Internship offers

Many tools that we use to think and communicate — letters, numbers, calendars, artistic forms, and other symbols — have a cultural history. They evolved by being transmitted from one mind to another, then another, and this process was shaped by cognitive constraints, some symbols being easier to learn than others. Cognitive science and cultural evolution make predictions about the structure of cultural symbols, which can be tested in two main ways. First, cultural evolution can be modeled and these models can be tested against historical or anthropological data. Second, we can design experiments to reproduce, in the lab, mechanisms that could have played a role in the history of symbols.

Supervisor

Olivier Morin

Host lab

ENS, Département d'Études Cognitives (DEC)

Duration

2 to 5 months

Location

ENS, DEC, 29 rue d'Ulm, 75005 Paris, France

In military environments, where high-stress situations are common, maintaining or enhancing cognitive performance is critical for ensuring both the safety and success of combat operations. Similar to physical training, emerging techniques like neurofeedback offer the potential to optimize cognitive abilities in soldiers. Neurofeedback relies on a brain-computer interface that allows individuals to consciously modulate specific brain activities, training their brains to function more efficiently. By promoting brain plasticity, neurofeedback training can lead to lasting functional changes in the brain, ultimately enhancing cognitive performance. However, despite its promise, neurofeedback has shown variable efficacy: studies report that between 30% and 50% of participants do not experience cognitive improvement after neurofeedback training. This variability among individuals poses a significant challenge to developing effective cognitive optimization strategies through neurofeedback. This internship project will test a novel hypothesis: that the quality of interoception—the processes by which the nervous system processes bodily signals—may be a key factor in determining the effectiveness of neurofeedback. Specifically, individuals with better interoceptive abilities may achieve greater control over brain activity during training, leading to improved learning outcomes. In contrast, those with lower interoceptive quality may struggle to benefit from neurofeedback, limiting its efficacy for them. Objective: The primary objective of the internship project is to determine whether the quality of interoception can serve as a predictor of neurofeedback efficacy. Method: The comparison between neurofeedback responders and non-responders will draw on an existing dataset of 106 participants, with multilevel measures of cardiac interoception (concurrent EEG and ECG enabling analysis of the heartbeat-evoked potential, heartbeat counting task performance, and self-reported interoception via the MAIA-2 questionnaire). Statistical models (cluster-based permutation, frequentist and Bayesian) and machine-learning techniques will be applied. The internship will be jointly supervised by Michael Quiquempoix, PhD, and Charles Verdonk, MD, PhD. Profile: A motivated student in neuroscience or cognitive science with programming skills (MATLAB, R and/or Python) and a solid understanding of standard statistical methods. Must be enrolled at Master 2 level and able to pass the primary security clearance required by the French Ministry of Army. Application deadline: October 1, 2026.

Supervisor

Michael Quiquempoix, PhD; Charles Verdonk, MD, PhD

Host lab

French Armed Forces Biomedical Research Institute (IRBA), Brétigny-sur-Orge (91)

Duration

6 months

Location

French Armed Forces Biomedical Research Institute, Brétigny-sur-Orge (91), France

When we listen to speech, the brain constantly anticipates what comes next. Recent work suggests that beta-band oscillations (~13 to 30 Hz) carry these predictions, but their effect on behaviour may stay hidden when listening is easy. The question this project tackles is what beta activity actually looks like in the brain during clear, natural speech, and what mechanisms organise it. The project builds on two recent papers from our group: a theoretical framework that classifies language-brain modelling approaches into four families (Bouton et al., 2026, Imaging Neuroscience), and a computational model that predicts specific neural signatures of beta-mediated prediction (Platonova, Dogonasheva, Giraud, Bouton, 2026). Both call for a direct empirical test on naturalistic neural data, which is what this internship will do. The student will use the open Podcast ECoG dataset (Zada et al., 2025) to ask: what mechanisms organise beta activity in the cortical language network during natural narrative listening? Each of the four model families of the taxonomy will be applied to the same recordings (temporal response functions, banded ridge regression with language-model embeddings and RSA, spectral Granger and phase-amplitude coupling, and HMM-MAR on multichannel beta). Profile. M2 in cognitive neuroscience, computational neuroscience, or a related quantitative discipline. Strong interest in language and oscillatory dynamics. Required: Python (MNE-Python an asset), comfort with signal processing and statistical modelling. No prior ECoG experience required. To apply. Send a CV and a short motivation paragraph to sophie.bouton@pasteur.fr.

Supervisor

Sophie Bouton

Host lab

Département d'Études Cognitives (DEC), ENS; affiliated with Institut Pasteur

Duration

6 months

Location

ENS, DEC, 29 rue d'Ulm, 75005 Paris, France

How the brain consolidates auditory memories during sleep remains poorly understood. A key open question is whether the hippocampus contributes to this process via sharp-wave ripple (SWR) events, the fast oscillatory sequences that drive memory replay in spatial tasks, or whether auditory cortex operates through distinct, cortex-intrinsic mechanisms. Addressing this question requires combining large-scale recordings across the auditory system and hippocampus with reliable vigilance-state monitoring. The intern will contribute to high-density electrophysiological recordings in freely-moving ferrets instrumented with Neuropixels 2.0 probes spanning primary auditory cortex (A1), non-primary auditory areas, and hippocampus, alongside olfactory bulb (OB) local field potential electrodes used for vigilance-state classification. The work will involve participating in recording sessions, preprocessing and spike-sorting electrophysiological data (Kilosort pipeline), and contributing to the analysis of sound-evoked and spontaneous population activity across wake and sleep states. A specific focus will be placed on identifying candidate SWR events in ferret hippocampus and assessing their temporal relationship to cortical reactivations. Skills gained: chronic in vivo electrophysiology, high-density silicon probe recordings, spike sorting, LFP analysis, sleep-state classification, supervised animal handling. Candidate profile: M2 student in neuroscience or biology, comfortable with quantitative data analysis (Python or Matlab); prior exposure to electrophysiology or signal processing is a plus.

Supervisor

Yves Boubenec

Host lab

Laboratoire des Systèmes Perceptifs (LSP), Audition team, École Normale Supérieure

Location

29 rue d'Ulm, 75005 Paris, France

Sleep exhibits structured organization into cycles of substages (wakefulness, NREM, and REM sleep) shaped by internal brain processes and external experience. Social context's influence on these transitions remains largely unexplored, particularly in carnivores whose sleep patterns resemble humans more closely than rodents. Ferrets—highly social with well-characterized auditory cortex and extended postnatal development—provide an ideal model for these investigations. The intern will conduct and analyze extended electrophysiological recordings (>24 hours) in freely moving ferrets equipped with olfactory bulb electrodes, using the lab's OB gamma oscillation-based vigilance classification method. Work will characterize sleep architecture's fine structure at naturalistic timescales, including substage distribution and sequencing, and quantify how proximity to and interactions with conspecifics modulate wake-to-sleep transitions and inter-substage dynamics, combining electrophysiological data with behavioral tracking. Skills Gained: Chronic in vivo electrophysiology in freely moving animals, LFP signal processing, sleep-state classification, behavioral tracking and quantification, longitudinal experimental design. Candidate Profile: M1/M2 student in neuroscience or biology with systems neuroscience and animal behavior interest; Python or Matlab familiarity expected.

Supervisor

Yves Boubenec

Host lab

Laboratoire des Systèmes Perceptifs (LSP)

Location

29 rue d'Ulm, 75005 Paris, France

The ability to perceive and categorize speech sounds develops early in life, well before language acquisition. The neural mechanisms underlying this early plasticity, and in particular the role of auditory experience in shaping the maturation of auditory cortical areas, remain poorly understood. Our group addresses these questions using the ferret as an animal model, whose protracted postnatal brain development makes it especially well suited for experimental investigation. The intern will participate in functional ultrasound imaging (fUSI) experiments conducted on young ferrets exposed to speech sounds across varying durations and exposure protocols. The work will include conducting fUSI acquisition sessions, processing and analyzing hemodynamic data, and contributing to the interpretation of exposure-dependent effects in relation to the cortical localization of responses across primary and non-primary auditory fields. Skills gained: functional brain imaging in vivo, neuroimaging signal processing, auditory functional neuroanatomy, supervised animal handling. Candidate profile: M1/2 student in neuroscience or biology, with an interest in systems neuroscience and in vivo experimental approaches.

Supervisor

Yves Boubenec

Host lab

Laboratoire des Systèmes Perceptifs (LSP)

Location

29 rue d'Ulm, 75005 Paris, France

At 6 months of age, infants prefer speech over non-speech sounds (e.g., Vouloumanos & Werker, 2004) and recognize that speech can communicate information without accessing its lexical content (Vouloumanos, Martin & Onishi, 2014). It has been argued that attentional biases for speech together with an abstract understanding of its communicative function predict language development. An open question is whether these early biases are specific to speech or whether they extend to other communicative signals. In a recent study, work from our lab (Gupta et al., submitted) shows that 18-month-olds preferentially attend to novel gestures than motor actions, much like the preference for speech over non-speech, suggesting that infants are tuned to detect communicative signals at large. But do they understand the value of communication in these signals or is it simply due to low-level attentional biases that make these signals special? Research environment: This project is part of the ERC ThoughtOrigins led by the PI. The candidate will join a dynamic team of PhDs and post-docs all involved in projects aiming at uncovering the format and structure of thought in the absence of language. The babylab is located within the lab but there is a possibility of staying in Paris and collaborating with a Paris-based baby lab for this project. Expected profile: Eligible applicants are currently enrolled in a master's degree or equivalent in a relevant field such as cognitive science, psychology, etc., with excellent academic results and some experience with programming languages (Python, MATLAB, R). The candidate should be fluent in French to communicate with participating families. They will be involved in all aspects of the project: experimental design, stimuli creation, scripting, data collection, data analysis, data presentation and writing.

Supervisor

Isabelle Dautriche, Shreejata Gupta

Host lab

CRPN (Centre de Recherche en Psychologie Cognitive et Neurosciences), Aix-Marseille University

Duration

4-6 months

Location

Aix-Marseille (CRPN babylab); possibility of staying in Paris with a Paris-based baby lab

Previous studies have shown that infants understand their first words as early as six months of age (Bergelson & Swingley, 2012). The question that then arises is: from what point can babies combine these different words to understand sentences? The current state of the literature shows that empirical data on infants' understanding of linguistic compositionality are limited and often difficult to interpret. While several studies indicate that children understand multi-word expressions from their second year, this ability can often be attributed to non-compositional strategies such as linear heuristics, statistical associations, or one-to-one mappings between forms and situations. This project therefore aims to explore when children transition from a primarily lexical understanding to a more compositional understanding of utterances, particularly in adjective–noun combinations.

Supervisor

Isabelle Dautriche, Eulalie Pequay

Host lab

ERC ThoughtOrigins; CRPN (Centre de Recherche en Psychologie et Neurosciences), Aix-Marseille University; babylab

Duration

4-6 months

Location

Aix-Marseille University (with possibility of Paris-based collaboration)

Two opposing perspectives on emotion's role in decision-making are examined: the Cartesian view emphasizing rational decision-making independent of emotion versus the Darwinian view highlighting emotions' value in option evaluation. The laboratory investigates mood fluctuations within these frameworks. Mood is defined as unidimensional, varying from negative to positive states. The MAGNETO computational model represents mood as the average of all possible action values, which are learned from their outcomes. This mood influences foraging decisions, with positive mood increasing likelihood of costly actions. Model simulations demonstrate adaptive advantages in correlated reward/cost environments. The M2 internship involves developing a behavioral task with three actions featuring oscillating contingencies—actions A and B correlated, action C anti-correlated. The project includes task development, testing healthy volunteers, and updating the computational model accordingly. Potential PhD continuation would explore neuroimaging mechanisms, psychiatric distortions, and sophisticated inference extensions.

Supervisor

Mathias Pessiglione

Host lab

ENS, Département d'Études Cognitives (DEC)

Duration

Long

Location

ENS, DEC, 29 rue d'Ulm, 75005 Paris

In noisy environments, our ability to spatially separate the voice we are trying to understand from competing sound sources can significantly improve intelligibility. This spatial unmasking is based on binaural listening, meaning we use both ears rather than the monaural signal in only one ear. Numerous models exist for predicting speech intelligibility. These models are crucial tools for evaluating and developing hearing aids and cochlear implants that restore some audibility to deaf people. Monaural intelligibility models cannot predict spatial unmasking. To address this issue, we recently proposed a preprocessor that processes binaural signals into enhanced monaural signals (in that the advantages of binaural listening are then taken into account) which can then be used by these models. The aim of this internship is to evaluate the performance of this preprocessor by designing a listening test to compare speech intelligibility under standard binaural conditions with that obtained for monaural sounds processed by the preprocessor. It will also involve varying the signal characteristics that influence intelligibility: the spatial configuration of the sources, the room reverberation level, and the type of competing sources. There are several possibilities for extending this topic in a PhD: improving the preprocessor and testing it on new data; comparing it to other intelligibility models; and predicting intelligibility for people wearing hearing aids and/or cochlear implants. Type of work: experimentation with audio signal analysis and processing (MatLab), implementation of controlled listening tests, statistical analysis of the data produced (R), publication. Pursuing this research into a PhD is possible.

Supervisor

Mathieu Lavandier

Host lab

Université de Lyon, ENTPE, LTDS; UMR CNRS 8248 - Équipe Audition (D. Pressnitzer) du DEC

Duration

5-6 months

Location

Vaulx-en-Velin (ENTPE), affiliation at ENS, DEC, 29 rue d'Ulm, 75005 Paris

Humans do not perceive space uniformly: the brain encodes space near the body differently from distant space. The area immediately surrounding the body is called peripersonal space (PPS). This space is particularly important at the behavioral level because it is through this space that we interact with the outside world. At least two functions are attributed to PPS: protecting the body and planning goal-directed actions. Studies have shown that the size of PPS is flexible and can be influenced by emotional, social, and motor factors. In particular, emotional states related to the perception of danger, such as anxiety, may modulate how this protective space is represented around the body. In this context, the aim of this internship will be to examine the influence of anxiety on the representation of PPS in healthy subjects. To do this, we will use the Threat-of-Scream paradigm, which induces anxiety through the presentation of unpredictable aversive stimuli (Beaurenaut et al., 2020), and a multisensory (audio-tactile) interaction paradigm to assess the size of PPS (Canzoneri et al., 2012; Hobeika et al., 2020). These effects will be compared between an anxiety-inducing condition and a neutral condition. This internship will take place between the Department of Neuroscience and Cognitive Science (IRBA, Brétigny-sur-Orge) and the Cognition, Action, Emotion Interaction Laboratory (Université Paris Nanterre). It will be supervised by Marine Taffou (IRBA) and Morgan Beaurenaut (Université Paris Nanterre). Responsibilities: setting up/designing the experiment; programming the paradigm; data collection and analysis; participation in cross-cutting laboratory tasks. Interested candidates should send a CV and cover letter to Marine Taffou (marine.taffou@def.gouv.fr) and Morgan Beaurenaut (morgan.b@parisnanterre.fr).

Supervisor

Marine Taffou, Morgan Beaurenaut

Host lab

Department of Neuroscience and Cognitive Science (IRBA, Brétigny-sur-Orge) and Cognition, Action, Emotion Interaction Laboratory (Université Paris Nanterre)

Duration

6 months

Location

Brétigny-sur-Orge and Nanterre, France

Le stage s'inscrit dans le cadre d'un projet de recherche interdisciplinaire porté par le consortium Fans4all et visant à améliorer la sécurité et l'accessibilité en aviation, notamment pour des pilotes dits HSI (pilotes privés, aviation légère, avec des difficultés d'audition et d'élocution). Afin de permettre à ces pilotes de voler de façon autonome en espace aérien contrôlé, le consortium FANS4all développe actuellement un équipement de cockpit inclusif et multisensoriel (vue haute, toucher, reconnaissance des gestes, communication adaptée). Le projet de stage associe recherche fondamentale (modélisation et analyse de la conscience situationnelle en vol) et recherche appliquée (développement et intégration de briques technologiques avec feedback utilisateur). L'objectif est de concevoir, développer et tester un prototype fonctionnel intégrant : la transcription vocale automatisée des communications de contrôle aérien ; l'analyse de l'information pour cartographier dynamiquement la situation aérienne ; le filtrage contextuel et personnalisé de l'information pertinente pour les pilotes sourds ; l'affichage et l'interaction utilisateur adaptées (UX/UI). Profil recherché : Master 2 Informatique, Interaction Homme-Machine, Sciences Cognitives, Ingénierie ou équivalent. Bonne maîtrise des outils de développement web/plurimédia (JavaScript/HTML/CSS, frameworks UX/UI, prototypage rapide), compétences de base en data science et IA (reconnaissance vocale, analyse sémantique, traitement du signal), intérêt pour l'accessibilité et l'expérience utilisateur. Modalités : Durée 6 mois (dates à adapter), lieu Uttop Tarbes, stage en présentiel, gratification 4.5€/h soit environ 630€/mois. Candidatures à adresser à : philippe.marrast@uttop.fr

Supervisor

Philippe Marrast, Etienne Ceretto, Cédrick Béler, Isabelle Bazet, Marie Bénéjean, Florian Hémont

Host lab

CERTOP, LGP/ICE (Uttop, Tarbes), Fans4All, PREFICS (Rennes)

Duration

6 mois

Location

Uttop, Tarbes (présentiel)

The medial olivocochlear (MOC) system represents a crucial neural feedback mechanism enabling dynamic brain control over auditory periphery sensitivity, particularly affecting outer hair cells. This system proves essential for hearing in noisy settings, though individual effectiveness varies significantly and declines with age. Precise MOC assessment is critical for understanding hidden hearing loss and establishing future clinical audiology diagnostic protocols. Internship Objectives: This position aims to develop and compare two non-invasive approaches measuring MOC system effects in humans. Empirical measurements will evaluate the MOC reflex across participant cohorts using objective methods based on transient evoked otoacoustic emissions and subjective psychoacoustic detection thresholds in forward-masking paradigms. Computational peripheral auditory system models will optimize experimental protocols and strengthen links between physiological and perceptual measurements. Candidates gain experience in human psychophysical and physiological auditory testing, experiment programming (MATLAB/Python), computational auditory modeling, and data analysis and statistical methods.

Supervisor

Emmanuel Ponsot

Host lab

Perception and Sound Design Team, STMS lab (UMR 9912), IRCAM, Paris

Duration

5-6 months

Location

IRCAM, Paris; ENS, DEC, 29 rue d'Ulm, 75005 Paris

Our research group is seeking a motivated Master's student to join a project investigating how early adverse experiences influence the development of mental and behavioral disorders in nonhuman primates. By integrating animal welfare and evolutionary psychiatry, the study seeks to uncover the evolutionary, ecological, and developmental foundations of psychopathology. Our main hypothesis is that human dimensional models of adversity—deprivation, threat, and unpredictability—can predict the emergence of psychopathologies in primates. To test these hypotheses, the study will classify early life experiences in primates and analyze their impact on socio-emotional skills and personality traits, gathered through behavioral observations and questionnaires. One key outcome will be the creation of an innovative adversity measurement scale. The selected student will work within a multidisciplinary team composed of experts in primatology, developmental psychology, and psychometrics. We particularly welcome students with backgrounds or strong interests in psychology, cognitive science, psychopathology or primatology. The internship can be arranged from fully on-site to fully remote. Funding opportunities may also be available through the ERASMUS+ program. To apply, contact comparativeminds@udg.edu with your CV and academic transcripts.

Supervisor

Thomas Castelain

Host lab

Comparative Minds, Department of Psychology, University of Girona (Girona, Spain)

Duration

4.5 months

Location

University of Girona, Spain (flexible: on-site to fully remote)

Our research group is seeking a highly motivated Master's student to join a project on multimodal communication in early childhood, with a specific focus on the role of gestures in peer interactions. The thesis will investigate how children between 3 and 6 years old use gestures when communicating with peers, and how their gestural repertoires (frequency, types, and integration with speech) evolve during this critical stage of social and linguistic development. While much existing research has focused on gesture–speech combinations in child–caregiver interactions or controlled experimental settings, far less is known about how gestures function in peer-to-peer contexts. By adopting a cross-sectional approach, the student will explore how gestures support complex peer interactions—such as argumentation and discourse structuring—during early socialization. The student will be trained in advanced annotation systems (e.g., M3D labeling system) and quantitative analysis techniques. We particularly welcome students with backgrounds or strong interests in linguistics, education, developmental psychology, primatology, or cognitive science. Prior experience in qualitative (ELAN software) or quantitative research methods will be considered an asset. The internship can be arranged from fully on-site to fully remote. Funding opportunities may also be available through the ERASMUS+ program.

Supervisor

Thomas Castelain

Host lab

Comparative Minds research group, Department of Psychology, University of Girona

Duration

4.5 months

Location

University of Girona (flexible: fully on-site to fully remote)

Our research group is seeking a motivated Master's student to join a project investigating gestural communication and lateralization in non-human primates. The study will examine lateralization in communicative gestures across several primate species housed in wildlife centers. Specifically, it aims to quantify lateralization at individual and population levels, assess the influence of rearing conditions on motor asymmetry, and explore potential evolutionary patterns of gestural lateralization across diverse taxa. The field of gestural communication is taxonomically biased: most research has focused on chimpanzees and other great apes, with fewer studies on African and Asian monkeys and only scarce investigations on neotropical monkeys. Broadening the taxonomic scope is essential to identify shared evolutionary traits and species-specific adaptations. The selected student will work within a multidisciplinary team and be trained in advanced observational techniques, behavioral coding, and the analysis of gestural repertoires and lateralization patterns. We particularly welcome students with backgrounds or strong interests in psychology, cognitive science, primatology or language sciences. The internship can be arranged from fully on-site to fully remote. To apply, contact comparativeminds@udg.edu with your CV and academic transcripts.

Supervisor

Thomas Castelain

Host lab

Comparative Minds research group, Department of Psychology, University of Girona

Duration

4.5 months

Location

Girona, Spain (flexible: on-site to fully remote)

Our research group is seeking a motivated Master's student to join our ongoing projects at the intersection of primatology, psychology, and artificial intelligence. Building on our recent work (Llorente, Guitton & Castelain, 2025), this project aims to investigate how concepts from primatology can be applied to the study and design of social robots. The selected student will develop an original thesis project focusing specifically on how large language models (LLMs) and generative AI systems perceive and represent the association between primatology and social robotics. The study will employ a combination of prompt engineering and content analysis, providing a unique methodological perspective on the current strengths and limitations of AI in bridging these domains. The student will work within a multidisciplinary team composed of experts in primatology, developmental psychology, and cyberpsychology. We particularly welcome students with backgrounds or strong interests in psychology, primatology, cognitive science, human–robot interaction, or artificial intelligence. The internship can be arranged from fully on-site to fully remote. To apply, contact comparativeminds@udg.edu with your CV and academic transcripts.

Supervisor

Thomas Castelain

Host lab

Comparative Minds research group, Department of Psychology, University of Girona

Duration

4.5 months

Location

Girona, Spain (flexible: on-site to fully remote)

Sleep is an essential biological process, critically involved in learning, especially in infancy. Throughout development, brain activity during sleep undergoes important changes before reaching its mature organization. In particular, it is initially characterized by two different stages: quiet and active sleep. While we know that sensory processing is disrupted during sleep, we still lack a quantitative description of how it reduces sensory responses in these two different sleep stages. The goal of this project is to investigate the impact of different sleep stages on infant auditory processing using EEG. The internship will consist in: literature review on the early development of sleep; analyses of an EEG dataset recorded from infants presented with speech sounds during their sleep; automated identification and characterization of sleep spindles; report writing. For any further question or discussion, please reach out (claire.kabdebon@cnrs.fr).

Supervisor

Claire Kabdebon

Host lab

DEC (Département d'Études Cognitives), ENS

Duration

6 months

Location

Paris, France

What are the psychological factors that drive charitable donations? Is there a psychological gap between rich and poorer donors in preferences for charitable interventions? These are the questions we sought to answer in a vignette study conducted on more than 700 U.S. participants. Consistent with predictions from the psychology of poverty literature, we found that socio-economic status drives preferences for and donations to unconventional, long-oriented charities with distant beneficiaries, and that this association is partly explained by different psychological characteristics (openness to experience, time discounting, trust) in donors. In the coming year, we plan to replicate this across more than a dozen countries, aiming at showing that there is a systematic psychological gap in charitable preferences according to socio-economic status cross-culturally. To achieve this, we will need to extend our experimental design to country-specific needs. We are also eager to understand whether a similar gap can be observed between donors' preferences and beneficiaries' needs. You can join this project now, and continue during the second semester, with the possibility of becoming an author of the final article. By joining our team, you will also be invited to the weekly ESC lab meetings (with pizza), and become part of lab life. Please contact us if you have any questions or would like to chat!

Supervisor

Coralie Chevallier

Host lab

Département d'Études Cognitives (DEC), ENS

Duration

6 months

Location

Paris, France

L'humour est un type de jeu présent dans toutes les cultures humaines (Apte, 1985 ; Lefcourt, 2001). Il peut être défini comme le fait de ressentir ou d'exprimer quelque chose de surprenant et de drôle, accompagné d'une réponse émotionnelle positive telle que la joie. Nos récents travaux ont montré que l'humour peut avoir une influence positive sur l'apprentissage chez les bébés (e.g. Esseily et al, 2015 ; di Stasi et al, 2025). Dans ce projet, nous mesurerons à l'aide d'une technologie avancée de suivi oculaire (eyetracking) la distribution de l'attention lors d'une démonstration d'une action humoristique ou neutre, et la mettrons en lien avec l'apprentissage par imitation chez des bébés. Nature de la mission : Recrutement actif et passations d'expériences en babylab avec des bébés âgés de 18 mois. Recueil et analyses de données comportementales et de suivi de regard (The Observer XT, Tobii Pro Lab, BabyFace Reader ; analyses sous R Studio ou Python). Le stage implique de travailler certains samedis pour les passations. Les passations auront lieu en majorité au BabyLab de l'Université Paris Nanterre, mais pourront également avoir lieu dans d'autres structures (PMI, Cité des bébés, crèche ou domicile des participants). Profils recherchés : étudiant.e en M2 ou césure extrêmement motivé.e, avec statut étudiant, en neurosciences, sciences cognitives, psychologie, éthologie, biologie du comportement. Une expérience préalable avec l'eye-tracker est un plus. Encadrement : Dr Lauriane Rat-Fischer et Prof. Rana Esseily. Durée : 5 à 6 mois à temps complet, entre janvier et décembre 2026. Rémunération : gratification de stage selon la législation en vigueur. Contact : Lauriane Rat-Fischer (l.ratfischer@parisnanterre.fr) et Rana Esseily (resseily@parisnanterre.fr).

Supervisor

Lauriane Rat-Fischer, Rana Esseily

Host lab

Laboratoire Éthologie Cognition Développement, Université Paris Nanterre

Duration

5 à 6 mois

Location

Nanterre, France

As human beings, we spend a large part of our mental life imagining possibilities—situations that are not real. We often consider alternative possible worlds or reflect on how different versions of the past might have influenced the present. Reasoning about possibilities is essential for human survival, as it allows us to predict the future, plan our actions, and make better decisions. Despite its importance, the origins of reasoning about possibilities have been debated for centuries. Currently, a major disagreement remains: is this kind of reasoning available to non-human animals and prelinguistic infants in the absence of language, or does it depend heavily on language? The latter hypothesis is supported by recent experimental findings: when an object is dropped into an inverted Y-shaped tube and participants must catch the ball, animals and children under the age of 4 consistently fail to use both hands to cover the two exits (Leahy et al., 2022; Redshaw & Suddendorf, 2016). However, the Y-tube task is challenging because it requires producing an optimal action regardless of which outcome occurs. We hypothesize that even younger infants and some animals might succeed if they were not required to produce such an action — a hypothesis supported by recent data on chimpanzees (Engelmann et al., 2021). As part of this project, we will develop a task that implicitly measures whether children and infants—before the development of a fully-fledged linguistic system—are capable of representing multiple possibilities when no action is required from them.

Supervisor

Isabelle Dautriche

Host lab

DEC (Département d'Études Cognitives), ENS

Duration

6 months

Location

Paris, France

As developmental science becomes more inclusive and ecologically valid, remote and online testing of infants is gaining momentum. Studying infants in their home environments holds promise: it reduces the burden on families, increases accessibility to underrepresented populations, and may yield more naturalistic behavior compared to lab settings. However, testing preverbal infants remotely comes with significant methodological challenges. Unlike older children or adults, infants cannot press buttons or follow verbal instructions, so we must rely on indirect measures such as gaze patterns. While online platforms are improving in their capacity to record and analyze infant gaze (e.g., via webcam), capturing sensitive indicators of language development such as speech sound discrimination remains difficult. This internship aims to pilot and evaluate new methods for conducting remote studies on early speech perception. Students will: review the existing literature on infant gaze-based paradigms; identify promising designs for remote implementation; select and adapt speech stimuli for online presentation; program and pilot an online experiment (e.g., using Lookit); conduct exploratory data collection and analysis to assess feasibility and sensitivity. This project sits at the intersection of developmental psychology, experimental design, and digital methods. Interns will gain hands-on experience in experimental programming, psycholinguistic theory, and webcam-based data collection.

Supervisor

Sho Tsuji

Host lab

Département d'Études Cognitives (DEC), ENS

Location

Paris, France

Young children are active communicators well before they become proficient speakers. Even in preverbal stages, they engage in complex turn-taking behaviors, and their development is shaped by the responsiveness of their social environment. Yet not all responses are equal: caregivers often switch between affiliative responses (e.g., emotional mirroring, encouragement) and informative responses (e.g., labeling, correction). The relative impact of these communicative styles on early learning and engagement remains surprisingly underexplored. This internship will investigate how different styles of social feedback from a virtual agent influence young children's communicative behaviors. Students will contribute to the development of an interactive agent capable of producing either affiliative or informative responses, potentially using generative AI or scripted interactions. We will then experimentally evaluate how these differing interaction styles shape children's vocalizations, gaze behavior, and/or learning outcomes. The project offers hands-on experience at the intersection of developmental psychology, human-computer interaction, and AI. Depending on interest and background, students may contribute to designing and prototyping the virtual agent's behavior, experiment design and study with child participants, annotating and analyzing recordings of child-agent interaction, and theoretical integration with frameworks of language acquisition, social learning, and joint attention.

Supervisor

Sho Tsuji

Host lab

Département d'Études Cognitives (DEC), ENS, PSL

Location

Paris, France

We are offering a paid six-month research internship during the academic year 2025-2026. The project focuses on Visual Perspective Taking (VPT), investigated through the N170 ERP component measured via EEG, with concurrent fNIRS recordings. The goal is to determine whether humans perceptually simulate what others see, using an innovative dual-participant paradigm featuring four conditions (active vs. passive observer and eyes open vs. closed), and test the hypothesis of an intermediate N170 amplitude when simulating another's viewpoint. This work builds on prior evidence that the N170 is sensitive to face inversion. Intern Missions: Set up and synchronize dual EEG + fNIRS recordings; program paradigm in MATLAB or Python; collect and analyze data (N170 amplitude/latency and fNIRS targeting FFA, OFA, STS regions); engage in shared lab duties across both laboratories. Required Skills: M1/M2 enrollment or equivalent in cognitive neuroscience; EEG/ERP and/or fNIRS experience; Python and/or MATLAB proficiency; strong motivation for social perception research; autonomy and scientific rigor.

Supervisor

Morgan Beaurenaut

Host lab

LICAÉ and Dysco labs, Paris Nanterre University

Duration

6 months

Location

Paris/Nanterre, France

When pairs of participants work together, an exchange of information is possible through different modalities (visual, auditory...). These sensory channels support communication, making it more efficient. Although the influence of the visual and auditory modalities has been widely described, the role of kinesthetic cues in the interaction between two participants remains little studied. Our current study aims to fill this gap and proposes to inspect the influence of the physical link, which translates into an exchange of haptic information, in the effectiveness of dyadic collaboration. To this end, pairs of individuals will be subjected to collaborative movement tasks by means of a robotic system allowing an exchange of haptic information only. We rely on measures of brain synchronization between two individuals (hyperscanning), an emerging metric established to be related to the quality of collaboration, and we assess the sense of joint agency. Expected role of the intern: support a PhD student in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of EEG hyperscanning data, structured around: a literature review on inter-brain synchrony and sensorimotor communication; participation in EEG hyperscanning experiments for data acquisition; analyzing EEG data using Python. Prior experience in EEG, robotics, or programming is appreciated but not a prerequisite. Interested candidates should email guillemet@isir.upmc.fr.

Host lab

ISIR (Institut des Systèmes Intelligents et de Robotique), Sorbonne University

Duration

3-6 months

Location

Paris, France

This internship examines how children and adults resolve linguistic ambiguity during sentence comprehension. The research focuses on understanding cognitive mechanisms underlying processing of ambiguous words—investigating whether individuals access multiple interpretations simultaneously or selectively. The project comprises two main research lines. First, it explores the timeline of mental access to possible word meanings, determining whether children have parallel access to all meanings for ambiguous words or selective access depending on syntactic structure. Second, it investigates how children identify relevant linguistic cues for resolving syntactic ambiguities and whether they can flexibly adjust importance attributed to different cues based on context. The overall goal is understanding how humans develop ambiguity resolution abilities and constrain interpretations using stored linguistic knowledge and real-time expectations, thereby advancing knowledge of language acquisition mechanisms.

Supervisor

Alex de Carvalho

Host lab

Département d'études cognitives (DEC), ENS

Location

Paris, France

Reading research establishes that 4-to-5-year-olds' speech perception abilities (i.e., phonemic awareness) predict reading readiness and the ability to read individual words. Moreover, teaching methods that promote phonemic awareness (e.g., Phonics) are effective at improving word reading. Notably however, fluid understanding of connected text often emerges later, around 7-9 years of age, the same age at which children become able to parse and interpret sentence ambiguities in spoken language in an adult-like manner. In this project we will ask: how well does a child's ability to understand and analyze spoken sentences relate to their ability to read sentences and other forms of connected text? No existing research examines children's real-time ability to deal with ambiguity in both listening and reading within the same children, while also assessing cognitive control skills. In this project, we aim to relate children's processing of spoken sentences to their ability to read connected text (by recording eye movements) and their ability to control their thoughts in non-linguistic tasks. Our goal will be to identify commonalities and differences in processing abilities in speech and text, within the same child, and identify cognitive control abilities that support speech and text comprehension.

Supervisor

Alex de Carvalho

Host lab

Département d'Études Cognitives (DEC), ENS

Location

Paris, France

I am pleased to invite applications for an M2 internship opportunity under my supervision at the LaPsyDÉ (CNRS/U Paris Cité). This internship will focus on language acquisition, with the specific topic tailored to align with the student's interests and the current research focus of my group. Our group investigates a wide range of questions in the field of language acquisition, and we are particularly interested in: decrypting the mechanisms children use to learn their native language; the role of executive function skills and socioeconomic status (SES) in oral and written language processing and acquisition; developing educational tools and strategies to fight social inequalities and to promote language acquisition and school success for all children. Key details: Location La Sorbonne, 46 rue Saint-Jacques, 75005 Paris; Duration from September 2025 until June 2026 (1 day per week in the first semester, full-time in the second semester); a background in cognitive science, linguistics, psychology, or a related field is preferred. To apply, send a CV, a brief cover letter, and contact information for one or two references to alex.de-carvalho@u-paris.fr.

Supervisor

Alex de Carvalho

Host lab

LaPsyDÉ (CNRS/Université Paris Cité)

Duration

September 2025 until June 2026 (approximately 9 months)

Location

Paris, France

The cochlea — the peripheral sensory organ for hearing — encodes sound into action potentials, which are then transmitted via the auditory nerve to the auditory brain. Biophysically realistic computational models of the cochlea and auditory nerve have been developed over several decades and are now well established. Unlike artificial neural networks, these models are grounded in biological realism, replicating the actual stages of sound processing and offering valuable insights into both normal auditory function and its dysfunctions. However, the use of these models has remained limited because very few simulate the auditory brainstem nuclei beyond the auditory nerve, and existing models do not reproduce field potentials such as EEG, which serve as critical biomarkers in diagnosing auditory disorders. The goal of this internship is threefold: implement state-of-the-art computational models that include upper components of the auditory system (e.g. the inferior colliculus); simulate field potentials based on the activity of individual neurons; and reproduce the altered field potentials observed in two mouse models developed by the team (one with auditory neuropathy and another in which deafness has been cured). Proficiency in programming (Matlab/Python) and signal processing is required, along with a strong interest in biology and sensory systems. This work would take place at the Institut de l'Audition, 63 rue de Charenton, 75012 Paris, and could start in mid-January/February 2026.

Supervisor

Boris Gourévitch, Nicolas Michalski

Host lab

Institut de l'Audition, Institut Pasteur

Duration

6 months

Location

Paris, France

We are looking for a motivated master's student (M1 or M2) to join the DreamTeam at the Institut du Cerveau to work on the SOMPARK project – a large, multi-centre observational study focused on sleep neurophysiology and clinical/cognitive profiles in patients with Parkinson's disease and REM Sleep Behavior Disorder (RBD), a known risk factor for developing Parkinson's or other neurodegenerative diseases. In this study, participants spend two nights and three days at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital sleep clinic, undergoing polysomnography recordings and a battery of clinical and cognitive assessments. The internship will primarily involve: assisting with electrode setup for polysomnography recordings; acquiring data from attention and perception tasks with EEG; conducting preliminary data analysis. As the study includes a wide range of measurements, the exact focus of the analysis and final report can be tailored to the student's interests and skills. Requirements: conversational French (for interacting with participants); interest in sleep, fatigue, or clinical neuroscience; prior experience with programming is a plus. For further information, please contact: claudia.albero@icm-institute.org

Supervisor

Thomas Andrillon

Host lab

DreamTeam, Institut du Cerveau (Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital)

Duration

2-6 months

Location

Paris, France

In western countries, people report holding fewer racist and sexist attitudes than a decade ago, yet discrimination and inequalities persist (Charlesworth and Banaji 2022). This issue can be examined at two interrelated levels: the systemic roots of racism and sexism, and the individual-level reproduction of inequalities through implicit associations between appearance or group membership and traits, beliefs or attitudes, which can bias behavior. At the individual level, experimental evidence suggests that people can exert some control over the expression of their implicit biases, yet the factors that facilitate or hinder this control are poorly understood. Our project aims at elucidating the cognitive mechanisms underlying implicit bias expression through the investigation of key contextual factors influencing bias control. We conduct experimental studies on first impressions of competence, using behavioral measures (choices and RTs) alongside computational modeling (drift-diffusion models) and physiological recordings (pupillometry and possibly EEG).

Supervisor

Julie Grèzes

Host lab

ENS, Département d'Études Cognitives (DEC)

Duration

6 months

Location

Paris, France (29 rue d'Ulm, 75005)

Emotions significantly influence decision-making, shaping how individuals perceive and respond to their environment. While there is consensus among emotion theorists that emotions and actions are interconnected, the precise nature of this relationship remains a subject of debate (Moors et al., 2017; Ledoux and Daw 2018). By integrating behavioural, physiological (e.g., skin conductance, cardiac activity), and possibly neural (EEG) measures, our project seeks to uncover the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying the influence of emotional displays on decision-making (see for example Sequestro et al. 2024).

Supervisor

Julie Grèzes

Host lab

ENS, Département d'Études Cognitives (DEC)

Duration

6 months

Location

Paris, France (29 rue d'Ulm, 75005)

With ageing, there is an increasing incidence of balance and mobility impairments, causing dramatic impact on health and quality of life. Despite extensive study, the laboratory and clinical measures of balance developed so far are poorly predictive of fall risk. Our previous work suggests this may be because such studies neglect older adults' inability to adapt postural control. In typical study designs, balance is assessed by exposing participants to repeated perturbations, and the first (often much stronger) response is discarded as the subsequent habituated response is analyzed. Yet in daily living, falling may occur after a single unexpected perturbation. The novelty in our approach is to study how participants adapt, from the first trial response to subsequent habituated responses. The goal of the project is to determine how young, healthy participants adapt sensorimotor control to alterations in context. Our modelling work shows that efficient balance requires controlling the Centre of Pressure (CoP) as a function of the position and speed of the Centre of Mass (CoM). When standing on solid ground, ankle proprioception provides a clear indication of CoM position; when the ground sways (such as on a boat), subjects must instead rely on visual and vestibular information. The goal is to measure how individual subjects adapt sensory integration to context. The project will take place at the Institut des Systèmes Intelligents et de Robotique (Sorbonne University). The applicant is expected to have a background in engineering and neuroscience, with previous experience in data analysis in Python. We are looking for a candidate interested in pursuing this project for a PhD on postural adaptation and fall risk in ageing.

Supervisor

Charlotte Le Mouel

Host lab

Institut des Systèmes Intelligents et de Robotique (Sorbonne University)

Duration

5 months

Location

Paris, France

We are recruiting two highly motivated Master 2 students for a 5–6-month internship in the Human and Artificial Perception group at the Institut de l'Audition. Our multidisciplinary team combines neurobiology, psychoacoustics and computational modeling to study how the brain represents and predicts complex sounds such as speech and music—and how these processes are altered in hearing impairment and other clinical populations. Project Themes (choose one): (1) Neurobiology of Music and Speech Perception — in vivo electrophysiology or neuroimaging (EEG/MEG) and psychophysics in healthy listeners; (2) Developing AI Models of Music Perception — design and train deep-learning or probabilistic models that predict melodic/harmonic expectations and compare model outputs with human data; (3) Sequence Predictions in Hearing Loss & Clinical Populations — behavioral and neurophysiological assessment of predictive coding in patients with cochlear implants or auditory neuropathy. Profile: currently enrolled in Master 2 (Neuroscience, Cognitive Science, Bioengineering, Computer Science, Physics); strong interest in auditory neuroscience, psychoacoustics or AI modeling; programming skills (Python, MATLAB or equivalent); excellent communication skills in English (French a plus). Location & Duration: Institut de l'Audition, Institut Pasteur (Paris 12e - Bastille); 5 to 6 months, starting September 2025 (flexible). To apply, send a single PDF (cover letter stating your preferred theme, CV, two references) to keith.doelling@pasteur.fr with subject line "M2 Internship – Human & Artificial Perception."

Supervisor

Keith Doelling

Host lab

Human and Artificial Perception group, Institut de l'Audition, Institut Pasteur

Duration

5–6 months

Location

Paris 12e - Bastille

The Institut Lyfe Research Center is dedicated to the study of the various factors (social, economic, cognitive and physiological) that underlie and influence human eating behavior. This internship is part of an interdisciplinary research project aimed at measuring the influence of gender stereotypes on food preferences. Recent research has shown that men consume significantly more meat, while women prefer vegetables, behaviors influenced by gendered social norms rather than actual nutritional needs. The project explores how certain cognitive mechanisms — notably the inherence heuristic (Cimpian & Salomon, 2014) and linguistic genericity (Berio & Musholt, 2023) — can rigidify food choices. The aim of this internship is to participate in the implementation of an experimental intervention in university restaurants in the Île-de-France region, in partnership with the CROUS, in order to promote a more varied, less gendered and more balanced diet. Mission: familiarization with the literature on gendered differences in eating behaviors and the cognitive/linguistic mechanisms involved in stereotype formation; participation in the implementation and monitoring of an intervention in several CROUS university restaurants; data collection and analysis (R / Python) based on behavioral measurements and questionnaires. Profile: Master 2 student in cognitive sciences or psychology, with solid skills in applied statistics (R, econometrics appreciated). Interest in gender issues, social psychology, nutrition and public policy appreciated. Remuneration: 4.35 euros/hour. Applications (M1 grades, CV and cover letter) to jlafraire@institutlyfe.com and adoracion.guzman-garcia@etu.ephe.psl.eu, subject line: M2 internship application - food behavior intervention.

Supervisor

Jérémie Lafraire; Adoración Guzmán-García

Host lab

Institut Lyfe Research Center (Écully, France)

Duration

6 months (September/October 2025 to June 2026)

Location

Paris, with travel to CROUS locations in Île-de-France

The aim of the internship is to better characterize the interactions between bodily signals and conscious perception: how does the neural processing of visceral signals, like heartbeats or the stomach's activity, influence our perception of the external world? The internship will include the development of a novel experimental paradigm as well as EEG data collection and data analysis. Programming skills will be required, with either previous experience or a willingness to develop such skills.

Supervisor

Catherine Tallon-Baudry

Host lab

ENS, Département d'Études Cognitives (DEC)

Duration

6 months

Location

Paris, France (29 rue d'Ulm, 75005)

Language represents possible alternatives. Modal information — information about what could be or must be the case as opposed to what the state of the world really is — is lexicalized in natural languages, using words such as could, should, might, possible, etc. Do modal concepts exist in the absence of language? Recent research suggests that preschoolers and great apes struggle with these concepts (cf. Leahy and Carey). The goal of the internship will be (1) to do a thorough literature review aiming to disentangle different properties of modals and/or task demands that may have interfered with preschoolers' and apes' capacity to represent possibilities, and (2) use a task with an implicit measure to prompt these concepts in infants and baboons (this is actually for two different M2 internships). The student working with infants will need a good command of French to communicate with the families. Both internships will take place in Marseille and can be conducted remotely for most parts (except testing).

Supervisor

Isabelle Dautriche

Host lab

ENS, Département d'Études Cognitives (DEC)

Duration

5 months

Location

Marseille, France

Tinnitus, often referred to as 'ringing in the ears,' is a disabling medical condition characterized by a subjective perception of sound without any external acoustic stimulus, affecting around 14% of the general population. Unlike auditory hallucinations, tinnitus sensations are generally of an unstructured acoustic nature, such as buzzing, hissing, or ringing. Analogous to phantom limb pain, subjective tinnitus is considered a phantom sound following hearing loss. However, hearing loss alone does not fully explain tinnitus perception: not everyone with hearing loss experiences tinnitus, while some individuals recover from tinnitus without noticeable changes in their hearing abilities, suggesting an interaction between the peripheral auditory system and central auditory processing. In a recent study, our team documented an attentional dysfunction linked to tinnitus in a large cohort that deserves to be further studied with EEG. It is a collaborative project involving ENT specialists and researchers of the Hearing Institute and the reconnect IHU. Internship objective: the student will be involved in an ongoing project aiming at advancing knowledge about the cognitive aspects and electrophysiological markers associated with tinnitus. An interest in attention modeling, EEG responses and statistics is welcome, but a background in these domains is not required. The internship will take place at the Institut de l'Audition (rue de Charenton, Paris 12) within the NeuroSpeech team.

Supervisor

Séverine Samson

Host lab

Institut de l'Audition (Hearing Institute), NeuroSpeech team

Duration

6 months

Location

Paris (Institut de l'Audition, rue de Charenton, Paris 12)

Psychology of human learning distinguishes implicit learning, resulting in unconscious knowledge, and explicit learning, a more effortful form of learning leading to conscious knowledge. Our research assesses whether these two routes to learning also exist in apes and monkeys, and how and when they appear during childhood. This internship will involve developing touchscreen-based experiments to probe implicit and explicit learning without relying on verbal responses, and data collection in children.

Supervisor

Raphaëlle Malassis

Host lab

LSCP & Babylab, ENS, Département d'Études Cognitives

Duration

5 months

Location

Paris, France (29 rue d'Ulm, 75005)

The project is aimed at investigating the diachronic development of phonological patterns over time, combining the analysis of diachronic linguistic corpora (e.g. literary text) with methods from psycholinguistics. The internship involves all (or a subset of) the following steps: establishing the corpus of relevant diachronic data; conducting a corpus analysis investigating the role of frequency effects on sound change (testing among others the Frequency Actuation Hypothesis); investigating the emergence of lexical restrictions; and investigating the implications of the results for phonological theories of the diachronic development of sound patterns. Some background in phonology is useful but not necessary. Basic knowledge and interest in the manipulation and analysis of written corpora are required.

Supervisor

Maria Giavazzi

Host lab

ENS, Département d'Études Cognitives (DEC)

Duration

2-6 months

Location

Paris, France (29 rue d'Ulm, 75005)

This project is led by Sho Tsuji and Alex Cristia at the LSCP, and will be co-supervised by May Abdou in the context of a PhD thesis. Our research focuses on uncovering the cognitive and linguistic mechanisms underlying early language acquisition and developing experimental tools to collect and analyse large-scale data. Language acquisition is deeply influenced by the social environment surrounding a child. Tech advances have provided a considerable amount of naturalistic, open-access data (audio & video recordings) that can give us insights into this dynamic context of language learning. We are developing a coding scheme to systematically extract the different types of linguistic information present in interactions with children, asking what kind of cues are communicated to them and whether these cues similarly manifest in both modalities of data, speech (audio) and behaviour (video). Who we're looking for: M2 students to annotate a chunk of English audio & video recordings, applying our coding scheme to a first batch of data. Theory-led analysis of a data subset is possible, with the opportunity to work on a Master's thesis or research paper. You will be integrated into a multidisciplinary team in Cognitive Science and Psycholinguistics (campus Panthéon). Requirements: basic experience with annotation tools such as ELAN; ensure the project aligns with your research interests and studies.

Supervisor

Sho Tsuji; Alex Cristia; May Abdou

Host lab

LSCP (Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique), ENS, Département d'Études Cognitives

Duration

4.5 months

Location

Paris, France (Campus Panthéon, ENS DEC, 29 rue d'Ulm, 75005)

Le travail de stage consistera à proposer et étudier des méthodes pour analyser et comprendre comment les archéologues étudient le matériel archéologique à travers ses activités perceptives et cognitives (regard, neuro, tactile). Ces méthodes s'appuieront sur des environnements de réalité virtuelle pour contrôler les contextes archéologiques et des instrumentations pour suivre l'activité de l'archéologue (eye-tracking, BCI, tactile-tracking). Le stage se déroulera au sein de l'équipe Seamless, à l'UMR IRISA, à Rennes, en collaboration avec un archéologue de l'Inrap (Institut National de Recherches en Archéologie Préventive). L'équipe Seamless (ex-Hybrid) a développé depuis plus de 10 ans une expertise dans le domaine du patrimoine culturel et de l'archéologie, notamment sur la production et l'utilisation d'environnements 3D interactifs, en réalité virtuelle et augmentée, appliquées à l'archéologie. Des travaux préliminaires ont déjà abordé la perception visuelle de l'archéologue avec une approche quantitative.

Supervisor

Ronan Gaugne

Host lab

Équipe Seamless, UMR IRISA, Rennes

Duration

6 mois

Location

Rennes, France

This project is led by Sho Tsuji and Alex Cristia at the LSCP and co-supervised by May Abdou in the context of a PhD thesis. Our research focuses on uncovering the cognitive and linguistic mechanisms underlying early language acquisition and developing experimental tools to collect and analyse large-scale audio data. Using naturalistic, open-access audio recordings, we are developing a coding scheme to systematically extract the different types of linguistic information present in interactions with children. Who we're looking for: M1/M2 students to annotate a chunk of English audio-recordings, applying our coding scheme to a first batch of data. Depending on progress and prior knowledge, analysis of a data subset is possible. You will integrate a multidisciplinary team in Cognitive Science and Psycholinguistics (campus Panthéon). Requirements: basic experience with annotation tools such as ELAN. No prior knowledge of Language Acquisition or Cognition is necessary.

Supervisor

Sho Tsuji; May Abdou

Host lab

LSCP (Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique), ENS DEC

Duration

1 month

Location

Paris, France (ENS, DEC, 29 rue d'Ulm, 75005)

Missions principales : identifier et analyser la littérature académique sur les enjeux éthiques liés à l'intelligence artificielle et à la cognition artificielle ; explorer des questions telles que l'attribution de conscience, l'évaluation de l'alignement des systèmes d'IA avec les valeurs humaines, la transparence et l'explicabilité des algorithmes, ainsi que les biais inhérents aux technologies d'IA ; synthétiser les résultats sous forme de notes de recherche ou de mini-rapports structurés. Profil recherché : étudiant(e) en philosophie, éthique appliquée, sciences cognitives, intelligence artificielle, ou disciplines connexes ; intérêt marqué pour les questions philosophiques et éthiques liées aux nouvelles technologies ; capacité à effectuer des recherches autonomes et à synthétiser des informations complexes ; bonnes compétences en écriture académique (anglais).

Supervisor

Roberto Casati

Host lab

ENS, Département d'Études Cognitives (DEC)

Duration

4-5 mois

Location

Paris (29 rue d'Ulm, 75005)

The availability of a linguistic contrast between speech sounds (e.g. between [d] and [t]) in a given language is often modulated by the position (e.g. within the word) in which the sounds occur. One such example is the case of lexically stressed positions, in which contrast is more likely to be available than elsewhere in the word. This internship project is part of a larger research project on lexical stress, and it investigates the relative contribution of attentional and phonetic facts in shaping this distribution of phonological contrasts. The internship involves the programming (PsychoPy) of an already planned experiment, (online) testing of participants and data analysis (R).

Supervisor

Maria Giavazzi

Host lab

Département d'Études Cognitives (DEC), ENS, PSL University

Duration

2-5 months

Location

Paris

Animals emit signals at different rates. The call rate of vocal sequences may vary across species, and also within a species, when the rate may be indicative of varying degrees of emergency, proximity, quality of food, certainty of the information, etc. The goal of this internship is to review the literature on the topic to document precisely how call rate is used in the animal kingdom, and to reveal the phylogenetic history of this feature-meaning mapping. Suggested format: mini-internship. Learning/Tasks (depending on time): systematic literature review (manual or automated), construction of the database (species, baseline call rates, observed effect of varying call rates, reference), qualitative and quantitative analysis, reconstruction of the likely evolutionary history, writing up.

Supervisor

Ambre Salis and Emmanuel Chemla

Host lab

LSCP (Département d'Études Cognitives, ENS)

Duration

5 months

Location

Paris

Nous recherchons un.e étudiant.e motivé.e pour nous aider à l'acquisition de données dans le cadre de notre projet "Corels : La co-représentation est-elle boostée par l'expertise en langue des signes ?". Le but de ce projet est d'identifier si les compétences développées par le traitement d'informations visuelles et gestuelles lors de l'acquisition seconde d'une langue des signes (ex : compréhension des signes et marqueurs non manuels, anticipations d'actions, adaptabilité et sensibilité aux détails) facilitent la mise en place de mécanismes de co-représentation d'action — définie ici comme la capacité à se représenter les actions d'autrui, indispensable pour partager l'environnement social. En intégrant ce projet, vous participerez aux recrutements des participants, aux passations expérimentales et à l'analyse des données. Un travail bibliographique pourra être demandé sur la plasticité générée par l'acquisition de la langue des signes. Si le projet mène à une publication, votre contribution sera mentionnée.

Supervisor

Dr. Morgan Beaurenaut, Dr. Charlotte Hauser, Dr. Justine Mertz

Host lab

Laboratoire des Interactions Cognition Action Émotion, Université Paris Nanterre; Laboratoire Structures Formelles du Langage (CNRS, Université Paris 8); Institut Jean Nicod (ENS Paris)

Duration

42 jours à 7h/jour (~2 mois, flexible), de février à juin

Location

Paris (Université Paris Nanterre)

The goal of this internship is to pilot wearable devices to record children's language input and social interactions with the people around them. Over the past decade, wearable devices have been a game changer in developmental researchers' access to naturalistic recordings of children's learning environments. Insights gained from this line of research have unveiled the remarkable diversity of early language environments across communities and raised exciting questions about how environmental input shapes both language-general and language-specific learning pathways. While most work with wearable devices in fieldwork settings has focused on audio recordings, our team aims to incorporate multimodal recordings into fieldwork, including data streams such as video, acceleration, and heart rate. During this internship, you will: pilot various wearable devices in a lab setting; collaborate in designing and conducting experiments where caregivers of young children interact naturally; evaluate the feasibility and performance of different wearable devices for capturing high-quality, multimodal data. We welcome students with an interest in language acquisition and developmental research. A background in (psycho-)linguistics is not mandatory, but candidates should possess basic technical skills to handle and evaluate wearable devices, and a working knowledge of French, necessary for interacting with infants and their caregivers.

Supervisor

Sho Tsuji, Alejandrina Cristia

Host lab

Département d'Études Cognitives (DEC), École Normale Supérieure (ENS)

Duration

2-5 months

Location

Paris

One factor that contributes to children's differences in school performance is their own beliefs about intelligence. These beliefs are likely informed by children's early socialisation experiences, which vary across families and children. For example, some children may receive more frequent messages from their parents emphasizing their inherent intelligence or cleverness than others. Such differential reinforcement can contribute to shaping children's beliefs about their intelligence and, subsequently, impact their cognition, literacy, and educational achievement. This project aims to (a) review the empirical literature on the association between parents' perceptions of children's differences in intelligence, how parents express these perceptions in speech (e.g., in praise, criticism), and whether there is a link between parents' perceptions and children's beliefs about their own intelligence. A follow-up project (b) will use secondary data analyses of E-Risk to test, in an original empirical study using twin difference models, whether mothers' perceptions of their children's intelligence affect children's cognition, literacy, and educational achievement.

Supervisor

Sophie von Stumm

Host lab

ENS (École Normale Supérieure), Département d'Études Cognitives

Duration

2-3 months

Location

Paris

Background: The human brain can process single words during different tasks and via different modalities. We can hear the word 'apple' and repeat it out loud, or see the word written on a page and read it, or think of its concept and name it out loud. These three tasks (word repetition, reading and naming) require different computations at early stages, but share others at higher, amodal levels. Decades of research in neuropsychology have produced a detailed description of the various information-processing stages during each of these tasks, based on examination of patients with brain damage. Neuroimaging studies have isolated cortical regions putatively associated with several of these processing stages, but often target a specific component of the model in a specific modality. A similar limitation persists in computational work. In this project, we will develop a new experimental design to study the neural basis of these three tasks jointly, using fMRI and intracranial data. Throughout the project you will work closely with students developing deep neural models that simulate the three tasks jointly; predictions from the models will be tested against fMRI data. Main Goal: create a global map of the processing pathways in the brain for single-word processing and identify its amodal parts. We will test the hypothesis that the unified single-word processing model can be mapped onto the human language network, such that each processing component can be mapped onto dedicated brain regions.

Supervisor

Yair Lakretz, Emmanuel Chemla

Host lab

Département d'études cognitives (DEC), École Normale Supérieure (ENS)

Duration

6 months

Location

Paris

Incenteev is a French company dedicated to improving team performance and motivation. We offer innovative coaching and gamification solutions designed to stimulate engagement, collaboration, and productivity in the workplace. Over the past two years, we have consolidated studies on cognitive sciences and economic behaviors to understand what makes people happy at work. We have built a framework with 4 drivers managers can use to improve employee fulfillment: Transactional (sense of fairness), Individual (sense of autonomy), Mission (sense of purpose), and Social (sense of belonging). We are currently promoting this in a book titled "TIMS." We seek to partner with a university department by supervising a student's thesis. We envision this as a dynamic exchange of expertise, co-developing and conducting empirical studies exploring psychological and cognitive factors influencing employee well-being and motivation. We are open to doctoral theses examining how cognitive sciences, behavioral economics, or management practices influence workplace satisfaction. Your department gains access to our practical insights and real-world data; we benefit from your academic expertise and research methodologies.

Supervisor

Lila Haesebrouck

Host lab

Incenteev

Duration

One semester (to be defined)

Location

Paris

Le son émis par une source réelle est normalement perçu comme « externalisé », c'est-à-dire comme provenant de l'environnement autour de l'auditeur. Par contre, les sources reproduites au casque sont en général perçues comme « internalisées », le son semblant alors provenir de l'intérieur de la tête. La reproduction audio binaurale permet d'externaliser des sources sonores simulées au casque. Reproduire des sources externalisées est crucial pour le réalisme de toute application d'audio spatial et par extension de réalité virtuelle ou augmentée. Le but est ici de mieux comprendre et caractériser l'externalisation des sons reproduits au casque, en mettant en évidence les indices acoustiques sous-jacents à notre perception, mais aussi les aspects cognitifs qui seront étudiés en variant le contexte de la reproduction sonore. Il sera important de rester vigilant sur la différenciation de l'externalisation et de la distance perçue. Type de travail : expérimentation avec mesures de réponses impulsionnelles binaurales de salles réelles (MatLab) et/ou simulations en acoustique des salles (Catt-Acoustic), analyse et traitement de signal audio (MatLab), mise en place de tests d'écoute contrôlés, analyses statistiques (R), publication. La poursuite en thèse est possible, à discuter avec l'étudiant/e pour identifier des sources de financement.

Supervisor

Mathieu Lavandier

Host lab

UMR CNRS 8248 - Équipe Audition (D. Pressnitzer), Département d'Études Cognitives (DEC); ENTPE (Université de Lyon), LTDS

Duration

4-6 mois

Location

Paris (DEC-ENS) / Vaulx-en-Velin (ENTPE)

Our research focuses on the neuronal basis of auditory cognition, exploring how contextual factors influence auditory processing at the cortical level. We use ferrets as a key model to bridge our understanding of human cognition. We explore how ferrets process complex sounds, including speech, how attention shapes perception, and how early auditory experiences shape cortical development. By leveraging electrophysiology and functional ultrasound neuroimaging, we aim to uncover parallels between ferret and human auditory processing, with applications to attention, learning, and memory. Interns will (not exclusively) engage in neural data quantitative analysis, experimental work, and advanced decoding techniques. Internship can be conducted in French or English.

Supervisor

Yves Boubenec

Host lab

ENS, Département d'Études Cognitives (DEC)

Duration

6 months

Location

Paris

We are seeking a highly skilled M2 student with a strong background in analytic philosophy and a serious interest in environmental philosophy and sciences for an internship on the topic of "Perceiving Environmental Unnaturalness." Internship objective: The primary aim is to map the dual concepts of naturalness and unnaturalness as they are discussed in both philosophical and scientific literature. In this project, we adopt a specific interpretation of naturalness: the set of phenomenal and processual expectations associated with a particular natural environment. We are particularly interested in the perceptual, cognitive, and emotional dimensions that emerge when these expectations are not met, which we define as unnaturalness. The task involves connecting this conceptual mapping to an analysis of how perception (in a multimodal way), knowledge, and affect contribute to judgments of unnaturalness. This conceptual clarification will serve as a foundation for designing experimental tests, and the project also aims to link phenomena deemed unnatural to foundational concepts in environmental law and ethics.

Supervisor

Christian Lorenzi (LSP) and Sacha Bourgeois-Gironde (IJN)

Host lab

Laboratoire des Systèmes Perceptifs (LSP), Audition team; Institut Jean Nicod (IJN)

Duration

6 months

Location

Paris

During the first year of life, infants develop word segmentation capacities and start storing segmented word candidates in a 'protolexicon'. Previously, we showed that their sensitivity to statistical information leads them to include in this protolexicon frequently occurring non-word strings in addition to real words. Indeed, we found that 11-month-old French-learning infants recognize frequently occurring strings regardless of whether they are words (e.g., gateau 'cake', chaussure 'shoe') or non-words (e.g., dans la 'in the', va faire 'will do'), while they do not recognize disyllabic non-word strings that rarely occur in their input. In this study, we will experimentally test the prediction that infants initially consider all items in their protolexicon to be real words that should be mapped onto a meaning. The student should have an interest in language acquisition but a background in (psycho-)linguistics is not required. A working knowledge of French is necessary to interact with infants and their parents.

Supervisor

Sharon Peperkamp

Host lab

Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique (LSCP); Language and its acquisition team

Location

Paris

Words are a central building block of language, and segmenting words out of continuous speech is a challenging step in early language acquisition. In spoken language there is no acoustic equivalent to the spaces that separate words in written language: spoken words are not separated by pauses. Infants start developing word segmentation abilities during the first year of life, relying on their sensitivity to both phonological and syllable co-occurrence cues to word boundaries. One phonological cue is vowel harmony: in many languages (e.g. Turkish, Hungarian, Somali), vowels within a word must share some articulatory property. Adults speaking a language with vowel harmony are known to rely on this phenomenon as a word boundary cue, and 7-month-old English-learning infants are also sensitive to vowel harmony as a cue to word boundaries, despite English having no vowel harmony. This project will extend that research by pitting vowel harmony against consonant harmony. Whereas vowel harmony is widespread, consonant harmony is cross-linguistically rare, yet consonants are more important than vowels in lexical processing. This study will test 7-month-old French-learning infants on both vowel and consonant harmony, to examine which is preferentially used as a cue for word segmentation. Depending on the duration, the student will be involved in several or all stages of the project, from experimental design and stimulus preparation to data gathering (in the ENS babylab) and analysis. A background in (psycho-)linguistics is not required, but a working knowledge of French is necessary to interact with infants and their parents.

Supervisor

Sharon Peperkamp

Host lab

Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique (LSCP); Language and its acquisition team

Location

Paris

Can reading performance of dyslexic readers be improved with auditory rhythmic training? A key ingredient for reading is the mapping of graphemes (letters) to phonemes (sounds). The internship explores whether rhythmic brain activity misalignment causes developmental dyslexia. Research indicates a sampling deficit at 30 Hz in dyslexic adults may impair phonological processing. The RnDys project — a collaborative initiative involving speech therapists, the Iologo® training creators, and the Hearing Institute — tests whether auditory rhythmic training can realign auditory and brain rhythms to enhance reading performance in dyslexic children.

Supervisor

Sophie Bouton

Host lab

Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique (LSCP); Cognitive development and pathology team

Duration

3 to 6 months

Location

Paris

Despite a number of studies, it remains unclear whether male and female human infants (0-6 months old) manifest different visual preferences or perceptual abilities. The goal of this project is to determine with greater confidence whether this is the case or not, and at what age such differences appear. In particular, we are interested in whether male and female infants show different spontaneous preferences for human faces vs. inanimate objects, as suggested by various studies (e.g., Lewis et al. 1966; Connellan et al. 2000), and whether they show differences in certain cognitive abilities, such as mental rotation (Enge et al. 2023). One part of this project (suitable for a Master internship or a PhD) is to carry out analyses of data from the YOUth cohort, a cohort of about 2000 babies from the Netherlands who underwent eyetracking and EEG experiments (face vs. object viewing, facial expression discrimination, gaze following, attention orientation) at 5 months, 10 months and 3 years old. Another part is to carry out a series of experiments testing sex differences in newborns using EEG in our babylab at the Port-Royal maternity hospital (suitable for a PhD only).

Supervisor

Franck Ramus

Host lab

Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique (LSCP); Cognitive development and pathology team

Location

Paris

Testing hypotheses about learning mechanisms and cognitive disorders requires computational models. Reading models traditionally fall into two categories: minimalist connectionist approaches with crude results, and sophisticated symbolic/connectionist models relying on ad hoc specifications. The BRAID family of reading models overcomes these limitations. The Bayesian BRAID-Acq model simulates the second learning phase when children decode words independently. The first objective adapts this model to the initial phase, simulating grapheme-phoneme correspondence learning and comparing teaching methods, with predictions testable against behavioral data from beginning readers. The second objective simulates cognitive causes of dyslexia by modeling phonological, visual, and visual-attentional deficits, studying their consequences on learning and reading performance, ultimately generating testable predictions to distinguish cognitive theories of dyslexia. Candidate profile: strong background in programming, simulation, mathematical modeling, and experimental psychology. Python proficiency is essential. Knowledge of probability is advantageous.

Supervisor

Franck Ramus, Julien Diard, Sylviane Valdois

Host lab

Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique (LSCP); Cognitive development and pathology team

Location

Paris