The INCC babylab (https://baby.biomedicale.parisdescartes.fr/en) seeks to hire a post-doc to join the JEWEL (Joint East-West Early Language) project (https://lang-dev-lab.brain.riken.jp/jewel/), which investigates early language acquisition across diverse socio-linguistic backgrounds. This project is conducted as a part of JSPS Specially Promoted Research (20H05617) lead by Dr. Reiko Mazuka at RIKEN Center for Brain Science (https://lang-dev-lab.brain.riken.jp/index-english.html).
Cumulative research on infants learning Asian languages indicates that Asian infants’ acquisition of phonology and vocabulary lags behind Western infants by a few months. We hypothesize that this can be attributed to differences in the social environmental cues provided by caregivers across different cultural backgrounds.
The successful applicant will work on conducting and analyzing experiments on infants’ ability to segment word forms from fluent speech, and on their sensitivity to social cues during early vocabulary acquisition and coordinate their implementation across multiple labs in two Western (English and French) and four Asian (Japanese, Korean, Thai, and Singaporean Mandarin) language contexts.
Place of work
The postdoc will be based at the Integrative Neuroscience and Cognition Center (INCC) in Paris (https://incc-paris.fr/), 45 rue des Saints-Pères, 75006 Paros. S/he will be supervised by Thierry Nazzi in collaboration with Reiko Mazuka.
Employment period and duration
The position can start as early as January 1 2022. It is a 1-year appointment, with possible renewal for an extra year.
Salary and Benefits
Salary level will be determined in accordance with CNRS regulations.
Note however that the successful applicant will need to be registered in France as an independent worker (autoentrepreneur), and will submit invoices to RIKEN monthly, as s/he will be paid directly by RIKEN. Social insurance and retirement benefits will have to be paid directly by the successful applicant.
Qualifications
(Required)
Ph.D., M.D. or equivalent in a related field
Experience in conducting psychological experiments in humans, ideally with infants or children (eye-tracking a plus)
Data analysis skills (preferably R)
(Preferred)
Good command of French
Good command of English
Basic programming skills
Application documents
Cover letter in English
Curriculum vitae in English, including publication list
Name and contact address for two references
Submission
Interested applicants should send application materials to , indicating “JEWEL postdoc application” in the subject of the email.
Applications will be accepted until the position is filled; all applications will be screened, and only those qualified will be scheduled for an interview (on-site or via video conferencing tool).