Tag Archives: position

PhD position in the Dutch Research Consortium ‘Language in Interaction’ (1 FTE)

Maximum salary: € 2,664 gross/month
Application deadline: 1 February 2015
For more information click here 

The NWO Gravitation consortium ‘Language in Interaction’ invites applications for a PhD position on “Processing Vague Expressions: The Interplay between Semantics, Pragmatics and Cognition”.

A vague term like ‘big’ can be easily used and processed when there is a clear gap between bigger and smaller objects. We will test the hypothesis that a gap in distribution is the default criterion used in the processing of vague words in classificatory tasks, but that other criteria might also come into play. We will also test whether a similar default exists for the processing of quantity expressions such as ‘most’ (use the approximate number system if there is a gap, and precise counting otherwise). The ultimate goal is a unified theory of the processing of vague expressions.

The Netherlands has an outstanding track record in the language sciences. The research consortium ‘Language in Interaction’, sponsored by a large grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific research (NWO) brings together many of the excellent research groups in the Netherlands with a research programme on the foundations of language. The consortium includes representatives from seven universities and one research institute in the Netherlands. These are: Radboud University (RU), University of Amsterdam (UvA), University of Maastricht (UM), Leiden University (LU), Utrecht University (UU), Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR), Tilburg University (TiU), and the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics (MPI). Excellence in the domain of language and related relevant fields of cognition is combined with state-of-the-art research facilities and a research team with ample experience in complex research methods and utilization. This consortium achieves both quality and critical mass for studying human language at a scale not easily found anywhere else in the world.

This project will involve collaborative work to be carried out at the Institute of Logic, Language and Computation (ILLC) at the University of Amsterdam (Prof. Van Rooij) and the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour at Radboud University (Prof. H. Schriefers). The position will be embedded in the ILLC.
Both institutes conduct research in an international setting. English is the lingua franca.

Click here for more information on the Junior PI position and how to apply.

 

Postdoc position in Cognitive Neuroscience (Leiden University)

Postdoc position in Cognitive Neuroscience Closing date: 24 November 2014

For more information: http://www.sandernieuwenhuis.nl/pdfs/JobAdPostdocPosition.pdf

Research Project “Arousal, neural gain and cognitive function” Arousal has a wide variety of effects on human attention and performance, as documented in a rich empirical literature that was developed mainly before the 1980s. The computational and neural mechanisms underlying these effects, however, are still poorly understood. The goal of the present project is to revisit this literature and try to understand the relationships between arousal and cognition by applying recent computational models and insights about the role of neuromodulator systems in cognitive function (e.g., models of the noradrenergic modulation of neural gain). The newly developed ideas can then be tested using various methods, including EEG, genetics, psychopharmacology, and pupillometry. Although much of the research will be focused on the brain, the main goal is to understand the basic mechanisms underlying the influence of arousal on cognitive function.