Research on Children's Linguistic and Cognitive Development
Mahesh Srinivasan, Professor
Psychology
Applications for Fall 2024 are closed for this project.
The goal of this program is to provide a comprehensive, hands-on research experience to highly motivated students, while making valuable contributions to cognitive science.
Our lab's research explores how linguistic, cognitive, and social abilities arise during human development. A central goal of our research is exploring how these different aspects of development interact with one another.
This program is ideal for students who are highly motivated in going to graduate school in psychology, cognitive science, linguistics, or related fields and/or students who are interested in working toward an undergraduate honors thesis.
Role: Students will work closely with the lab manager, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and each other, and will be involved in many facets of the research process.
This will include reading relevant theoretical and empirical papers, assisting with data collection, assisting with stimuli creation and preparation of study materials, recruiting participants, and processing or analyzing data. Students may also test participants online and in-person. Lastly, students will have the opportunity to attend lab meetings and to present on the projects they are assigned.
The outcome of these activities will be an enriched understanding of the core concepts of developmental psychology, cognitive science, language acquisition, and of the scientific method.
Qualifications: SEVEN REQUIREMENTS (Please talk about these in your application):
1) Strong interest in language acquisition and/or cognitive development.
2) Have taken coursework in at least two of the following: Linguistics, Cognitive Science, Computer Science, Psychology, Philosophy, or Statistics.
3) Strong attention to detail.
4) Strong organizational skills.
5) Strong communication skills, and a native level of fluency in spoken and written English.
6) Weekend availability to test participants.
7) Have visited our lab website and read about our research before applying.
TIME COMMITMENT:
1) Nine hours of work per week, and a flexible schedule (since you will need to work a mix of weekday and weekend hours each week).
2) Two semesters of work with the lab. In your application, please specify whether you are able to continue working this summer and/or the following fall or spring.
ADDITIONAL PREFERRED SKILLS (Not Required, but if you have them, please talk about these skills in your application):
1) Computer Programming experience (Python, R, Javascript, HTML, etc.).
2) Experience with statistical data analysis.
3) Experience working with children.
4) Experience working with eye tracking technology.
5) Experience doing behavioral coding.
6) Experience with Excel and PowerPoint.
7) Experience working with Qualtrics and/or Amazon's Mechanical Turk.
Day-to-day supervisor for this project: Nafia Rahaman, Staff Researcher
Hours: 9-11 hrs
Off-Campus Research Site: NOTE: This position is a combination of remote and in-person work. You may test children virtually, at local museums, and at schools (if it is safe to do so). It requires some of your research hours be on the weekends. The Psychology department building is 2121 Berkeley Way West, and is located a block off campus.
Related website: http://lcdlab.berkeley.edu/
Education, Cognition & Psychology Social Sciences