Workshop: Vagueness in Language, Reasoning and Cognition @ Amsterdam, Netherlands

We are pleased to announce the closing workshop of the NWO project *On vagueness - and how to be precise enough* (2008-2012): "Vagueness in Language, Reasoning and Cognition". The workshop will bring together philosophers, semanticists, and psychologists working on the topic.
The invited speakers will be:

Magstim TMS Summer School CD Available

In advance of next year’s Magstim Neuroscience Conference & Workshop 2012, Magstim have now made available a free CD of this year's TMS Summer School, containing photos & interviews with the Speakers and Chairs.

If you would like a free copy of this CD, please e-mail conferences@magstim.com with your full postal address details. The abstracts of the posters presented at this year’s event can be downloaded as a PDF via the link below.

Magstim TMS Summer School 2011 CD magstim.com

JOB: Postdoc in communication sciences and disorders @ Univ. of Texas, Dallas

TWO POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP POSITIONS. The University of Texas-Dallas Callier Center for Communication Disorders invites applications for a two-year, full-time postdoctoral fellowship to develop a program of independent research in a field related to communication sciences and disorders, including psychology, linguistics, and neuroscience. A salary of approximately $45,000, a standard benefits package, and financial support for travel and research supplies will be provided. For more information please see attachment or contact Mandy Maguire, Ph.D. atmandy.maguire@utdallas.edu. For more information about the current research visit our website at www.utdallas.edu/calliercenter Review of applications will begin December 1, 2011 and continue until the position is filled. The University of Texas at Dallas is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer and encourages applications from candidates who would enhance the diversity of the university’s faculty and administration.

Workshop on Socio-cognitive Mechanisms of Symbolic Communication @ Tilburg, Netherlands

In contrast to other species, humans have the capacity to communicate symbolically (i.e. using forms that are either arbitrary or conventionalised) in an open fashion (i.e. with a very large repertoire of symbols, which in turn can be strung together according to some conventions and rules). It is widely accepted that our ability to communicate symbolically has both cognitive and social roots. In recent years, traditional approaches from humanities to study symbolic communication, such as linguistics and psychology, have been complemented by computational approaches. However, interactions between researchers from the humanities with computer modellers have been few and far between, perhaps due to a lack of mutual understanding of what each field can contribute to the other. 

Sentiment Analysis Symposium @ San Francisco, CA

The Sentiment Analysis Symposium, November 9, San Francisco, CA, bridges technology and business in one of the most exciting applications to emerge in recent years: software that discovers business value in opinions and attitudes in social media, news, and enterprise feedback. 

There looks like there will be some excellent talks from noted names in academia and industry. You can find more information here: http://sentimentsymposium.com/index.html

JOB: Postdoc @ Center for Language Science, Penn State Univ.

The Center for Language Science (CLS) at Pennsylvania State University (http://cls.psu.edu/) invites applications for an anticipated postdoctoral position. We are seeking a candidate who has extensive language neuroscience experience, particularly with fMRI methods, and who would like to develop expertise on bilingual language processing. The position will include interaction with CLS faculty and students and the larger Penn State neuroscience community (see http://www.imaging.psu.edu and
http://www.huck.psu.edu/education/neuroscience) towards developing fMRI expertise among students and faculty and creating potential collaborative projects. The successful candidate will benefit from a
highly interactive group of faculty whose interests include bilingual language processing, second language acquisition in children and adults, and language contact. Applicants with interests in these
topics and with an interest in extending their expertise within experimental psycholinguistics and cognitive neuroscience are particularly welcome to apply. There is no expectation that applicants will have had prior experience in research on bilingualism but previous fMRI expertise is critical.

JOB: Postdoc in Neurobiology of language @ Hospital of Univ. Pennsylvania, PA

We are seeking a postdoctoral PhD or MD/PhD researcher for an immediate opening for a NIH-funded position in the Department of Neurology at the University of Pennsylvania. The successful candidate will be interested in hypothesis-driven investigations of the neurobiology of language. We perform fMRI studies of healthy adults, investigating lexical, sentence and discourse levels of processing. We obtain converging data with structural imaging, using the same language materials in patients with focal neurodegenerative diseases such as semantic dementia, progressive nonfluent aphasia, corticobasal syndrome, Lewy body disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and behavioral variant frontotemporal degeneration. Biofluid and histopathologic markers of neurodegenerative disease are available for linking with cognitive and imaging results. Previous experience with neuroimaging and computer programming is strongly preferred. The University of Pennsylvania is an equal opportunity employer.

CORPORA: Santa Barbara Corpus of Spoken American English

The Santa Barbara Corpus of Spoken American English, encompassing recordings of naturally occurring language use collected live all across the United States, is now being made available for free.

Details about the corpus, including how to get both transcriptions and recordings, are at: http://www.linguistics.ucsb.edu/research/sbcorpus.html.

Conference: Visual Language Summit @ Center for Mind and Brain, Davis, CA

The U.C. Davis Center for Mind and Brain (CMB) will be hosting a "Visual Language Summit" at the Center for Mind and Brain (CMB) in Davis CA on Nov. 18th and 19th, 2011. This conference is begin sponsored by the Gallaudet University Science of Learning Center on Visual Language and Visual Learning (VL2), the U.C. Davis Center for Mind and Brain, and the U.C. Davis departments of Psychology and Linguistics.

The Visual Language Summit gathers specialists in Attention, Language, Memory, and Education to address pertinent issues regarding the cognitive and linguistic development and achievement of deaf and hard of hearing individuals. Together with Deaf community stakeholders, the Visual Language Summit provides an intimate forum highlighting promising developments in research and practices aimed at fostering intellectual exchanges and collaborations. The Summit will pave the way for transformative approaches to education and neuroscience.

For a the program and registration (free !) please visit.

http://mindbrain.ucdavis.edu/labs/Corina/VLS

CFP: Special Session - Sociolinguistics and multilingualism @ 19th International Congress of Linguists, Geneva, Switzerland

The discipline of sociolinguistics has come a long way since its tentative beginnings in the mid-twentieth century. Topics investigated have broadened considerably, encompassing anything from sound changes or grammatical variability via anthropological and ethnographic approaches or language planning to discourse pragmatics or the commodification of usage. Fundamental theoretical insights have been gained, on topics such as structured variability, language change, indexicality, audience design, the linguistic marketplace, or linguistic imperialism, to name but a few. The methodological toolkit, from concern for elicitation and fieldwork techniques to software development and sophisticated statistical machinery, has grown and matured.

JOB: Assistant Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience @ Univ. California, Irvine

Subject to budgetary authorization, the Department of Cognitive Sciences (www.cogsci.uci.edu) at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) has available a tenuretrack position at the Assistant Professor level in cognitive neuroscience. Of particular interest are researchers who employ a multi‐method approach to understand the computational and neural organization of speech and language processes or higher‐level perception or action. The successful candidate will interact with a dynamic and growing community in cognitive, computational, and neural sciences within the Cognitive Science Department, the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, and the newly founded Center for Language Science. Irvine is located in Orange County on the Southern California coastline between Los Angeles and San Diego.

Workshop: Methods for Studying Human Cerebellar Structure and Function @ SFN, Baltimore, MD

November 10-11, 2011
Methods for Studying Human Cerebellar Structure and Function is a 2-day workshop for investigators with an interest in applying modern anatomical and physiological methods to the study of human cerebellar function. It will be held at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and is a satellite event of the 2011 Society for Neuroscience Meeting in Washington, DC.

While it has long been known that the cerebellum is involved in a broad range of sensorimotor and cognitive processes, it is only recently that technical advances in neuroimaging and neurophysiological methods have allowed investigation of these phenomena in humans. This workshop will serve to bring together basic and clinical neuroscientists interested in human cerebellar structure/function relationships to share their experience relevant to the technical aspects of cerebellar investigation.

Presentations will cover the principal methods currently in use to study human cerebellar function, including: (1) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of cerebellar structure, (2) transcranial magnetic stimulation and transcranial direct cortical stimulation as modulators of cerebellar function, (3) functional MRI connectivity studies of cortico-cerebellar loop organization, (4) task-related functional MRI studies of cerebellar function, (5) MRI meta-analysis approaches to cerebellar function, and (6) focal and neurodegenerative lesion analysis of cerebellar function.

Textbook Announcement: Introduction to Psycholinguistics

Wiley-Blackwell is pleased to announce the publication of: Introduction to Psycholinguistics by Matthew J. Traxler

This textbook offers a cutting edge introduction to psycholinguistics, exploring the cognitive processes underlying language acquisition and use. It provides students and faculty with a step-by-step tour through language acquisition, production, and comprehension, from the word level to sentences an dialogue. Featuring rich coverage of both theory and data, the text includes comprehensive reviews of research in the areas of bilingual language processing, sign language, reading, and the neurological basis of language production and comprehension. It also explores outside perspectives on psycholinguistics from disciplines such as psychology, linguistics, philosophy, computer science, neurology, and neurophysiology. Covering the full spectrum of language representations and processes, and drawing on the most current research available from a range of scientific perspectives, this is the best introduction to the psychology of language available today.
Learn more about the book or request an examination copy at www.wiley.com/go/linguistics<http://www.wiley.com/go/linguistics>.

CFP: Variation in Language Acquisition (ViLA)

February 10-11, 2012, Münster (Germany)

Despite repeated calls for in-depth research the acquisition of sociolinguistic variation remains to be an underinvestigated topic both in sociolinguistics and in language acquisition research. Yet several reasons can be given why children, adolescents and L2-learners are a worthwhile topic of investigation: first, the ability to perceive and employ variation in speech is an integral part of people’s linguistic competence, and the field of language acquisition cannot afford to study the acquisition process in a sociolinguistic vacuum. In addition, the process of language transmission has been quoted for more than a century as a potential cause of language change. For instance, processes of dialect levelling, loss and koinèisation are believed to take place primarily in children and adolescents, whereas second language acquisition is believed to underlie change through language contact. Finally, as do acquisition processes in general, the acquisition of sociolinguistic variation might cast over issues relating to the relationship between language and mind, including the language learning process and the nature of grammatical knowledge.

The present workshop addresses sociolinguistic variation both in first and second/foreign languages. We hope to bring together scholars working on the acquisition of variation in different languages, in order to engage in cross-linguistic comparison and set a research agenda for the near future.

Papers dealing with, but not restricted to, the following topics are sought:

· the development of sociolinguistic monitoring and/or the awareness of language variation, including attitudes towards variation and/or different varieties

· acquisition and processes of language change (both ‘system-internal’ change and change through contact, including dialect levelling, koinèisation, and creolization)

· sociolinguistic variation and grammatical models (rule-based, item-based,...; including models of language learning)

· style shifting and accommodation in children, adolescents and adult language learners

· the socio-pragmatic circumstances in which variation is acquired, including the effect of the linguistic repertoire within a speech community (diglossia vs. diaglossia), the role of caregivers vis-à-vis the peer group,...

· detecting speech disorders in children acquiring non-standard varieties

PARTICIPATION:

To participate, send your one-page abstract to gunther.devogelaer@uni-muenster.de and matthias.katerbow@staff.uni-marburg.de, to arrive no later than October 15, 2011. Notification of acceptance will be sent out before October 31.

WORKSHOP URL:

http://www.uni-muenster.de/HausDerNiederlande/institut/veranstaltungen/vila2012/index.html

CFP: Language, Culture and Mind V @ Lisbon, Portugal

Date: 27-Jun-2012 - 29-Jun-2012
The 5th International Conference on Language, Culture and Mind (LCM V) will be held on 27-29 June 2012 at the Catholic University of Portugal in Lisbon. It will be preceded by a Young Researchers Workshop on 26 June 2012 (same venue), in which young researchers will present their ongoing dissertation projects and current work.

The goals of LCM conferences are to contribute to situating the study of language in a contemporary interdisciplinary dialogue (involving philosophy, linguistics, psychology, anthropology, semiotics and other related fields), and to promote a better integration of cognitive and cultural perspectives in empirical and theoretical studies of language.  http://www.salc-sssk.org/lcm/

Workshop on "The timing of grammar: experimental and theoretical considerations" @ Univ. of Potsdam, Germany

Date & place: 27 March 2012, University of Potsdam
Deadline for abstract submission: 15 November 2011

Description: This workshop precedes the 35th GLOW Colloquium, which will take place at the University of Potsdam, Germany, from 28-30 March 2012. The workshop examines the real-time application of grammatical constraints during language processing, and how these interact with other types of constraints such as selectional restrictions, discourse-pragmatic biases, or cognitive resource limitations. Our focus will be on constraints which help determine the interpretation of overt or covert anaphoric elements.

JOB: Postdoc in Speech Neuroscience @ Univ. of California, San Francisco

The Speech Neuroscience Research Group at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is seeking two postdoctoral-fellows interested in understanding the organization of human speech processing and the neural basis of speech motor control.

UCSF is a world-class research institution with a wide array of scanner facilities that includes MRI (both 3T and 7T systems) as well as a 275-channel whole-head MEG/EEG scanner. There is also a large and rapidly expanding program of research using high-density invasive electrocorticography (ECoG) recordings from neurosurgical patients.

Two postdoctoral positions are open in the labs of Professors Edward Chang and John Houde. Professor Chang’s lab focuses on the basic neural representations of acoustic, phonetic, and lexical information in human cortex. Professor Houde’s lab investigates the neural basis of speech motor control. The research focus of the lab is investigating the neural basis of feedback processing in speech production, but other ongoing projects in the lab include studies of sequential speech production, spasmodic dysphonia and stuttering. Major experimental methods include invasive electrocorticography (ECoG), MEG source analysis, time-frequency analysis and simultaneous EEG-fMRI.

Around the web #15

Awhile back there was a lot of attention paid to study published in Science showing that "hand washing" removed "buyer's remorse." Now, a study has shown that Christian subjects who had just copied a passage from either the Qur'an or Richard Dawkins (but not a neutral text), given a blind taste test, find the drink more "disgusting".... that is, unless they have the chance to clean their hands.

Check out Brad Buchsbaum's Blog  - "TMS calls the bluff of fMRI, it holds fMRI to account, it cuts right through fMRI's bull. And TMS has nothing but contempt for Coldplay."

Very cool write-up at the BCI Research Blog: Using EEG and machine learning to automatically tag emotionally valenced faces.

How to capture the mood of the world (on Twitter) at hour-increment precision.

A piece written in the New York Times entitled "You Love Your iPhone. Literally" has been put through the wringer of scientific bloggers, here and here for example.

Samuel L Ipsum will generate dummy placeholder text for your website.

Shout out to Hannah at Replicated Typo for find a free online course on Machine Learning taught by Stanford professor Andrew Ng.

Magstim Neuroscience Conference & Workshop @ Oxford, UK

Magstim are proud to announce next year's 'Summer School' - the Magstim Neuroscience Conference & Workshop 2012, which will be held in the Examination Schools in Oxford in the UKon 12th & 13th May 2012.

Based on feedback from previous events, we are rebranding and reformatting the TMS Summer School to be wider in its remit to encompass more than just TMS (Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation) as well as now offering hands-on workshops with a variety of Neuromodulation research equipment that is used in the majority of neuroscience research.

CFP: CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing @ CUNY, New York

The 25th Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing will be held at the Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York, hosted by CUNY's Ph.D. Program in Linguistics. Dates for the conference are March 14-16, 2012. (Note, please, that the conference schedule for 2012 runs Wednesday through Friday, differing from arrangements in past years.)

Abstracts are solicited for papers and posters presenting theoretical, experimental, and/or computational research on any aspect of human sentence processing. Abstracts will be reviewed anonymously, and will be considered both for the general conference sessions and for a special session under the theme; Grammars and Parsers.