Part-Time Research Assistant Opportunities
**The Snedeker Lab is actively recruiting three-four Research Assistants for Spring 2025. Please reach out to the lab manager in October or November 2024 if you are interested in joining the lab for Spring 2025. Research assistants are expected to work in-person and Harvard affiliates may be able to receive course credit for their involvement in the lab. No monetary compensation is being offered at this time.**
We are seeking motivated students to assist with research in language acquisition. RAs may volunteer or receive course credit (PSY 1651r). Learn state of the art research methods to probe questions related to how children learn language and how adults and children process and use it everyday. Duties center around working on a project with a primary researcher, and include: recruiting and scheduling adult and child participants, testing adults and children, and aiding in the design of new studies. Students must have a minimum of ~ 11 hours a week to commit to the lab for at least 2 semesters.
The Snedeker Lab is seeking research assistants for several projects investigating how children acquire and process language. Our lab largely uses methods such as: EEG (measuring the electricity generated by the brain) and behavioral production (asking children to produce an explicit response) experiments with a wide range of populations and languages. Projects this semester are noted below and separated by methodology:
Eyetracking:
-Investigating the understanding of quantification in infancy, specifically the concepts of “some” and “all”, (e.g., ‘some balls explode’ vs ‘all balls explode’) using eyetracking.
Behavioral Production:
-Exploring toddler’s understanding of alternative possibilities (e.g., ‘something is in A or in B’)
-Exploring how event representations are encoded in the absence of language by conducting nonlinguistic tasks to get at the distinction between the agent (the doer) and the patient (the affected one)
-Exploring how event types (specifically manner and path) are encoded by young children in the absence of language
-Investigating toddler’s understanding of one and two participant events with a behavioral production task
-Exploring the production of negation in young children using event successes and even failures
EEG:
-Investigating children’s online language processing in a naturalistic context, specifically what word features (e.g. frequency, length, predictability) children rely on, and whether this changes across development (ages 5-14)
-Exploring the modulation of a semantic priming effect in different experimental contexts with both children and adults
-Investigating children and adults’ online language processing in a code-switching context (English-Mandarin)
-Investigating toddler’s online language processing in a naturalistic context, specifically what word features (e.g. frequency, length, predictability) toddler’s rely on
This is an excellent opportunity for someone interested in the fields of developmental and cognitive psychology and/or linguistics. Please use this link to apply. Email our lab manager, Hanna Shine ([email protected]) if you have any questions.
Summer Internship Opportunities
**The Snedeker Lab is no longer recruiting summer interns for Summer 2024. Please reach out to the lab manager in December 2024 if you are interested in joining the lab as a summer intern for Summer 2025.**
The Laboratory for Developmental Studies at Harvard University hosts an annual summer internship. Interns will assist with developmental psychology research and learn state of the art research methods that provide a window into the minds of infants, toddlers, and children. Under the supervision of Dr. Jesse Snedeker, the lab studies such topics as language acquisition, numerical development, representation of objects and people, causality, and symbolic representation. Responsibilities of interns center around working on a project with a primary researcher, and include recruiting and scheduling child participants and their families, testing children in the lab or at daycares, data analysis, and aiding in the design of new studies. An interest in and ability to work with young children is essential. Internships are full time and 10 weeks in duration. Interns are strongly encouraged to apply for grants from their current institutions. However, a $5000 stipend is guaranteed for those who do not receive outside funding. To learn more and to apply please click here.
For additional information, please contact:
Hanna Shine
Snedeker Lab Manager
617-496-7175
[email protected]