IBACS

Hot off the Press: IBACS 2022/2023 Brain Digest

We are excited to share the recently finalized IBACS 22/23 Brain Digest that features the Cognitive Science Program. Thank you to all of the faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students who have contributed- especially our graduate student editors, Cynthia Boo and Lee Drown! We hope you will enjoy reading it as much as we’ve enjoyed creating it. Please email Institute Coordinator, Crystal Mills, at crystal.mills@uconn.edu if you’d like physical copies mailed to you.

IBACS-Brain-Digest_FY2023

 

2/17:Postdoctoral Research Position

Postdoctoral Research Position

Overview

Prof. Adele Goldberg invites applications for a postdoctoral research position to work on the role of generalization in language learning among individuals on the autism spectrum. The lab conducts research using a variety of methods, including lab-based experiments, online surveys, pupillometry, ERP and fMRI to study factors that influence the learning and use of language in neurotypical and atypical children and adults. The successful candidate will focus on autism research and will assist in other projects that range from conventional metaphor processing to diachronic change.

 

This is a one-year term position with the possibility of renewal contingent upon continued funding and satisfactory performance. Start date is negotiable. Please submit a CV, a cover letter describing research goals, and technical and research skills. Please also submit contact information for three references. Contact Adele Goldberg (adele@princeton.edu) for additional questions.

 

Qualifications

  • A recent Ph.D. in psychology, linguistics or related discipline
  • Experience designing and publishing experimental work
  • Expertise in statistics for language work (using R)
  • Excellent organizational, interpersonal, and communication skills
  • Experience or strong interest in working with populations on the autism spectrum
  • Detail-oriented, motivated, efficient, and able to work independently
  • Strong writing skill

 

This position is subject to the University’s background check policy. Princeton University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.

The Difference Between Laughing and Crying: A Multidisciplinary Effort

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Undergraduate April Garbuz has learned from mentor Heather Read that it takes all kinds of scientists and engineers working together to understand how our brain functions. (Christine Buckley/UConn Photo)

Heather Read, an associate professor of psychological sciences and biomedical engineering at UConn, and undergraduate April Garbuz are working on a project concerned with how the brain’s auditory circuits react to different vocal tones, shapes, pitches, and rhythms – what people use to distinguish between laughing and crying. Successfully mapping out these areas on the brain may allow for therapies or computerized devices to help with differentiation in those who can’t do it for themselves.

Read works with co-PI Monty Escabi, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, and notes that “It takes all kinds of scientists to do these kinds of studies, it makes for a really cool environment not just for research, but for our students to learn.”

Psychology department head Jim Green agrees, saying that this successful collaboration of faculty from different programs shows how building multidisciplinary studies leads to stronger research programs.

“Complex problems often cannot be solved by a single investigator, and brain science is a truly multidisciplinary effort,” Green says. “UConn’s current brain studies have faculty from at least seven different departments, in four colleges, working together. It’s incredibly exciting.”

Read more

The Institute featured in UConn Today

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Gerald Altmann, professor of psychology, on Sept. 22, 2015. (Peter Morenus/UConn Photo)

“The director of the Institute for Brain and Cognitive Science, psychology professor Gerry Altmann, discusses how this new research center will ‘join the dots’ across neuroscience, behavioral research, and cognitive science.”

 

Click here to read more