Leverhulme Studentship: The Cognitive Constraints on Children's Ability to Manage a Conversation Topic

Scholarship value

Applications are invited for a 3-year PhD studentship in the School of Psychology at the University of Kent, funded by the Leverhulme Trust (Principal Investigator: Dr Kirsten Abbot-Smith; Co-Investigators: Dr Danielle Matthews, Dr Michael Forrester, Prof Susan Leekam). The studentship commences in September 2023.

Funding

This studentship is suitable for applicants who have or will completed a Master’s degree or equivalent to high merit or distinction level in either Psychology, Psycholinguistics, Cognitive Science or Human Communication Sciences by September 2023.

The studentship award covers for a period of three years a) your tuition fees at the ‘Home (UK) Student’ rate (i.e. if you are a UK student, you will not pay fees) and b) additionally provides you with a tax-free stipend (approx. £17,668 per annum (based on 2022-23 rates) for maintenance.

The studentship, starting in September 2023, will be part of the Leverhulme-funded grant project titled “The cognitive constraints on children’s ability to manage a conversation topic” which aims to determine how the cognitive constraints of interest intensity, cognitive flexibility (switching), autistic traits and core language processing efficiency impact conversation topic management in children.

The studentship will primarily focus on how children manage topic-switching and task-switching and how this relates to behaviours commonly classed in the category of ‘Repetitive Behaviours and Restricted Interests’ (RRBIs). Initially, the applicant would collect and / or analyse data on how primary-school-aged children deal with the following: a) switching conversation topics, b) topic-switching by others c) special interests, d) performance on measures of cognitive flexibility and e) parent-rated difficulties with changes to routine.

Following the pre-defined studies to be conducted in year 1, the PhD student will gain independence in years 2 and 3 by developing and running his / her own further experiments to examine how children respond to topic-switching and/or how they manage topic transition themselves. In addition, the student will also further analyse RRBIs and will explore relationships between language-related RRBIs (e.g. topic perseveration) and non-language RRBIs. The student will be closely supervised to ensure that planned experiments are appropriately designed and fit with the core objectives of the project.

Thus, the PhD will require (a) designing experimental studies, (b) collecting data in schools and/or via Zoom, (c) analysing data, and (d) supporting the project investigators and the project’s post-doctoral research assistants in their data collection and analysis.

Deadline

All completed applications received by 17.00 (UK time) on Sunday 4^th June 2023 will be considered.

Shortlisted applicants will be informed by 7th of June 2023 that they are invited to interview and interviews will be held on: TBC.

All interviews will be via Zoom or Microsoft Teams.

To find out eligibility and more details, go to the apply button above.

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