Stellenangebot: Research associate (m/f/x) for the CRC 1844 "Episodic Memory", Subproject A16 bei Ruhr-Universität Bochum

In order to fill a fixed-term position in part-time (29.87 hours/week = 75%) 01.01.2027, pending funding approval, we are looking for one

Research associate (m/f/x) for the CRC 1844 "Episodic Memory", Subproject A16

The Department of Predictive Cognition is a newly established research unit within the Faculty of Psychology. After the completion of the new THINK research building on the former Opel site Mark 51°7, the team will move there https://www.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/think/index.html.en. The research focus of our department is on combining neuroimaging and behavioural measurements with computational models to understand how the human brain learns and uses prior expectations during cognition. More information can be found here: https://blanklab.eu/

The position is part of the Collaborative Research Center “Episodic Memory” (CRC 1844), an interdisciplinary consortium consisting of researchers from psychology, computational neuroscience, philosophy, and neuroscience. The basis for our research is the Scenario Construction Framework, which conceptualizes episodic memory as mental simulations of past episodes, constructed from episodic memory traces and semantic information. As a part of this team, you will be trained in interdisciplinary research and have access to a broad spectrum of initiatives to support you in your academic journey. When we communicate with others, our perception of their speech is continuously guided by the memory of our past interactions. But how? In this CRC subproject A16 " Integration of episodic traces and semantic other-person models in a social context", we will investigate how memory traces of previously heard dialogues and the other-person model, which contains general semantic knowledge about the person, modify speech perception. This project places the generative model of scenario construction within a social context. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we investigate how EM traces and other-person models differentially influence the neural representation of speech and language. We are looking for an enthusiastic researcher with a Master's degree in psychology, cognitive science, or a related field and strong programming and statistical skills to carry out the proposed project.

Scope: part-time
Duration: fixed-term, 31.12.2030 (end of project)
Start: 01.01.2027, pending funding approval
Apply by: 2026-11-30

Your tasks:

• Organization and execution of experimental research work, from programming experimental setups, data acquisition, and data analysis, to the dissemination of the results
• Acquisition of MRI data
• Analysis and publication of MRI data
• Practice of Open Science Practices
• Close collaboration with PIs and ECRs from other subprojects

Your profile:

• A Master of Science or an equivalent degree in neuroscience, cognitive science, psychology, or a related discipline
• Strong programming and statistical skills
• Experience in experimental approaches to study predictive processing, memory, learning, and communication
• Prior experience with fMRI is an advantage
• Experience and keen interest in using large language models
• Strong organizational skills
• A high level of spoken and written English
• Highly self-motivated and eager to learn
• Working independently, in a structured manner, and with a focus on results
• Enjoy working as part of an interdisciplinary team of researchers

https://jobs.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/jobposting/c0bf34da8b741897fe8de879edc88d7edfbdf8730?ref=AfA