If you are interested in working in the lab for your MA or PhD, click here to learn more about the psycholinguistics community at the University of Toronto, and here to learn about graduate programs in Linguistics. You are also welcome to email Dr. Heller.
If you are an undergraduate student at U of T interested in linguistics, psychology or cognitive science, you may wish to consider getting involved with research in the lab. There are two primary ways to get involved:
Coursework. Depending on your background and year of study, you can sign up for a research-based course.
- Second-year students are eligible to apply for ROP299Y. ROP299Y is a 1FCE, and runs either September to April or May-August. Click here to see if Dr. Heller is offering one this year.
- Fourth-year students can apply for LIN499 Independent study (either .5FCE or 1FCE): this opportunity is targeted at LIN, PSY or COG majors and specialists. Email Dr. Heller if you are interested.
Work opportunities. The lab usually employs one or two undergraduate students as paid research assistants. Our experimental participants engage in games, and we either record their eye movements to examine their comprehension or record their speech to examine language production (or both). The population we test is adults, and we so we usually test U of T students on campus. Many studies test English speakers, but some studies target other languages as well. Research assistants prepare auditory stimuli for experiments (e.g., using Praat), prepare visual stimuli for experiment (e.g., using Photoshop), test adult participants, transcribe conversations and code a variety of data. Sometimes paid positions are available as part of the Work-Study program.