INFORMATION ABOUT THE POSITION
- Position: PhD student
- Researcher Profile: First Stage Researcher (R1- up to the point of PhD)
- Number of vacancies: 1
- Project: Making sense of the sensory world: perceptual learning in the human brain
- Funding sources: Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and University (202 PID2025-169017NA-I00)
- Location: Spain > San Sebastian
- Research Field: Neuroscience > Cognitive Computational Neuroscience and Neuroimaging
- Type of contract/Duration of Contract: Temporary, 4 years
- Job Status: Full-time
- Hours per week: 35
- Starting date: Versátil between 01/01/2027 and 30/04/2027
- Application deadline: 08/11/2026

Information about the project:

Perception is extraordinary. We are born with little notion of the kinds of objects we might find in our path. But just by receiving rays of light in our eyes and acoustic vibrations in our ears, we slowly build a fully structured internal representation of landscapes and faces, of speech and music.



Perceptual learning is the discipline that aims to understand how do humans and other animals develop these internal representations. Studying this process is important to understand what does the brain know about reality itself, and to devise mechanistic interventions in clinical cases where perception fails, like psychosis.

This project will study how the brain creates internal representations across visual and auditory modalities, assessing their commonalities and differences. Our lab combines computational models with fMRI to develop theoretically-grounded experiments and empirically-grounded theory. This particular project is designed for fMRI, but there will be possibilities for extensions to E/MEG.

Part of this project will be developed in collaboration with the Department of Psychology of the University of Cambridge / MRC CBU and there may be opportunities for placements in Cambridege.

This is a fantastic opportunity for students with a background in cognitive neuroscience who wa

📌 PhD student (Donostia / San Sebastián)
🏢 BCBL BASQUE CENTER ON COGNITION BRAIN AND LANGUAGE
📍 Donostia / San Sebastián