How do young children process language and learn words from Shared book reading experiences?

This internship is part of a collaborative international project on language processing and lexical learning in preschoolers, and how they evolve throughout preschool as language develops and children are gradually exposed to formal literacy at school. It seeks a better understanding of mechanisms of lexical processing and vocabulary development, from socially contingent verbal input in French preschoolers. Under the supervision of C. Bouchon, the intern will take part in a series of experiments assessing young children’s audiovisual speech processing, as well as their lexical learning outcomes, from controlled face-to-face interactive experiments, using innovative behavioral methods. The intern will be given the opportunity to learn every step of carrying out experimental work with young children, in particular: - acquiring theoretical expertise in the fields of developmental psycholinguistics, i.e. early language processing mechanisms in young children, the impact of social contingency on language development, early-education issues, in particular how to promote vocabulary development, a crucial predictor of literacy. - developing methodological skills, i.e., designing child-friendly paradigms; building linguistic stimuli; participant recruitment; collecting standardized test results and looking time data with eye-tracking glasses; data preprocessing, analyzing, and interpreting. - collaborating with international researchers. REQUIREMENTS: • Bachelor or Master 1 in Cognitive sciences, in particular: Linguistics, Cognitive psychology, or Neuroscience. • Languages of the internship: French (native)- English (excellent) • Previous experience with behavioral data processing, statistical analyzes; experiment programming softwares would be welcome but not a strict requirement. • Skills: motivation, reliability, excellent relational and organizational skills.