JOB: Prof. of Social Psychology @ DePaul University

Social Psychology: DePaul University invites applications for full-time, tenure-track positions at the Assistant or Associate Professor levels in Social Psychology beginning September 2012. Area of specialization is open, but we are especially interested in candidates with expertise in one or more of the following areas: interpersonal relationships, social cognition, emotion, intergroup perception and dynamics, the self and self-regulation, and/or the social psychology of health. Successful applicants should have a strong record of scholarly achievement in social psychology, the potential for excellent teaching at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, a commitment to mentoring undergraduate and graduate students, and the potential to attract external funding. 


These positions entail the following responsibilities: (1) to teach courses in the psychology department's undergraduate core curriculum (e.g., Social Psychology, Introductory Psychology, Introduction to Statistics, Research Methods, and/or History and Systems); (2) to contribute to graduate teaching and research supervision in the department's Ph.D. programs, and (3) to make distinctive contributions to the scientific literature. Completion of the Ph.D. in social psychology or a related field is required prior to hiring. Members of under-represented groups, including ethnic minorities, LGBT individuals, and people with disabilities, are especially encouraged to apply. DePaul University is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Salary is competitive. Applications received by November 15, 2011 will receive full consideration; however, applications will continue to be reviewed until the positions are filled. To apply, click:http://facultyopportunities.depaul.edu/applicants/Central?quickFind=50799. Have three letters of reference sent to: Chair, Social Psychology Search Committee, Department of Psychology, DePaul University, 2219 North Kenmore Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60614-3504. As an Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) employer, DePaul University provides job opportunities to qualified individuals without regard to race, color, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, age, marital status, physical or mental disability, parental status, housing status, source of income or military status, in accordance with applicable federal, state and local EEO laws.

CFP: Sources of Individual Linguistic Differences @ Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Date: 02-Mar-2012 - 04-Mar-2012
Call Deadline: 18-Sep-2011

Meeting Description: This conference will explore all sources of individual differences in linguistic competence and performance, paying special attention to the role of traits associated with Autism Spectrum Disorders, of which classic Autism and Asperger's Syndrome are the clearest subgroups, and how the study of autistic and autistic-like traits can inform and be informed by the scientific study of language. Variability that is related to the Autism Spectrum is of special interest to this conference, but we also appeal for studies of interspeaker variability in other domains.

The goal of this conference is to bring together researchers working on the linguistic consequences of individual variation, or the sources of variation, to present their current ideas and to provide a breeding ground for cross-framework and cross-disciplinary dialogues, and to ensure that each group of researchers is exposed to the state-of-the-art in adjacent fields. We hope the conference will facilitate collaboration among linguists, speech scientists, and cognitive scientists, to seek out better explanations for the nature of linguistic deficits and enhancements in different types of people, as well as to explore how better understanding of individual variation might advance linguistic theory via the investigation of variation in the fundamental (cognitive, physiological, social, etc.) underpinnings of language. 

3rd International Workshop on Advances in Electrocorticography @ Washington, DC

Description: We are excited to announce the final program for the 3rd Intl. Workshop on Advances in Electrocorticography, which will be held prior to the upcoming annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Washington, DC, on Thu, Nov 10 and Fri, Nov. 11, 2011.  This workshop follows an informal ECoG meeting at the AES meeting in 2008, the first formal workshop in Upstate New York in 2009 (see Ritaccio et al., Epilepsy and Behav, 2010), and the second workshop in San Diego in 2010 (Proceedings forthcoming in Epilepsy and Behav).

In this workshop, more than 20 world-class faculty will present the current state and recent advances in research and clinical application of electrocorticographic (ECoG) recordings.  The workshop covers basics of ECoG recordings, contemporary practice of clinical ECoG, current understanding of ECoG physiology, selected topics in ECoG cognitive neuroscience, emerging clinical applications, as well as pathological ECoG recordings in epilepsy.  

JOB: Postdoc (Pisoni lab) @ Indiana University, Bloomington

Indiana University in Bloomington is pleased to announce the availability of  four new NIH Postdoctoral Traineeships. Post-docs are available to qualified PhD's in Linguistics and related fields who wish to further their background and training in any of the following areas of basic and clinical research:

- Speech Perception and Spoken Word Recognition
- Acoustic and Articulatory Phonetics
- Laboratory Phonology
- Speech Production and Links to Perception/Action
- Perceptual, Cognitive and Linguistic Development
- Psycholinguistics
- Clinical Phonology and Sensory Aids for the Hearing Impaired
- Multi-modal Speech Perception
- Sociophonetics and Perception of Indexical Speech Information

Around the web #11

A short video on "Brain Computer Interfacing in 2011: From EEG to cortical implants," from a BCI conference in Utrecht this summer.

Politicians beware! New study shows that grammatical aspect may kill your chance at re-election.

Move over Phineas Gage, here is the goriest article in the history of The Psychologist - a nice review of people having weird stuff stuck in their brains.

How to use wireless EEG to sell more Cheetos.

Having unfriendly co-workers increases the risk of death.

Disfluencies such as "um" and "er" facilitate language acquisition in toddlers.

A new technology that allows electrical measurements (such as EEG) by using temporary tattoos with embedded circuit elements.

Very cool online tool for foreign language word learning. Memrise monitors your learning progress and customizes testing. Numerous languages are supported - not just the ones you would expect, but also less well-known languages such as Cherokee, Lao, and Nepali.

CFP: Workshop on 'Grammar between Gradience and Frequency' @ Frankfurt, Germany

Date: 07-Mar-2012 - 09-Mar-2012
Call Deadline: 17-Aug-2011

Meeting Description: The last two decades witnessed an enormous progress in linguistic methodology. Two sources fed this development: the growing body of electronic corpora of authentic language use and the establishment of experimental methods for the assessment of grammaticality/acceptability judgments.

The workshop will discuss the consequences of these advancements for our understanding of linguistic knowledge. The traditional though never uncontroversial  dichotomy between linguistic knowledge (competence) on the one hand and mental processes making use of this knowledge (performance) on the other hand may serve as a starting point. There are several conflicting positions with regard to this dichotomy, up to its complete abandonment in favor of a purely usage-based notion of language. However, even when the competence-performance distinction is maintained in its original form, new perspectives and questions arise. For instance, is it possible to reduce the syntactic component of the grammar to a small number of elementary operations by giving more weight to language processing mechanisms?

The workshop's aim is to bring together researchers working at the intersection of grammatical theory, psycholinguistics, language acquisition and corpus linguistics. We are hoping for contributions which are formal in nature (e.g., grammar formalisms) as well as contributions presenting new empirical evidence (e.g., experiments and corpus studies).

JOB: Prof. of Psycho/Neurolinguistics @ University of Osnabrück

The interdisciplinary Institute of Cognitive Science of the University ofOsnabrück offers a junior professorship for Psycho-/Neurolinguistics (salary level W1)  to be filled as soon as possible. The contract will be initially for three years with the possibility of an extension for a further period of three years, provided the intermediate evaluation has been passed successfully.

The successful applicant will represent the discipline of Neurolinguistics or Psycholinguistics within Cognitive Science with regard to both teaching and research in his or her own responsibility and will act independently also with regard to the acquisition of external research funds. The position involves research in the areas of Neuro-/Psycholinguistics. Candidates are expected to interdisciplinarily collaborate with several of the other research groups at the Institute of Cognitive Science (Artificial
Intelligence, Cognitive Psychology, Computational Linguistics, Neurobiopsychology, Neurocybernetics, Neuroinformatics, and Philosophy of Cognition). Furthermore, the position involves teaching with a focus on neuro-/psycholinguistic approaches in the international BSc, MSc, and PhD programs of Cognitive Science. 

Around the web #10

Google apparently has an official document explaining +1 spelling conventions: “+1 is that special type of term that functions as both a noun and a verb,” the page explains. “As a result, all sorts of variants can come up as you’re talking about your favorite way to recommend pages on Google search. To wit: +1’s, +1’d, and +1’ing.” More can on the linguistics of +1'ing can be found here.

From Arabic to Tagbanwa, a comprehensive listing of Unicode symbols across the world's languages.

Never really thought about this before... the evolution of surnames. 

The Flynn effect refers to the widespread increase in IQ scores over time, and some measures of intelligence show increases over the past 100 years. Are smart people getting smarter?

Using EEG to stop your car? A recent study reported that at a speed of 65 mph the braking distance was reduced by 12 feet.


Okay, I'll be the first to admit that this has nothing to do with linguistics, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, cognitive science, neuroscience, etc. But watching people get bounced off a blob is really cool. Enjoy.

CFP: Cognitive Neuroscience Society

Abstract submissions to the Cognitive Neuroscience Society will open September 15th.
The following requirements apply to all submissions.

Submission Types

You can make ONE of four types of submissions: Symposium, Slide, GSA or PFA, or Poster. Both the PFA (Postdoctoral Fellow Award) and GSA submissions (Graduate Student Award) are a special slide presentation.
If you submit a symposium proposal and it is not accepted, the first author of each talk in the symposium will be given an opportunity to submit a slide or poster abstract in place of their talk. If you apply for a PFA or GSA award and it not awarded, your submission will automatically be considered for a slide or poster presentation. If you apply for a slide presentation and it is not accepted, your submission will automatically be considered for a poster presentation. Poster abstract submissions will only be considered for a poster presentation.

JOB: Postdoc in Cognition and Cortical Dynamics Laboratory @ University of Washington

The Cognition and Cortical Dynamics Laboratory (CCDL) consists of a group of researchers interested in better understanding how the brain changes, or adapts, to deal with the ever present fluctuations in information processing demands. Our research on these issues addresses a set of unifying questions, such as:

What are the biological bases of individual differences in cognitive capabilities? What are the neural mechanisms underpinning cognitive flexibility? The CCDL utilizes multiple methods and approaches including functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), biologically constrained computational modeling, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), and individual differences research to collect converging evidence about the biological nature of human thought.

We are currently actively investigating the neural bases of the following phenomena: individual differences in language comprehension abilities, improved executive functioning in bilinguals, and rapid task (rule) learning.

JOB: Postdoctoral Position in Neural Network Models of Language @ Penn State Univ.

Qualified individuals are invited to apply for a postdoctoral fellowship in connectionist modeling of language and bilingualism. The fellowship is supported by the National Science Foundation (USA), and provides an annual stipend of around $38,000-$41,000 (commensurate with experience and qualifications). The initial appointment will be for one year, with the possibility of renewal for a second year. A qualified candidate should hold a Ph.D. degree by the time of appointment in an area of cognitive sciences (computer science, psychology, or linguistics) and have experience in neural networks and natural language processing. Technical experiences with C/C++, MatLab, Unix/Linux are necessary.

The successful candidate will join the PI's research team to work on self-organizing models of language, with particular reference to dynamic lexical interaction and competition in multiple languages. The project will be carried out at the laboratory for Brain, Language, and Computation (http://cogsci.psu.edu) in the Department of Psychology at the Pennsylvania State University. The BLC Lab is associated with several vibrant research communities at Penn State, including the Center for Language Science (http://cls.psu.edu), the Social, Life, and Engineering Sciences Imaging Center (http://www.imaging.psu.edu/), and the Penn State Institute of the Neurosciences (http://www.huck.psu.edu/institutes-and-centers/neuroscience).

JOB: Post-doctoral/research associate positions are open in the Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory @ Northwestern University.

We are broadly interested in how the brain changes over development and in individual differences (including disability) in brain organization. Research in the lab is focused on the neural basis of (1) reading and language, (2) mathematical cognition, (3) executive function and reward processing and (4) cross-cultural differences in language and cognition. For more information about the lab go to: http://www.dcn.northwestern.edu/.

Candidates with previous experience in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and/or event-related potentials (ERP) are especially encouraged to apply. Candidates are expected to have a demonstrated record of excellent scientific writing skills.

JOB: Faculty Research Position @ UC Irvine

We are in need of a scientist who has completed a postdoctoral fellowship in systems, cognitive, or computational neuroscience, with serious interest in fundamental neuroscience questions about language and/or motor function. Candidates with a background in mathematics/statistics are particularly encouraged to apply.

Our work investigates the fundamental neurobiology of language and motor systems, and their breakdown in disease. We use fMRI, DTI, event-related EEG, sleep EEG, and/or TMS to study the human brain and uncover the underlying mechanisms of neural processing of language and/or motor systems in health and disease. This position will be funded by the NIH, McDonnell Foundation, UC-Irvine, and/or other funds. Candidates with independent funding will be given special consideration. This is a non-tenure-track position, and comes with an initial period of guaranteed funding.

Please include a CV and statement of past research accomplishments and future interests. The start date is negotiable, with preference for earlier dates.
Steven L. Small, Ph.D., M.D.
small@uci.edu