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Research Assistant: Social Cognition in Adults

Research Assistant: Social Cognition in Adults
Research Assistant: Social Cognition in Adults

Introduction to the topic:

At the Child and Babylab (Barn och Babylab) at Uppsala University, Joshua Juvrud uses novel and state-of-the-art techniques in research (eye-tracking, pupil dilation, EEG, motion capture) to assess how children perceive and interpret people, emotions, and actions. In developmental psychology, this is key to understanding how children learn about their world.

Project details:

As a semester research assistant at the Child and Babylab, you will take part in studies with adults as a complement to the work with children, exploring the learning behavior of adults using unique experimental designs and from a developmental perspective. This includes:

Adult studies. Learning and problem solving involve complex processes that change over development. Through experience, we begin to develop strategies for learning and problem solving. Through various studies, we are examining how children, adolescents, and adults learn causal properties, associations, and form strategies for transformative solutions. Using a digital platform developed in the lab, we have the ability to create custom digital experiments as ‘games’ that individuals of all ages play. By incorporating research questions into the design of these custom games we can answer important questions about how we learn goals, associations, causality, and other principles that are important for cognitive and social development and how this looks in fully developed adults.

In this course you will participate in the entire research process, from helping with study conception, to writing up your findings. You will be responsible for data collection, analyses, and writing with adult participants. Much of this work can be completed independently and outside the lab, and data collection will be completed online or at various in-person locations. By the end of the course you will have knowledge and experience in each step of the scientific process, as well as academic writing in the form of a complete manuscript.

Selected relevant publications:

  • Juvrud, J., Haas, S. A., Lindskog, M., Astor, K., Namgyel, S. C., Wangmo, T., Wangchuk, Dorjee, S., Tshering, K. P., & Gredebäck, G. (2022). High quality social environment buffers infants’ cognitive development from poor maternal mental health: Evidence from a study in Bhutan. Developmental Science, 25(3), e13203. 
  • Juvrud, J., Haas, S. A., Fox, N. A., & Gredebäck, G. (2021). Infants’ Selective Visual Attention Is Dependent on Maternal Affect and Emotional Context. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 700272. 

Prerequisites

One year of psychology at university level. One course in statistics/research methods is recommended.

Additional application required

You must submit an additional application through the Online Registration portal.

All application materials must be submitted on the following dates by midnight in your time zone:

  • November 1 for spring semester applicants
  • May 1 for fall semester applicants

Complete your application through Student Registration.

Faculty

Joshua Juvrud

Faculty

Ph.D. in Psychology (Uppsala University). As a research psychologist, his work has focused on the ways that novel techniques in research (eye-tracking, pupil dilation, virtual reality) can be used to assess how children and adults perceive and interpret people, emotions, and actions. Josh focuses this research in two fields. In developmental psychology at the Child and Babylab in Uppsala, he seeks to understand how children learn about their world and the social cognitive development of face perception and socialization processes such as gender, race, and ethnicity. In games research at the Games & Society Lab at the Department of Game Design in Visby, Gotland, his work examines the psychology of people, their actions, and emotions in game development, player engagement, learning, and immersion to understand better how different game players (with different personalities, traits, and experiences) interact with various game mechanisms and are, in turn, affected by game experiences. With DIS since 2020.

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