcing the CogSci Study Abroad Travel Award Program

Posted on February 2, 2022October 23, 2024 by Crystal Mills

The Cognitive Science Program’s mission is to prepare students to tackle global and multicultural challenges. A study abroad experience is vital to this preparation. Yet students majoring in Cognitive Science and related-STEM fields are generally less likely to participate in study abroad programs than other students.

With this in mind, the Cognitive Science Program is excited to launch the Cognitive Science Study Abroad Travel Award Program. We will fund up to three, $2000 awards, to be used towards airfare costs associated with a UConn study abroad program. Any travel costs in excess of the $2000 allotment would be responsibility of the recipient.

These awards are available to UConn undergraduate students majoring or minoring in Cognitive Science who have been accepted into a study abroad program. Priority will be given to students attending the Interdisciplinary Ethnography Field Summer School in Mauritius or the Neuroscience Study Abroad Summer Program in Salamanca, Spain. (Courses taken through these two summer programs can be counted towards the Cognitive Science degree).

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

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.

The Cognitive Science program is willing to review other travel abroad scenarios on a case-by-case basis. 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.

Postdoc and Research Coordinator Positions at UConn

Posted on January 28, 2022 by Crystal Mills

Dr. Ido Davidesco at UConn’s Learning Sciences Program is recruiting a postdoc and a research coordinator for a recently funded NSF project on the role of internal attention in STEM learning. The project involves EEG and eye-tracking in both laboratory and classroom settings.

For more information:

Postdoc Position: https://jobs.hr.uconn.edu/cw/en-us/job/496010/postdoctoral-research-associate

Research Coordinator Position: https://jobs.hr.uconn.edu/cw/en-us/job/496009/research-coordinator-research-assistant-1

Please share this opportunity with colleagues and students in your network.

Contact Dr. Davidesco (ido.davidesco@uconn.edu) for additional information.

COGS & ECOM: Ani Patel 2/11

Posted on January 20, 2022 by Crystal Mills

Please mark your calendars for our next talk as we will be hosting Prof. Aniruddh Patel (Dept. of Psychology, Tufts Univ.) on Feb 11 (Friday) between 4-5:30 pm (EST) via Zoom as part of our ECOM Speaker Series. The title of his talk is “The speech-to-song illusion: acoustic foundations and individual differences.” Prof. Patel’s talk is co-sponsored by The Cognitive Science Program. Below, you can find the abstract of his talk, along with the event link.

Prof. Patel told us he’d be happy to meet virtually to discuss issues related to his research. There are a couple of slots available to meet with him on Feb 11, Friday, between 12:15 pm – 1:15 pm, and on Feb 14, Monday, between 10:30 am – 11:30 am, and 2:30 pm – 4:30 pm. If you’d like to meet with him, please let me know, and I’ll be happy to make the necessary arrangements.

Abstract: Music often has salient acoustic differences from spoken and environmental sounds, especially with respect to patterns of pitch and timing. Research has shown humans can discriminate spoken and musical sounds within a fraction of second, and neuroimaging research has found distinct neural populations that respond to speech and music. These findings support the notion that music is a kind of sound, with distinct acoustic features and modes of neural processing. In this presentation I explore a phenomenon which challenges this view, and which suggests that music is a kind of perceptual experience, not a kind of sound. In the “speech to song illusion” certain spoken phrases, when played repeatedly, begin to vividly sound like song. Crucially, not all phrases transform in this way, and there are substantial individual differences in how strongly people experience the illusion. I will present research addressing why certain phrases transform more than others and why some listeners hear the illusion more strongly than others. While we have made some progress in answering these questions, much about this illusion remains mysterious, raising questions about why certain sounds are experienced as music.

COGS & IBACS Colloquium: Dr. John Hale on 2/18

Posted on January 19, 2022 by Crystal Mills

The CT Institute for the Brain and Cognitive Sciences and The Cognitive Science Program are excited to jointly host a talk by Dr. John Hale, professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Georgia.

Details can be found below but please note that the choice between an in-person or online talk online has not yet been made so please look out for further details.

Time: 4pm, Friday, February 18

Talk Title: “Grammar, Incrementality and fMRI Timecourse”

Department Website: https://ling.franklin.uga.edu/directory/people/john-hale

If you have any questions or would like to meet with Dr. Hale, please contact Whit Tabor at whitney.tabor@uconn.edu.

Call for IBACS Graduate Student Fellowship Applications

Posted on October 15, 2021October 23, 2024 by Crystal Mills

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, in the Fall.

Deadline for receipt of applications is Friday, December 3rd, 2021.

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 2020 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.

Harvard University Postdoctoral Position in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience/Educational Neuroscience

Posted on September 27, 2021 by Crystal Mills

Harvard University Graduate School of Education

Postdoctoral Position in

Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience/Educational Neuroscience

The Harvard University Graduate School of Education seeks to fill a NICHD funded postdoctoral fellowship in The GaabLab (gaablab.com) in the areas of developmental cognitive neuroscience/pediatric (f)MRI and Educational Neuroscience. The NICHD funded project aims to examine the neurocognitive links between reading and arithmetic ability as well as high co-occurrence rates of reading and arithmetical learning difficulties. Using a longitudinal design, we will compare typical and atypical developmental trajectories of reading and arithmetic from kindergarten to third grade, and identify a set of predictors in kindergarten of arithmetic and reading outcomes after four years of formal instruction.

Candidates must have earned a doctoral degree in a field related to developmental cognitive neuroscience (e.g., cognitive neuroscience, neuroscience, psychology, developmental psychology, medicine) or have a background in electrical engineering, biomedical engineering or computer science. The responsibilities of the position include overseeing the design and execution of pediatric and infant (f)MRI experiments, analyze behavioral and (f)MRI data, develop new analysis tools, prepare manuscripts for publication, and participate in conferences.

The successful applicant must possess excellent English verbal and written communication skills. Applicants are expected to have a very strong research background in the design and analysis of functional brain-imaging experiments. Experience with (f)MRI analysis programs (e.g., SPM, FSL, Freesurfer, BrainVoyager, AFNI) is required. Programming skills (MATLAB, C++; Python) are desirable and experience with MVPA or connectivity analyses is a plus. Experience with the analysis of pediatric neuroimaging data sets and language and reading research are useful.

This appointment is anticipated to begin in fall/winter 2021. Application review will begin immediately and will continue until the position is filled. Prospective applicants should submit a CV, statement of interest, and a list of three potential refers via email to:

Nadine Gaab, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Education

Nadine_Gaab@gse.harvard.edu

For information about the Harvard Graduate School of Education, please visit our web site: www.gse.harvard.edu.

We are an equal opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, gender identity, sexual orientation, pregnancy and pregnancy-related conditions or any other characteristic protected by law.

9/2/21: IBACS Large Seed Grant Application Now Open!

Posted on September 2, 2021October 23, 2024 by Rodriguez, Atziri

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.

Applications for small grants (less than $10,000) can be submitted at any time; applications in excess of $10,000 (but no more than $25,000) should be submitted by October 1^st.

Please submit letters of intent as soon as possible, but at least 2 weeks prior to the seed grant application deadline (by 9/17/21), to allow time for review and feedback.

The Institute also invites applications for affiliate memberships.

Any questions should be directed to the Institute Coordinator, Crystal Mills at crystal.mills@uconn.edu or (860) 486-4937.