WORK STUDY: PSYCHOLOGY LAB TECHNICIAN

  • Location: Cape Breton University, Psychology Department
  • Deadline: January 30, 2020 at 4:00 pm

Job Description:

To help with the creation of laboratory exercises for various psychology courses/labs. Many of the exercises require computer programming to set up.

Qualifications:

  • At minimum, a course in computer programming
  • The willingness to learn more about programming
  • Comfortable with working with equipment (e.g. computers, physiological sensors)
  • Strong desire to learn
  • Strong attention to detail
  • Ability to commit 15 hours per week
  • Organized and efficient worker

Duties/Responsibilities:

Work with various professors in the Psychology Dept. Projects include:

  • Using Python to synchronize eye-tracking measures with heart rate measures.
  • Computer programming of experiments for class demonstrations that involve showing timed images and words on the screen that require a response via key press and record accuracy and reaction time.
  • To update a piece of stand-alone software that (a) plays pre-recorded video (e.g., 3-5 min) in various formats, (b) collects input from the keyboard up/down arrows once-per-second during video playback to produce numbers (ratings of emotion) from -5 to +5 that are tied to the video in real time so each rating of emotion has a timestamp, (c) output the numbers and the timestamp in an Excel file and (d) produce a bitmap graph of the ratings. This software will be used to teach the principles of dynamic systems, applied to human communication.

Learning Outcomes:

  • Primarily, how to put your programming skills to good use. How to build applications.
  • Time Management/Organizational Skills
  • Technical Skills [interfacing various data acquisition devices (e.g. eye-trackers and heart rate machines) with computers].

15 hours/week for 10 weeks

How to apply: Forward a cover letter and resume to:  work_study@cbu.ca

Application Deadline: Thursday, January 30th, 4pm.