Announcement: Full-Time Postdoctoral Researcher Position, Fixed-term 1 year (with possibility of one year extension) – Psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics

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Full-Time Position, Fixed-term 1 year (with possibility of one year extension)

Application deadline: 01/08/2020
Starting date : 01/09/2020 (flexible)

The Language and Communication Research Lab/McGill University and Jewish Rehabilitation Hospital-Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Rehabilitation and the Mental Lexicon Lab/CRIUGM and University of Montreal are offering a joint postdoctoral position for 1 year, with a possibility of a 1-year extension.

This position is offered within the context of the Words in the World Initiative funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Applicants are encouraged to visit the Words in the World website to determine the extent to which their research interests fit within the initiative’s research program. Prospective candidates are expected to conduct psycholinguistic and/or neurolinguistic original research not only in the lab, but also in real world environments. The postdoctoral fellow is expected to actively contribute to ongoing Words in the World research in the two labs and to be involved in lab and research centre activities across the two sites.  Primary tasks include conceptualizing, designing, and conducting research projects, and preparing findings for publication.
 

General qualifications:

• Completed PhD (within past 3 years and before the start date)

• Academic excellence, as determined by the quantity and quality of presentations, publications and awards.

• Previous or current research activities in psycholinguistics and/or neurolinguistics, linguistics, communication sciences and disorders, neuroscience. Conducting research across languages and populations is an asset.

• Feasibility of the proposed Words in the World project

• Ability to work independently and to carry out duties in an efficient and timely manner

• Good communicative, writing and social skills

• English proficiency (spoken and written) at advanced level; knowledge of French is an asset.

• Candidates need not be Canadian citizens to apply

Recommended qualifications:

• Experience with experimental and other data collection methods, using behavioural methods, EEG/ERP, and/or eye tracking

• Experience with software, e.g., E-Prime, PsychoPy

• Background in current statistical methods (e.g., linear mixed-effects models in R) is an asset


This is a full-time position starting in September 2020 (flexible).
Gross annual salary: 45,000$

Applications should include: 

• Cover letter 

• CV  

• Copy of the PhD diploma (to be submitted before the starting date)

• Statement of interest 

• One representative recent publication  

• The names and contact details of three referees  

Applications should be sent as a single pdf file via e-mail to Drs. Eva Kehayia and Gonia Jarema

Contact Names: Eva Kehayia & Gonia Jarema 

Application emails: eva.kehayia@mcgill;  gonia.jarema@umontreal.ca

For further questions and application submissions, please feel free to contact us.

Update on Mental Lexicon 2020 & New Words in the World Conference

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Dear friends and colleagues,

In view of the COVID-19 related restrictions on public gatherings and travel, we have implemented several changes to the planning and organization of the Twelfth International Meeting on the Mental Lexicon. With these changes, we aim to both ensure the safety and well-being of our colleagues and to enable the continuous and vibrant exchange of ideas. We would like to announce a few updates regarding upcoming conference plans

1. The in-person Mental Lexicon conference is rescheduled for October 12th-15th, 2021 (one year after the original date). It will take place in the same venue, the Queen’s Landing Hotel in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada. We will announce a new deadline for abstract submission in the Fall of 2020, giving you ample time for the preparation and submission of your contributions to the conference. Please monitor this website (https://mentallexicon.artsrn.ualberta.ca/) for further updates on the Mental Lexicon conference. We will be in touch with those of you who have already submitted your abstracts.

2. We recognize that current restrictions on research activities and the cancellation of many training events have affected students particularly strongly. To offer a venue for the communication of ideas, intellectual exchange, and networking for trainees, we are announcing a new virtual Words in the World (WoW) International Conference. This conference will take place online October 16-18, 2020 and will include scholarly presentations as well as discussion panels. The conference will strive to create presentation opportunities for trainees (e.g., undergraduate students, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, recent graduates and others). We encourage students and postdoctoral fellows from all over the world to present their in-progress or completed work at this conference and engage in conversations with their colleagues on academic and non-academic topics. Papers presented can, of course, include a mix of trainees and faculty members.

The deadline for submitting abstracts is August 9, 2020. Decisions of the Scientific Committee will be announced no later than September 1, 2020. All further information about the WoW International Conference will be made available here at https://wordsintheworld.ca/. Details on the format of abstracts and a link for abstract submission will be made available by June 10, 2020. Please spread the word and show your commitment to continuous progress of science and education by supporting this new initiative for trainees!

Open Office Hours – June 2 & 9, 2020

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We are pleased to announce our next two Open Office Hours! Join us at 12:00pm Eastern Time (GMT -4) on June 2nd and June 9th for two very different topics brought to you by three hosts from across our network.

On June 2, Noam Siegelman (Haskins Laboratories) is offering an Introduction to Bayesian Inference. This is a great opportunity to learn about this alternative to Null Hypothesis Significance Testing! Beginners are most welcome. View the complete event information here: https://wordsintheworld.ca/calendar-events/introduction-to-bayesian-inference/

On June 9, Eva Kehayis & Anik Nolet (McGill University) will provide insights into Ethics at a Distance, addressing the challenges and opportunities researchers face when conducting experiments online. More information about this event will be released in the coming days!

We always welcome questions during our live events, but if you have a question that you’d like answered during any upcoming Open Office Hour, you can also let us know ahead of time. This will help presenters to both ensure your questions are addressed and to gear the presentation toward the interests of the attendees. Questions can be submitted via the Words in the World website at this link: https://wordsintheworld.ca/home/open-office-hours/open-office-hours-q-a/

PsychoPy3 & Gitlab resources

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Jordan Gallant (Brock University) has recently offered an Open Office Hour on using PsychoPy3 to create and run experiments online (video & collected materials: https://bit.ly/2wshFL7). Now he has put together a series of resources for researchers who are interested in getting started with PsychoPy3, but who don’t know quite where to start.

He is offering a selection of Experiment Templates (https://gitlab.pavlovia.org/Words_in_the_World), including code for lexical decision and self-paced reading tasks in PsychoPy3, and an associated video (Template Tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dY5gvzR9xo) that explains how to use the templates to create your own experiments.

If you are interested in conducting collaborative research using PsychoPy3/Gitlab, you can find detailed information about setting up projects in a series of videos here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrqzzPKPF_6ZSVeUnKk3V_FogfgogjChg

Jordan will also be hosting next week’s Open Office Hour on how to conduct collaborative research online using PsychoPy3/Gitlab, and will be available for a Q&A after his presentation!

Open Office Hours – May 12, 2020

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Thank you to everyone who has participated in our Open Office Hour series!

Our next Words in the World Open Office Hour will take place on Tuesday, May 12, at 12pm (Eastern Time, GMT -4). Jordan Gallant (Brock  University) will share his expertise using Gitlab and PsychoPy3 in collaborative remote research. Here is his summary:

“The COVID-19 pandemic has forced our research activities out of the lab and into online virtual environments. Not only has this changed the research methods available to us, but it has also fundamentally changed the way the that we work together. However, this office hour is here to say that this change need not be for the worse. Collaborative remote work can offer distinct advantages when paired with the right technology to support it. In this Open Office Hour I will discuss the merits of using online project development platforms such as Gitlab for collaborative research projects. Specifically, I will look at how PsychoPy3 and Gitlab can support the collaborative construction and administering of online experiments. In the process, I hope to instill a sense that, rather than being a quick fix for temporary problems, this is a paradigm worth carrying into the post-COVID future.“

Accompanying video tutorials: YouTube

Open Office Hours are delivered using Zoom. Passwords are sent out via email in advance of Open Office Hours. If you would like to join the Open Office Hour mailing list, please sign up here: Open Office Hours Sign-Up Form.

Open Office Hours – Week of April 20, 2020

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This Week

Join us this week on Tuesday, April 21 at 12pm EDT (GMT -4) for a look into how to use online psycholinguistic resources to run experiments without a lab. Dr. Victor Kuperman (McMaster) will lead us through an introduction to online databases and how we can combine information from different databases using R. More information here: Using online databases

Recorded Videos

Recordings of previous Open Office Hours are now available! You can currently find the following videos on YouTube:

How to collect psycholinguistic data from home: Introduction to crowdsourcing tools

Running non-chronometric experiments in Mechanical Turk

Running chronometric experiments online using PsychoPy3

Mental Lexicon 2020 Update

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If you are interested in attending the next Mental Lexicon Conference, currently scheduled for October 2020, please be advised that the organizing committee has updated their conference information.

As the present time, no changes or new decisions have been made to the timing of the conference, but organizers are prepared to make alternative arrangements as required to maintain the health and safety of our community.

The deadline for abstracts has been changed to June 1, 2020. Further extensions may take place, as necessary. 

Full information is available at the conference website: https://mentallexicon.artsrn.ualberta.ca/

Follow-up: No Lab, No Problem

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On March 31, 2020, Jordan Gallant offered an Open Office Hour on how to use PsychoPy3 to conduct experiments online. If you were unable to attend that meeting, we now have a full recording available! He has also made additional video supplements on how to use auditory stimuli and how to code a self-paced reading task.

Jordan Gallant’s introductory video can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rij8sYrMC30

A supplementary video on the use of PsychPy3 with audio files can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nuJxe7h7bE&t=140s

A supplementary video on how to code a self-paced reading task can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kriPb2aBkkM

A methodological paper with an introduction to the use of PsychoPy3 in psycholinguistics (Gallant & Libben, 2019) can be found here:

No lab, no problemDownload

Open Office Hours: Running chronometric experiments online using PsychoPy3

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Our next office hour, hosted by Jordan Gallant, will introduce PsychoPy3, a new experiment development software that uses Javascript to create experiments that can be run on web-browsers.

The first part of the Open Office Hour will be dedicated to the creation of a simple lexical decision experiment. Jordan will demonstrated how it is programmed, hosted, and run using participants recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk.

The second half will be a Q&A where the limitations/possibilities of PsychoPy3 and online chronometric experimentation in general can be discussed.

Host: Jordan Gallant

Date: Tuesday, March 31, 2020 

Time: 1 p.m. – 2 p.m. EST (GMT -4)

Connect via Zoom: https://zoom.us/j/495738797

Open Office Hour: Non-Chronometric psycholinguistic experiments in Mechanical Turk (Part 2)

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We are continuing the Open Office Hours dedicated to programming non-chronometric psycholinguistic experiments in Amazon Mechanical Turk. All materials from the first Office Hour and the follow-up can be found at osf.io/cqa2e. The follow-up Open Hour with Victor Kuperman  will cover additional types of experiments (Cloze predictability, plausibility judgments, Rating and Likert scales). It will take place on Friday March 27 at 1-2 pm (Eastern time for US and Canada, GMT -4).

Meanwhile feel free to send your questions to Victor Kuperman (vickup@mcmaster.ca). Also note that all Open Office hours are recorded and the videos will be made available at a later time.

We hope you can join us this Friday!

Host: Victor Kuperman

Date: Friday, March 27, 2020

Time: 1 p.m. – 2 p.m. EST (GMT -4)

Connect via Zoom: https://zoom.us/j/702938796