PhD Position in PsychologyLunds universitet, Institutionen för psykologi
Lund University was founded in 1666 and is repeatedly ranked among the world’s top universities. The University has around 47 000 students and more than 8 800 staff based in Lund, Helsingborg and Malmö. We are united in our efforts to understand, explain and improve our world and the human condition. Lund University welcomes applicants with diverse backgrounds and experiences. We regard gender equality and diversity as a strength and an asset. Research project Episodic memory allows us to mentally revisit past events with vivid detail. A critical factor in forming such memories is the limited "bandwidth" of our perception, as we can only fully process visual information from a small area of our visual field at any given moment. To compensate, we continuously shift our visual focus through eye movements, helping us sample and construct experiences and memories by syncing these movements with specific brain frequencies. However, traditional memory research has often overlooked the dynamic nature of eye movements, focusing instead on static observations. This has led to a gap in understanding how memories are dynamically formed and recalled. This research project aims to elucidate how the brain constructs and reconstructs coherent mental representations of experienced events based on visual sampling behaviour over time. The project utilises recent advancements in the co-registration of eye-tracking and electroencephalography (EEG), combined with advanced machine-learning methods, such as multivariate patterns analysis (MVPA). This approach will explore how neural representations evolve with eye movements, offering insights into the processes that integrate interrelated elements into coherent memory representations. PhD Project The PhD student is expected to take an active role in all stages of the research project. The PhD student will be responsible for preparing stimulus materials, designing and programming experiments, collecting and analysing behavioural, eye-tracking and EEG data, and reporting and presenting the findings at scientific meetings and in scientific journals. The doctoral project will be conducted within the Lund Memory Lab, in collaboration with other members of the research team. The team specializes in high temporal resolution techniques, combining behavioural testing with concurrent EEG and eye tracking measures, further enhanced by state-of-the-art machine learning techniques. The Lund Memory Lab, led by Prof. Mikael Johansson, produces research with international impact at the forefront of current episodic memory research. Supervision of the PhD project will be jointly undertaken by Dr. Roger Johansson and Prof. Mikael Johansson. Examples of key work related to the project from the Lund Memory Lab: Johansson, R., Nyström, M., Dewhurst, R., & Johansson, M. (2022). Eye-movement replay supports episodic remembering. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 289(1977), 20220964. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2022.0964 Nikolaev, A. R., Bramão, I., Johansson, R., & Johansson, M. (2023). Episodic memory formation in unrestricted viewing. NeuroImage, 266, 119821. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.119821 Bramão, I., Jiang, J., Wagner, A. D., & Johansson, M. (2022). Encoding contexts are incidentally reinstated during competitive retrieval and track the temporal dynamics of memory interference. Cerebral Cortex, 32(22), 5020-5035. https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhab529 Work duties Eligibility A person meets the specific entry requirements for third-cycle studies in psychology if he or she has completed at least 30 second-cycle credits in the main field of psychology, including at least 15 credits from a second-cycle degree project, or corresponding knowledge acquired in Sweden or abroad. Provisions for the employment of doctoral students are stated in the Higher Education Ordinance SFS 1998:80. Only those who have been admitted to third-cycle courses and study programmes may be appointed to doctoral studentships. When an appointment is made, the ability of the student to benefit from the research studies must be taken into account. In addition to the obligation to focus on their own research studies, the doctoral student may be tasked to work in education, research and administration in accordance with specific provisions in the ordinance. Applicants are assessed with regard to: Previous experience and work within the subject area of the doctoral project. Priority will be given to applicants with documented experience within the field of cognitive neuroscience, in particular within memory research.
Application
Terms of employment The Faculty of Social Sciences at Lund University is one of the leading education and research institutions in Sweden and operates both in Lund and Helsingborg. The Department of Psychology combines education with research and has in recent years been very successful in the competition for external research funds. Central research areas include occupational and organizational psychology, clinical psychology, cognition, neuropsychology, personality and social psychology and developmental psychology. We kindly decline all sales and marketing contacts.
Share links
|