Fully funded PhD: Learning to Talk in a Noisy World: Experimental Tests in Immersive Environments

Unfortunately, due to financial limitations, we cannot accept international applications for this PhD unless you are self-funding.

About the Project

A funded PhD position is available to understand why background noise disrupts language interactions between children and their caregivers. Children learn to talk through back-and-forth exchanges with their caregivers, and these interactions often unfold within environments filled with sounds from television, media devices, and overlapping conversations. Research shows that background noise is associated with reductions in infants’ vocalizations and caregivers’ speech in real time, highlighting how everyday environments can shape social interactions and language learning. However, the underlying mechanisms explaining the association remain poorly understood.

This PhD project aims to move beyond correlational evidence by developing an experimental framework in lab-based immersive environments to investigate how background noise affects:

• Infant–caregiver language interactions
• Infant arousal and attention
• Neural processing of speech

By integrating levels of analysis, the project will provide a mechanistic account of how moment-to-moment disruptions in noisy settings may scale to affect language development, with implications for theories of early learning as well as for optimizing children’s everyday environments.

The University and ISEY

The PhD will be based at The Institute for the Science of Early Years and Youth (ISEY), at the Stratford Campus of The University of East London. This research institute is led by Sam Wass, and the PhD will be supervised by Catalina Suarez-Rivera and Ira Marriott Haresign. The successful candidate would be working within a wider team of 20 researchers at ISEY but would be the only researcher working on this specific project. This means there is some scope for the PhD candidate to contribute to shaping the project focus and design.

Knowledge exchange and dissemination will be a key part of this PhD, and the successful candidate will be expected to share project findings and associated research with early years practitioners as part of the training and development services that ISEY offers. This role is especially suitable for someone passionate about bridging the gap between research and practice and translating research for a non-scientific audience. This may involve writing articles for educator-facing publications, attending early years events, and running online and face-to-face training. Support will be given in these areas.

Requirements

The PhD candidate must have a first or upper second-class undergraduate honours degree and preferably a Masters in a discipline relevant to the project. While we expect that this project would suit graduates from a psychology background, we are happy to receive applications from a range of backgrounds that have potential to enhance the project.

• A demonstrable understanding and passion for psychological research is essential.
• Experience working with children is highly desirable.
• Familiarity with head-mounted eye-tracking and EEG is also highly desirable, as is experience with programming and data analysis tools.
• This PhD will involve advanced quantitative data analysis.
• Successful applicants should have an interest in language development, parent-child interactions, multimodal communication, attention, arousal, and EEG.

Whilst some remote work is possible, the successful candidate will need to be willing to be based at the ISEY lab in Stratford, London for at least 50% of the time. During data collection periods, PhD students may need to be in London every day.

Please note that we are only able to consider applicants who would be classified as UK/home students (including UK nationals and those with settled or pre-settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme).

Funding and Schedule

The PhD will start in September 2026 or January 2027. Funding covers:

• Tuition fees (approx £5-8k per year).
• A stipend set at the ESRC/UKRI rate for London Universities (£22,780 p.a) if studying full time.

Part-time study is based on 0.6 FTE, and the stipend will be adjusted accordingly (£13,668), lasting for up to 5 years.