Postdoctor in Cognitive Hearing Science

Skilled and committed employees are a crucial factor in the success of Linköping University. And we need more of them. Our core expertise comes from teachers and researchers, but a successful university requires experienced and motivated employees in many fields. Everyone is important. We need to recruit many new employees thanks to, among all, an expansion in our research activity. We need you here. We look forward to receiving your application!

At the Department of Behavioural Sciences and Learning we provide education and perform research in the fields of psychology, psychotherapy, disability research, education, pedagogic practices, didactic science, adult learning, sociology and popular education. Graduates from our courses and degree programmes are well prepared for the challenges of the workplace and our research makes a strong contribution to knowledge of human behaviour and learning processes.
Read more at https://liu.se/en/organisation/liu/ibl

Linköping University

Hereby advertises a position as Postdoctoral researcher in Cognitive Hearing Science

Project description
Research at the Disability Research Division includes projects relating to hearing impairment and deafness, combined vision and hearing impairment, neuropsychiatric disabilities (e.g. ADHD), and learning difficulties (learn more about our research, https://liu.se/en/organisation/liu/ibl/ahv). Our scientific focus is on communication, cognition and various language modalities including spoken, written, and signed language. We study populations at different stages of the lifespan as well as longitudinally. Our research is often experimental or correlational and aims to unveil behavioural, cognitive, and neural mechanisms.

We are looking for a skilled and enthusiastic postdoc to work on a project investigating cognitive factors for speech communication in acoustically adverse conditions, conducted in collaboration with Prof. Daniel Oberfeld-Twistel (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Germany). When following a speech conversation in an acoustically difficult situation like a crowded restaurant with a high amount of background noise (speech perception in noise; SPiN), the accuracy of speech identification depends on the hearing thresholds of a listener and suprathreshold auditory abilities (e.g., binaural sensitivity for the temporal fine structure). However, cognitive processes also play a crucial role in speech understanding. For instance, the Ease of Language Understanding model developed at our Division assumes a central role of working memory (WM) processes. In this project, we want to go beyond existing research by investigating in detail which specific memory processes, specific attentional mechanisms, and linguistic abilities are relevant for SPiN. To this end, the experiments conducted in the project will include tasks assessing the different cognitive processes related to WM (based on current WM models), different attentional networks, sensory memory, linguistic abilities, and relevant psychoacoustic characteristics of the participants (thresholds, suprathreshold processing). We envisage to use advanced regression methods (e.g., regularized regression, structural equation models) for investigating the relation between a) the cognitive and psychoacoustic indices and b) speech perception and listening effort measured in (simulated) conversational scenarios. Using interactive virtual reality (VR) approaches for these scenarios is desirable and possible, and including methods using automatic speech recognition and natural language processing would also be an interesting option.

Qualifications
The position requires a doctorate or an equivalent degree from a Swedish or foreign university, in a subject of relevance to the project (cognitive psychology; speech, language and hearing sciences; psychoacoustics; or related fields). The doctorate shall have been obtained no longer than three years before the expiration date of the application.

To qualify for the position, applicants must be able to provide documented skill in conducting research in cognitive psychology (memory, attention, or psycholinguistics) and/or hearing science (speech perception, psychoacoustics, experimental audiology). It is of particular relevance to be able to provide documented skill in experimental design and programming (e.g., Matlab, Python) as well as in the statistical analysis of complex data sets (e.g., advanced statistical modeling). Also relevant are documented skill in programming VR experiments (e.g., Unity, Vizard, acoustic simulation software). The successful candidate will work collaboratively and independently on research, with Daniel Oberfeld-Twistel and researchers at the Disability Research Division. We are looking for a person motivated to make major contributions to the research strategy. The investigation of cognitive and linguistic skills relevant for speech processing at the intended level of detail is an innovative approach and will need methodological thinking and additional development.

Proficiency in the English language is mandatory.

Duties
A Postdoc will essentially carry out research and write research grant applications. The position may also involve teaching, but during no more than a fifth of work time.

Your responsibilities will be to develop a research strategy in collaboration with other researchers involved in the project, to design and program behavioral experiments, to implement the experiments and calibrate the equipment, to supervise the data collection, to develop and implement data analysis strategies, to analyze the behavioral and questionnaire data collected during the experiments, to publish the results in peer-reviewed journals and present them at national and international conferences, and to manage and document the research data.

Union representatives
Information about union representatives, see Help for applicants 

For more information
https://liu.se/en/work-at-liu/vacancies?rmpage=job&rmjob=17671&rmlang=UK


Linköping University will continue to develop as an attractive and creative place of work, characterized by equal terms and actively works for equality and diversity.

We look forward to receiving your application!


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