Connectionists: PhD Studentship: Being in the Other's Shoes - Social Cognition in Babies and Robots'

[Dimitri Ognibene]

We are looking for the perfect interdisciplinary PhD candidate to find out how humans learn to observe others, how they learn that they are not alone. Are you curious about this? Apply!

The Schools of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering and Psychology in the Faculty of Science and Health at the University of Essex has an interdisciplinary PhD studentship available focusing on the theme ‘Being in the other’s shoes – Social cognition in babies and robots’.
This studentship commences from 14 January 2019, the successful applicant will receive a scholarship for three years (subject to satisfactory progression).
The studentship includes:
a fee waiver equal to the Home/EU fee (for 2018/19, £ £4,410). International students will need to pay the balance of their fees.
a stipend of £14,777 in 2018-19 adjusted according to the directives of the Research Councils UK.
In a highly interdisciplinary environment, the PhD student will investigate the role of embodiment in social cognitive development by formulating computational theories, testing them through experimental studies with infants, and closing the loop by re-enacting the experiments with state of the art robots available in the Essex robotics lab.
The applicant will also have the opportunity to perform empirical studies and computational modelling on social intelligence to examine disorders of social cognition (lack of engagement, inability to adopt others perspective) and validate the architecture in end user environments (for example robotic companions in homes, hospitals etc.). The University’s centre for Brain Science accounts for one of the most comprehensive and equipped laboratories for Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience in the UK’s, which has been featured in media <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-suffolk-26574823/university-of-essex-recruit-very-young-volunteers-for-to-help-with-research>.
The successful applicant will be part of The Centre for Computational Intelligence, supervised by Dr Mohan and Dr Ognibene and also part of The Centre for Brain Science (Psychology), supervised by Dr Filippetti and Dr Rigato.
Address additional questions to: Dr Mohan, (CSEE) vishwanathan.mohan at essex.ac.uk <mailto:vishwanathan.mohan at essex.ac.uk> (PI), Dr Ognibene (CSEE) dimitri.ognibene at essex.ac.uk <mailto:dimitri.ognibene at essex.ac.uk>, Dr Filippetti (PSYCH) m.filippetti at essex.ac.uk <mailto:m.filippetti at essex.ac.uk>, Dr Rigato (PSYCH) srigato at essex.ac.uk <mailto:srigato at essex.ac.uk>.
-- 
Dimitri Ognibene, PhD
Department of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering, University of Essex, UK

http://sites.google.com/site/dimitriognibenehomepage/
Skype: dimitri.ognibene


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