NATPRED: Naturalistic Predictions: How our brain anticipates the future in a dynamic world

Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research; Italia; On-site; EUR 32,000 - 42,000; Full time

Job summary

Università di Trento in Italy is offering a fully funded postdoc position as part of a 5-year project funded by the Italian government (FIS starting grant). The research will explore how fundamental real-life factors shape neural representations under naturalistic conditions, using MEG recordings of participants watching dynamic input such as movies.

Depending on background and interest, the postdoc will contribute to one of four lines and collaborate with a multidisciplinary team to advance

Responsibilities

• Postdoc position funded as part of a 5-year project on FIS starting grant.
• Research focuses on how real-life factors shape neural representations under naturalistic conditions.
• Work involves MEG recordings and dynamic representational similarity analysis (dRSA).
• Collaborate across four potential research lines within the project to study predictive brain dynamics.

Job description

Organisation/Company Università di Trento Research Field Psychological sciences » Psychology Researcher Profile Recognised Researcher (R2) Leading Researcher (R4) First Stage Researcher (R1) Established Researcher (R3) Application Deadline 16 Nov 2026 - 12:00 (UTC) Country Italy Type of Contract To be defined Job Status Not Applicable Is the job funded through the EU Research Framework Programme? Not funded by a EU programme Is the Job related to staff position within a Research Infrastructure? No

Offer Description

We recently developed a new approach in the lab that combines MEG recordings of participants observing naturalistic dynamic input (e.g., movies), with dynamic representational similarity analysis (dRSA) to quantify both the strength and the millisecond-precision latency of neural representations of naturalistic dynamic input, across hierarchical levels of stimulus complexity (from perceptual-to-conceptual). See [4,5] for relevant previous research from the lab. This fully-funded postdoc position is part of a larger 5-year project funded by the Italian government (FIS starting grant) on which several PhD/postdocs will work. Depending on background and interest, the postdoc will focus on one of four research lines that all investigate how fundamental real-life factors determine the (predictive) representational dynamics of our brain under naturalistic conditions, and that are difficult to investigate with more controlled conventional paradigms.

• Italy
• EUROPE
• OTHER
• E.U.

Eligibility of fellows: country/ies of residence:

• EUROPE
• OTHER
• E.U.

Eligibility of fellows: nationality/ies: