Openings

Applicants should provide an up-to-date CV by e-mail to thier(at)uni-tuebingen.de.

Please note that bulk applications lacking an obvious relationship to the research interests of the department will be rejected without further notification.

PhD position on marmoset social cognition

We are currently searching for a highly motivated PhD student interested in research on the cortical underpinnings of marmoset social cognition including the ability to establish joint attention based on gaze and facial cues. The project will require a combination of quantitative behavioural measurements on trained animals and electrophysiological as well as optical imaging approaches. Previous experience in electrophysiological and anatomical techniques, familiarity with MatLab as well a thorough training in systems neuroscience would be favourable. The PhD student is expected to enrol in the PhD programme of the Graduate Training Centre at the Werner Reichardt Centre for Integrative Neuroscience. See below for further instructions.

Selected publications related to the topic:

Marciniak K, Atabaki A, Dicke PW, Thier P (2014) Disparate substrates for head gaze following and face perception in the monkey superior temporal sulcus. Elife e03222. doi: 10.7554/eLife.03222

Caggiano V, Fogassi L, Rizzolatti G, Casile A, Giese MA, Thier P (2012) Mirror neurons encode the subjective value of an observed action. PNAS 109(29):11848-11853

Master´s Project in Behavioral Social Neuroscience

A Master project is currently available for a highly motivated student.

Further information

Selected publications related to the topic:

Marciniak K, Dicke PW, Thier P. (2015) Monkeys head-gaze following is fast, precise and not fully suppressible. Proc Biol Sci. 282(1816):20151020. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2015.1020.

Siebert R, Taubert N, Spadacenta S, Dicke PW, Giese MA, Thier P. (2020) A naturalistic dynamic monkey head avatar elicits species-typical reactions and overcomes the uncanny valley. eNeuro 7(4):ENEURO.0524-19.2020. doi: 10.1523/ENEURO.0524-19.2020.

Taubert N, Stettler M, Siebert R, Spadacenta S, Sting L, Dicke P, Thier P, Giese MA. (2021). Shape-invariant encoding of dynamic primate facial expressions in human perception. Elife;10:e61197. doi: 10.7554/eLife.61197.

If interested, please contact
Prof. Martin Giese at martin.gieseuni-tuebingen.de or
Prof. Peter Thier at thieruni-tuebingen.de,
both at the Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research