FACTOLAB - Postdoctoral Researcher 18-month - LAPSCO

Position Title : Postdoctoral Researcher in Experimental Psychology
[Version Française]

General information : As part of a joint laboratory with Michelin (Factolab) and the Clermont Auvergne Project i-site, the “laboratoire de psychologie sociale et cognitive” (LAPSCO) of the University of Clermont Auvergne offers funding for a post-doctoral period of 18 months with a salary of around 2100 euros per month (free of charges, exact amount depending on the postdoctoral experience of the successful candidate). The position would take place the 1st January 2025.

Missions : Eye-tracking is a technique that matches the direction of the gaze with the visual elements present in the scene in order to determine what the person is looking at. This laboratory technique is increasingly exported to the field via wearable devices (glasses). The experimental data then generates hours of video in which a wide variety of objects are present, making manual analysis extremely tedious.
Within the joint laboratory, we have developed a system for automatic analysis of video data collected by an eye tracker in a professional situation. This analysis system can identify the time ranges corresponding to activities of persons equipped with an eye tracker. Specifically, the end-user of the system can indicate several generic criteria for detecting activities (characteristic objects, duration of appearance of objects in videos, order of appearance, eye fixations, ...). The system uses these criteria in various heuristics for activity detection. The goal of the postdoctoral researcher will be to assess the relevance of this system through a larger dataset. He or she will be responsible for analyzing data from previous experiments. He or she will also be responsible for gathering other sets of data from our partners within the FactoLab with two purposes. First, he or she will have to assess the robustness of the system, in order to establish whether this system is mature enough for recovery. Second, he or she will aim to explore the different heuristics that seem appropriate for the processing of these videos. In particular, he or she will have to look for heuristics that would not be supported by the system.

Activities : In particular, the postdoc will contribute to different aspects :
• Gather a diverse corpus of videos, with varied environments and activities.
• Explore the different heuristics that seem appropriate for the processing of these videos. In particular, he or she should seek to identify heuristics that are not yet supported by the system.
• Work in collaboration with a computer research engineer to share feedback. These exchanges will aim to feed an iterative approach for improving the system.
• Write and/or participate to the writing of several publications based on the data processed. He or she should also evaluate the possibility of a methodological publication on task processing heuristics.

Skills : The candidate should have a PhD in psychology, preferably on the themes of visual attention, attentional control and/or eye-tracking. Good familiarity with deep learning algorithms would be a plus. The candidate must be fluent in French and have a good level in English. International applications are welcome.

Working context : The “laboratoire de psychologie sociale et cognitive” (LAPSCO-UMR UCA-CNRS 6024) currently employs 40 permanent staff and 84 people in total with contractual staff, doctoral and post-doctoral students. Its purpose is the study of behaviors and cognitive processes involved in major mental functions (perception, attention, memory, language, temporality), from their cerebral bases to their regulations under the influence of the social context, with strong stakes in the fields of education and health. LAPSCO benefits from the support of two CNRS institutes (National Institute of Biological Sciences and Institute of Human and Social Sciences). Partner of two LABEX, partner and / or leaders of several projects funded by the ANR or Europe, LAPSCO is also very active in partnerships with actors in education, health, national security, and the economic world. The selected candidate will be working within the laboratory and will also be invited to collaborate with the other actors of the joint laboratory and in particular with the “Institut Pascal”.

Constraints and risks : none

Supplementary information : Applicants must send a detailed CV ; a copy of their degree ; a cover letter describing their research interests, previous experiences, motivation to participate in this project, career goals and at least one reference person to contact ; and two reference letters.