The Alan Turing Institute is offering postgraduate students the opportunity to attend an online “Research Software Engineering with Python” course between 17 – 28 January 2022. The course is open to students who are interested in learning how to construct reliable, readable, efficient research software in a collaborative environment. There is no cost for the course if you are selected to take part, so if you would like to apply for a place and/or find out more information about the course, please see the following link: https://www.eventsforce.net/turingevents/frontend/reg/thome.csp?pageID=50389&ef_sel_menu=733&eventID=152

The next programme will take place online on the 19th, 21st, 26th and 28th January 2022 and is aimed towards masters, PhD, post-doctoral and early career researchers working in any area of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, including life sciences and healthcare. Each workshop focuses on a different topic which include:

• Enhancing impact from your research
• Exploring creative applications for your research
• Refining your communication skills
• Identifying markets and opportunities
• Considering first steps towards commercialisation

Contact: Tim Francis

Mina Jevtović from The Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language will be giving a talk titled Gepo with a G or Jepo with a J? Generating orthographic representations in the absence of orthography (abstract below).

Abstract:

Research conducted on English-speaking children and adults shows that preliminary orthographic representations (i.e., orthographic skeletons) are generated solely from aural exposure to novel words (Wegener et al., 2018). In this talk I will present two studies that further investigated this account by testing whether skilled readers generate orthographic skeletons for all spoken words they acquire, or do so only when they are certain that these will match the novel words’ actual spellings. To that end, Spanish (transparent orthography) and French (opaque orthography) skilled readers first learned novel words through aural training and were then presented with their spellings in a short self-paced reading task. Importantly, novel words were presented in their unique (i.e., consistent words) or one of the two possible spellings (i.e., preferred and unpreferred inconsistent words). Both Spanish and French participants read consistent and inconsistent words presented in their preferred spellings faster than inconsistent words presented in their unpreferred spellings. These findings thus expand the orthographic skeleton account by showing that initial orthographic representations are generated even when there is uncertainty regarding novel words’ spellings. Moreover, they show that orthographic skeletons are generated across languages that vary in the degree of sound-to-spelling inconsistency. Future research will explore the nature of the orthographic skeleton effect by testing whether preliminary orthographic representations are generated as an automatic response to novel phonological input, or whether generating them represents a strategy employed by participants that facilitates the acquisition of novel spoken words.

Organised by: Marta Wesierska

Email for teams link: marta.wesierska@warwick.ac.uk