From June 27 to July 1, a week of training was held in Ferrara, Italy, within the framework of the European network of innovative training Marie Skłodowska-Curie COBRA. This was the 4th training session of the network, following those organized by the academic partners in Bratislava, Aix-Marseille and Edinburgh. It offered doctoral students from the network the possibility of following a series of courses given by Stefan Benus (Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava) on alignment between speakers in conversation, by Leonardo Lancia (LPP, Paris 3) on the mathematical analysis of time series in inter-individual interactions, and by Delphine Potdevin and Sébastien Biaudet (DAVI, Puteaux) on conversational agents.

In addition, a hackathon led by Thierry Legou (LPL) allowed doctoral students to familiarize themselves with the Arduino open platform for rapid prototyping of programmable interactive electronic objects. Thierry Legou notably offered an overview of the possibilities proposed by the Arduino platform in the field of on-board sensors. One of the demonstrations presented consisted in building and programming a device allowing the collection of physiological signals thanks to a sensor attached to an electronic card and a micro-controller. This kind of device is usable in studies on social interactions in natural situations.

Appointment was given to the participants for the 5th training session, jointly organized by Susanne Fuchs (Leibniz-Zentrum Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft), Christine Mooshammer (Humboldt-Universität) and Friedemann Pulvermüller (Freie Universität) in Berlin in March 2023.

ITN MSCA COBRA: www.conversationalbrains.eu

Research blog: www.cobra-network.eu/research-blog

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Photo credits: COBRA Network