Fellowships

PhD position with an experimental focus

CoCoDev offers a fully-funded PhD research position in the framework of our ANR grant MACoMiC (Mastering the Art of Conversation in Middle Childhood) (See description of the project on the ANR website). The detailed research proposal is available upon request.

The PhD researcher will lead the investigation of children’s development of multimodal conversational skills by supervising data collection (most of which will be online and unmoderated), including:
1) Child-caregiver interactions (via zoom) in many cultures and across both neurotypical and autistic children (see an example from our recent paper).
2) Children’s cognitive skills (e.g., Theory of Mind and Executive functions) hypothesized to underly conversational skills (see the prototype of the online testing platform being developed in our team).

The scientific goal is to characterize conversational skills in a quantitative fashion (in collaboration with our computer scientists) and identify the cognitive mechanisms underlying these skills and how these mechanisms vary across age and neurodiversity. The target conversational skills include turn-taking dynamics, mechanisms of building shared understanding (i.e., communicative grounding), multimodal synchronization, and discourse coherence/contingency.

Scientific context

The PhD researcher will work mainly with Abdellah Fourtassi and will be encouraged to collaborate with other members of our highly interdisciplinary and supportive team made of senior and early career researchers in developmental psychology, neuro-linguistics, and computer science (with expertise in conversational AI) (CoCoDev members). They will also benefit from the larger context of the Institute of Language Communication and the Brain (to which CoCoDev belongs) (ILCB), including scientific activities with other PhD researchers in the institute (e.g., annual retreats, seminars, and workshops). Additionally, the researcher will enjoy the opportunity to interact with CoCoDev’s international community of collaborators (see map).

Geographical context

The PhD researcher will be primarily located at the university’s Linguistics lab in Aix (LPL) or the computer science lab (LIS) in Luminy (20 min by bus from downtown Marseille) right next to the Calanque National Park. There is also workspace in the campus of Marseille center.

Requirement

• A PhD takes 3 years to complete in France but requires a master’s degree. Bachelor graduates without a master’s degree are not eligible.
• Familiarity with developmental psychology and, ideally, prior experience with testing chidlren’s linguistic/cognitive abilities.
• While computational modeling is not a requirement, the candidate should have experience with data analysis (preferably in R using the Tydiverse package) or show willingness to learn it before the starting date.
• Mastery of English
• Minimal writing and communicative abilities in French to interact with the participants.

Monthly Salary

Around € 1,500 after taxes (Note that this salary is standardized across all public universities in France). The salary is perfectly compatible with the costs of living in Marseille (e.g., rent prices are 50% lower in Marseille than in Paris) (More info).

Key dates

March – April 2022: Please send (as soon as possible for full consideration):
1) a CV and a recent transcript
2) Contact info of one reference
3) (Optional) Evidence of prior experience with research and data analysis (publication, code, etc.)

Late May 2022: Interviews with shortlisted candidates

September/October 2022: Starting date

Inquiries

All kinds of inquiries (scientific project, the university, life in Marseille, etc), as well as the application (CV, etc.), should be addressed to Abdellah Fourtassi (abdellah.fourtassi@univ-amu.fr)

PhD position with a modeling focus