Connectionists: Fully funded PhD position, University of Genoa, Italy - "Visuo-haptic sensorimotor models"

[Silvio P. Sabatini]

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Applications are invited for one full-time PhD studentship (with 
scholarship) for
a period of 3 years, at the Department of Informatics, Bioengineering, 
Robotics,
and System Engineering, University of Genoa, Italy.
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The position will start on Nov 1st, 2016 on the following research project:

  ACTION-PERCEPTION TRANSFER IN VISUAL AND VISUO-HAPTIC BEHAVIOR

_Deadline for Applications: June 10th, 2016_

Experiencing the sensory feedback gained from movements allows us to learn
the contingencies and correlations between actions and sensory events.
Accordingly, sensing "educates" motor action, but, conversely, and more
elusively, motor practice can "educate" sensing.

The proposed research aims at investigating  the interplay between 
action and
perception at different levels:
(1) modelling early action-perception transfer in visual feature extraction
(cf. neural coding of visual properties) and perceptual judgement processes
(decoding stages);
(2) experiments on bidirectional perceptual-action influence - including the
development of systems and devices that integrate vision and haptics;
(3) applications in neuromotor and cognitive rehabilitation, in which 
action is
used to educate perception and perception is used to educate action.

The project will provide the opportunity to work on neural modeling, visual
and visuo-haptic psychophysics, and robotics. Experimental, modeling, and
theoretical approaches might be pursued with a different accent according
to personal attitude.

  * HOW TO APPLY

Candidates must have:
- University degree at M.Sc. level (or expect to obtain it by October 
31st, 2016)
   in Bioengineering, Computer Science, Physics,  or related disciplines;
- attitude for problem solving and interest in experimental work;
- essential skills comprise Matlab and/or C/C++/C# or Python programming.

Online application is possible till June 10th, 2016 (at noon) Italian time

Full details on the call and the application procedure are available at:
http://www.studenti.unige.it/postlaurea/dottorati/XXXII/ENG/
http://phd.dibris.unige.it/biorob/index.php/how-to-apply

Prospective students, please contact:

Silvio P. Sabatini (silvio.sabatini at unige.it) or
Vittorio Sanguineti (vittorio.sanguineti at unige.it),

providing your CV and qualifications, the name and contact details of two
references, and a description of your research interests.

  * WHERE

The research will be conducted jointly at "The Physical Structure of 
Perception
and Computation (PSPC) Lab", and the "Neuro-engineering and Neuro-robotics
lab (NEUROLAB)", led by Silvio P. Sabatini and Vittorio Sanguineti, 
respectively.

PSPC-Lab has a long-standing expertise in visual coding and multidimensional
signal representation, robot perception and computer vision. In the last 
years,
the lab's research activity focused on the analysis of the structural 
mechanisms
of visuo-spatial cognition, responsible for orienting and interacting in 
the 3D
space.

NEUROLAB (http://www.neurolab.dibris.unige.it/) focuses on experimental
studies on neural control of movement, in normal and pathologic conditions.
Recent activity aimed at investigating the computational basis of motor 
skill
learning, and how this process can be facilitated by robots and other 
interactive
technologies.

Our labs are located in Genoa, a small beautiful town in northernItaly, 
both from
historical (its historical center is the largest of Europe) and 
naturalistic point of
view (sea and mountains coexist creating a unique landscape).
Genoa is only 1.30h away from Milan by train and connected by plane to
Rome (1.00h), London (2h) and Paris (1.30h).

Regards,

-- 
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Silvio P. SABATINI, PhD                         [PSPC Research Group]
Professor of Bioengineering
DIBRIS - University of Genova     |  e_mail:silvio.sabatini at unige.it
Via Opera Pia, 11A                |  phone: +39 010 3532092/3532794
I-16145 Genova (ITALY)            |  fax:   +39 010 3532289/3536533
URL:http://pspc.unige.it
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"Imagination is more important than knowledge..."   [Albert Einstein]

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