PhD position in cognitive psychology on implicit learning and aging

It is common to point out that with age, motor, perceptive, and cognitive functions decline at a more or less significant rate depending on the individual, and independently of any trouble or disease. Acquiring new abilities or skills, or modifying habits, becomes indeed progressively more difficult with healthy aging, making continuous adaptation to a changing environment more challenging in the elderly than in young people.

The present project aims at testing a hypothesis for explaining the difficulties encountered by aged people in acquiring new cognitive or motor skills, or  in maintaining their current abilities at a satisfactory level for as long as possible. Precisely, it is suggested that with aging, deficits in forming chunks of separate elements progressively appear and that this deficit might largely account for cognitive and/or motor decline in healthy aging. This hypothesis will be tested through a series of experiments dealing with implicit learning paradigms with different modalities (i.e., visual, auditory, and motor abilities) and by using techniques such as eye tracking and electroencephalography to track learning online.

Keywords: Implicit learning, aging, chunking, eye tracking, electroencephalography

Host Laboratory:

Laboratoire d’Étude de l’Apprentissage et du Développement / Laboratory for Research on Learning and Developpement

Adress Host Laboratory:

LEAD – CNRS UMR5022

Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté

Université de Bourgogne

Pôle AAFE

11 Esplanade Erasme

21000 Dijon

Supervisors:

Poulin-Charronnat Bénédicte (CNRS senior researcher, benedicte.poulin@u-bourgogne.fr)

Annie Vinter (Professor of developmental psychology, annie.vinter@u-bourgogne.fr )

Contract duration: 36 months

Jobs Hours: Full time

Deadline application: May 31st, 2021

Starting job: October 1st 2021

Candidate Profile:

The candidate should have a Master degree or equivalent level in cognitive neuroscience, cognitive psychology, neuropsychology or any related area. Experience with any of the following will be particularly appreciated: electroencephalography, eye-tracking, programming (matlab, python…). A strong interest in implicit learning and/or aging research is paramount.

The selected candidate(s) will have to make on oral presentation between June 29 and July 1 in front of the members of the council of the Environment-Health doctoral school of UBFC, who will give an opinion of the scientific quality of the candidate(s).

Application:

Please send the following documents (all in one PDF file) by e-mail to benedicte.poulin@u-bourgogne.fr :

1) For EU candidates: Copy of your national ID card or of your passport page where your photo is printed.

For non-EU candidates: Copy of your passport page where your photo is printed.

2) Curriculum Vitae (1 page).

3) Letter of motivation relatively to the position (1 page).

4) Copy of your Master degree and/or Engineer degree if already available.

5) Copy of your final marks and ranks.

6) Coordinates of reference persons (maximum 3, at least your master thesis supervisor): Title, Name, organization, e-mail.

If you have questions regarding the application, please contact the supervisors.

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