CIMeC - Center for Mind/Brain Sciences: Call for applications for the award of no. 2 research contracts pursuant to art. 22 L. 240/2010, decree n. 195/2026, dott. Ingmar De Vries

Two fixed-term research contracts at the University of Trento's Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC) in Rovereto support NATPRED (Naturalistic Predictions: How our brain anticipates the future in a dynamic world), a five-year project led by Ingmar De Vries and funded by an Italian Science Fund (FIS 3) Starting Grant. Prediction theories propose that the brain combines an internal model of the world's spatio-temporal structure with sensory input to anticipate unfolding events, but most evidence comes from artificial paradigms with simple, static stimuli.

The lab combines MEG recordings of participants watching naturalistic dynamic input such as movies with dynamic representational similarity analysis (dRSA) to quantify the strength and millisecond latency of neural representations from perceptual to conceptual levels. Each postdoc will focus on one of four research lines on how real-life factors shape predictive representational dynamics: the hierarchical nature of the world, its multimodal (audiovisual) nature, embodied and active cognition, and naturalistic attentional orienting.

Each 24-month contract starts by 1 March 2027 with a gross annual salary of 39,224.25 euros.

PhD in cognitive neuroscience or a related field (candidates expecting the PhD within six months of the call's publication may apply); background in cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging, preferably M/EEG or fMRI/fNIRS and MVPA approaches such as decoding, encoding or RSA; strong programming skills, preferably Matlab or Python; background or interest in predictive processing theories; excellent English. Applications include a research proposal of 1,000 to 2,000 words and up to five publications.