Two Postdoctoral positions in Cognitive Science

[Morten H. Christiansen]

TWO POSTDOCTORAL POSITIONS IN COGNITIVE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE

Two postdoctoral training opportunities - one at Cornell University
(US) and one at the University of Warwick (UK) - are available
immediately to investigate the role of multiple-cue integration in
language acquisition across different languages. The project is
funded by the Human Frontiers Science Program and involves four
closely interacting research teams in the US (Morten Christiansen,
Cornell University), the UK (Nick Chater, University of Warwick),
France (Peter Dominey, Institut des Sciences Cognitives, Lyon) and
Japan (Mieko Ogura, Tsurumi University).

      MULTIPLE-CUE INTEGRATION IN LANGUAGE ACQUISITION:
             MECHANISMS AND NEURAL CORRELATES

How do children acquire the subtle and complex structure of their
native language with such remarkable speed and reliability, and with
little direct instruction? Recent computational and acoustic analyses
of language addressed to children indicate that there are rich cues
to linguistic structure available in the child's input. Moreover,
evidence from developmental psycholinguistics shows that infants are
sensitive to many sound-based (phonological) and intonational
(prosodic) cues in the input - cues that may facilitate language
acquisition. Although this research indicates that linguistic input
is rich with possible cues to linguistic structure, there is an
important caveat: the cues are only partially reliable and none
considered alone provide an infallible bootstrap into language. To
acquire language successfully, it seems that the child needs to
integrate a great diversity of multiple probabilistic cues to
linguistic structure in an effective way.

Our research program aims to provide a rigorous cross-linguistic
test of the hypothesis that multiple-cue integration is crucial for
the acquisition of syntactic structure. The research has four
interrelated strands:

   1) Computational and acoustic analyses of child-directed speech.
   2) Psycholinguistic and artificial language learning experiments.
   3) Computational modeling using neural networks and statistical
      learning methods.
   4) Event-related potential (ERP) studies.

Together, the two postdoctoral positions will span the four research strands.
For more information about the project please refer to our web site: 
http://cnl.psych.cornell.edu/mcila.

CORNELL UNIVERSITY POSITION
The Cornell Cognitive Neuroscience Lab headed by Morten Christiansen 
is coordinating the research efforts and the work here involves all 
four research strands. The postdoctoral position is primarily aimed 
at the ERP work but may also include the other research strands, 
depending on the interests of the candidate. Candidates should have a 
PhD in cognitive science, psychology or related discipline. 
Experience with high-density ERP experimentation is highly desirable 
as are interests in computational modeling of language. Salary will 
be based on experience in relation to the NIH postdoctoral scale. For 
more information about the Cornell Cognitive Neuroscience Lab, please 
visit our web site: http://cnl.psych.cornell.edu. Candidates 
interested in the Cornell position should email a vita and a short 
statement about graduate training and research interests to Morten 
Christiansen (mhc27 at cornell.edu).


UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK POSITION
The Warwick team headed by Nick Chater will focus primarily on 
research strands 1 and 3, especially on statistical analysis of 
child-directed speech across the three languages, and computational 
modeling, using statistical and connectionist techniques, of how 
relevant information is acquired and processed. There may also be 
some experimental work on artificial grammar learning. A strong 
candidate for this position would have a PhD in cognitive science or 
related discipline, and have an interest in, and preferably 
experience with,  corpus analysis and statistical and connectionist 
models of language. Candidates interested in the Warwick position 
should email a vita and a short statement about graduate training and 
research interests to Nick Chater (nick.chater at warwick.ac.uk).


Both positions are initially for two years, but may be extended into 
a third year. In addition to salary, funds are available for travel 
to conferences and meetings between research teams. Neither position 
carry any special citizen requirements.


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Morten H. Christiansen
Assistant Professor                Phone:  +1 (607) 255-3570
Department of Psychology           Fax:    +1 (607) 255-8433
Cornell University                 Email:  mhc27 at cornell.edu
Ithaca, NY 14853                   Office: 240 Uris Hall
Web: http://www.psych.cornell.edu/faculty/people/Christiansen_Morten.htm
Lab Web Site: http://cnl.psych.cornell.edu
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Nick Chater
Professor
Institute for Applied Cognitive Science
Department of Psychology           Phone: +44 2476 523537
University of Warwick              Fax:   +44 2476 524225
Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK              Email: nick.chater at warwick.ac.uk
Web: http://www.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/Psychology/staff/academic.html#NC
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