Přehled

The Prague branch of Institute of Psychology, Czech Academy of Sciences opens 3 postdoc positions on Early grammar.

LOCATION: Prague

3 full-time postdoc positions: 2 positions – 36 months, 1 position – 30 months in two related projects focused on the early acquisition of grammatical knowledge and its relations with lexical and phonological acquisition (PI: Filip Smolík).

FOCUS OF THE PROJECTS:

  • early knowledge of grammatical morphemes and word categories, identification of earliest forms of gender/number marking (eye-tracking: preferential looking/looking-while-listening)
  • use of grammatical gender, number and case in predictive processing and syntactic bootstrapping
  • early sensitivity to grammatical dependencies
  • corpus analyses of morphological growth in Czech and other languages (annotated corpora of both child and adult Czech are available)
  • combining and comparing eye-tracking methods with neural methods (EEG/ERP and fNIRS are available in the lab)

 THE POSITIONS:

The envisaged content of the three positions is as follows, but any combinations of the above topics and skills are welcome and can be incorporated:

Position 1: main focus on neural methods (fNIRS, ERP/EEG) in experiments with early comprehension of morphosyntax; ability to work with corpora to prepare stimuli

Position 2: main focus on behavioral methods (eye tracking, preferential looking, central fixation, HPP) in experiments with early comprehension of morphosyntax; ability to work with corpora to prepare stimuli

Position 3: main focus on corpus analysis, learning mechanisms and modelling; designing experiments to test the learning mechanisms

REQUIREMENTS:

– Familiarity or experience with one or more of the following skills is desirable:

  • running/preparing habituation, central fixation or HPP experiments
  • working with eye-trackers and eye-tracking data (we have SR Research EyeLink)
  • processing of ERP data in Matlab/EEGlab
  • processing of fNIRS data
  • familiarity with experiment design/programming software: PsychoPy, jsPsych, OpenSesame, DmDX, Experiment Builder from SR Research, or others
  • computational modeling of language acquisition based on child and adult corpus data and other sources

– English language. Czech is not required but we expect interest in working on Czech and possibly other morphologically rich languages.  The position holders will be expected get familiar with the structure of Czech to be able to design studies and experiments.
– Experience with data processing and preparation for statistical analyses and some experience with statistics (R, Julia) is desirable.

CONTACT:

If you are interested in one of the positions and/or have any questions, do not hesitate to contact the PI informally at smolik@praha.psu.cas.cz .
Formal expressions of interest should include a CV, statement of interest and references, and will be fully evaluated after May 1.
Informal contact before this date will be appreciated. We are looking forward to new collaborations!

START: July 2025

SALARY: equivalent of 2100-2700EUR/month (depending on experience and exact plan)

APPLICATION DEADLINE: 23rd April 2025

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