University Undergrad Jobs

In addition to the jobs we have to offer, the university has a site to search for undergrad research jobs.

Research Assistant - speech transcription & annotation

Right now we’re looking for several hourly-paid research assistants for transcription and annotation work. You will be transcribing sound files that are produced by participants in our experiments. This includes transcription of the words being said, sometimes noting the presence of disfluencies, and/or structural annotations (such as what syntactic frame a structure has). A linguistic background is preferred but not necessary. Annotation work is a quick way to learn about the variety of structures speakers use, the patterns that are used frequently and what factors influence speakers’ choices during online language production. You will meet with an experienced member of the lab regularly to get feedback on your annotation and to integrate suggestions you have for the process. This will also give you a chance to learn more about the experiments and the research conducted in our lab. Pay will be slightly above standard RA salaries. Minimum hours per week required are 5 (10 preferred).

Research Assistant - visual media

We are also searching for a research assistant for the creation of animated video stimuli. These stimuli will be used in psycholinguistic experimentations that elicit descriptions from participants (to study what influences how participants produce such descriptions). Stimuli are either pictures or videos. Creation of the stimuli requires use of software such as Photoshop and Poser, a 3D video animation program. We will train the RA in Poser during the first weeks of the job. Experience in other photo software is appreciated, but not required.

The types of pictures and scenes we require in our experiments, usually contain several people and objects and some variation in background. As you can see in the examples below, we don’t care so about perfection of the details, but the scene needs to clearly elicit a certain type of transcription.

Example Videos

The following videos make up a single item from an experiment with two different kinds of contrasts. Each subject only will see one version of each item. In each video there is either one donut or two distinct (at sufficient resolution) donuts (with and without sprinkles) and one or two men (with different shirts). Clockwise from top left (or from top to bottom) we have

  1. Two donuts, two men
  2. One donut, two men
  3. Two donuts, one man
  4. One donut, one man

Further example videos are given at the following HLP Lab blog posting: Follow up experiments on sentence production in Yucatec.

Due to the training phase involved in acquiring proficiency in the relevant software, we are looking for someone who can at least commit for 1 year, preferably longer. We understand that the actual time students have to commit to this job will fluctuate from week to week (midterms, finals, etc.), but we are looking for someone who can on average dedicate 7-15h a week. You will also have an option to participate in conducting research, although you are, of course, not required to. If you are interested, please contact our lab manager (jaegerlab@bcs.rochester.edu). If you choose to send a resume, please use PDF or plain text, not Word.