The group of Bart de Boer at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel has three PhD positions on evolution of speech available.

3 PhD positions on evolution of speech

Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium
Deadline: July first 2012
Envisaged starting date: September 2012

The AI-lab of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel is looking for three PhD students that will work on Bart de Boer’s European Research Council project “ABACUS”. The ABACUS project investigates (evolution of) cognitive mechanisms for dealing with combinatorial speech. It uses a combination of iterated learning experiments, individual learning experiments and computational modeling. For each of these lines of research, a PhD position is available. The PhDs of the different projects are expected to cooperate closely with each other.

The iterated learning project

The work consists of designing, performing and describing iterated learning experiments based on learning and reproduction of continuous, speech-like signals.

A candidate must have (or be about to obtain) a master’s degree in psycholinguistics, cognitive science or equivalent and have experience in doing experiments with human participants. Experience with speech/language research as well as affinity with computational models are a plus.

The individual learning project

The work consists of designing, performing and describing individual learning experiments based on learning and reproduction of continuous, speech-like signals. A candidate must have (or be about to obtain) a master’s degree in psycholinguistics, cognitive science or equivalent experience in doing experiments with human participants. Experience with speech/language research as well as affinity with computational models are a plus.

The computational project

The work consists of designing, implementing, investigating and describing computer models for learning and reproducing continuous, speech-like signals.

A candidate must have (or be about to obtain) a master’s degree in computer science, artificial intelligence or equivalent and have experience in building learning systems. Experience with speech/language research as well as affinity with experimental work are a plus.

The PhD candidates will be remunerated with a scholarship (ca. 36000 euros per year before taxes), and money for travel and hiring research assistants is available. We are looking for candidates with a serious interest in a scientific career and with good writing skills. For details on the projects, on conditions and on how to apply, see:
https://ai.vub.ac.be/members/bart
under “vacancies”

Call deadline: 8 July 2012
Event Dates: 10-11 September 2012
Event Location: Lisbon, Portugal
Event URL: http://cfcul.fc.ul.pt/linhas_investigacao/Philosophy%20of%20Life%20Sciences/int_col/index.htm

The Centre for Philosophy of Science of the Faculty of Science of the Portuguese University of Lisbon is organizing a 2-day international colloquium entitled 'From Grooming to Speaking: Recent Trends in social Primatology and Human Ethology', on September 10-11, 2012. 

Plenary talks will be given by: 

Johan Bolhuis 
Augusta Gaspar 
Nathalie Gontier 
Mary Lee Jensvold 
Simone Pika 
Tim Racine 
Jordan Zlatev 
More tba 

We call for primatologists, ethologists, anthropologists, sociobiologists, evolutionary, cognitive and comparative psychologists, biolinguists, evolutionary linguists, bio-ethicists, philosophers and historians of science, to provide talks on: 
(1) Historical reviews on the introduction and use of primate studies to acquire knowledge on the origin and evolution of communication and language 
(2) Methodologies of primate communication and language research 
(3) Theories on primate communication and the evolution of language
(4) Ethical issues in social primatology and human ethology 

The second in the series of video interviews recorded at Evolang is now available online. This time the question that was being asked is “what does the term faculty of Language in the Narrow Sense evoke to you?”
The video is available at: http://sintaxi.debutxaca.com/2012/04/evolang-at-kyoto-ii/

At last months Evolang in Kyoto Celia Alba and Oriol Borrega conducted a series of interviews with  participants asking what they considered "is the single most important advance in the field in the last few years?" The video is of these interviews is now online with answers from Cedric Boeckx, Simon Kirby, Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, Kazuo Okanoya, Simon Fisher, Anna Maria di Sciullo, Antonio Benítez-Burraco, Charles Yang, Lluís Barceló i Coblijn, Koji Fujita, Víctor Longa, Jenny Saffran, Aritz Irurtzun, Joana Rosselló, Mauricio Martins, Bart de Boer, Denis Bouchard, Russell Gray, and James Hurford.

Check it out at http://sintaxi.debutxaca.com/2012/03/evolang-2012-at-kyoto-i/

Call deadline: 15 April 2012
Event Dates: 8 September 2012
Event Location: Poznan, Poland
Event URL: http://ifa.amu.edu.pl/plm/2012/Language_evolution

We invite submissions to a special thematic session of the Poznan ́ Linguistics Meeting addressing Theory and evidence in language evolution research. The aims of the session may be summarised as:

• to assess available evidence and to discuss the status of the new sources of evidence applicable to questions of language emergence and evolution
 • to assess the role of theoretical syntheses and holistic scenarios of language emergence and evolution
 • to identify ways in which linguistic methodologies can be made relevant to answering ‘origins’ type questions
 • to identify limitations of linguistic methodologies when applied in isolation and to discover directions for interdisciplinary collaboration
 • to bridge the gap between biological and linguistic conceptions of evidence Invited Speaker

A plenary talk will be given by Prof. James Hurford (University of Edinburgh).