Dr. Katharina Schwarz

E-Mail: mail@kaschwarz.net
Raum: JU3.130
Tel.: +49 651 201-1870

Termine nur nach Vereinbarung via E-Mail.

Research Interests

I am interested in how human agents perceive control for their actions and these actions' consequences and how this relates to authorship assumptions (was that me?) and perceived responsibility (am I responsible?), especially in social situations, complex and/or dynamic environments.

I am especially interested in how such perceived control relates to action motivation and, consequently, action selection of future actions, and how this affects such global and individual concerns as sustainability behaviour, engagement in political landscapes, mental health, and stress.

Aside from these main topics, I’m interested in perception-action interactions, expectancy effects, history of psychology, and research methods.

My research follows Open Science principles, including preregistrations, openly providing analyses scripts, and providing anonymized raw data if not precluded by data protection considerations. All student work supervised by me (i.e., Bachelor and Master theses) also follows these principles.

Extracurriculars

Reconciling family life with a scientific career is still not that easy.

Together with a group of other psychological researchers, I have started a blog answering frequent questions regarding life as both, researcher and parent. Is a conference the right place to bring your family? How can (and frequently do) days look like when you have kid duty but also need to write this article (damn it)? Find experience reports on these and more questions on https://parenthesis-blog.de (unfortunately, only in German).

Public Outreach

Radio:

Print Media:

FAZ
Men’s Health (Australia)
Geo Wissen
MDK Forum
Vice Magazine (USA)

Video:

Interview as part of the Youtube channel “Moral Saurus” by Dr. Andrew Vonash (University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand)

Biographical Sketch

since 05/2024	Principal Investigator at Trier University
12/2022-03/2023	Visiting Fellow at the School of Psychology, Speech, and Hearing of the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
09/2018-04/2024	Principal Investigator at the University of Würzburg
09/2015-08/2018	Post-Doc at the University of Würzburg (Prof. Wilfried Kunde); focus: Cognitive Psychology
01/2011-06/2015	PhD at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (Prof. Christian Büchel); focus: Systems Neuroscience
08/2010-11/2010	Visiting Researcher at the Massachusetts institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
10/2004-03/2010	Diploma Studies in Biology at the University of Würzburg (focus: Neurobiology, Biological Psychology, Genetics) and at the Umeå Universitet, Sweden (focus: Tumour Biology)
Career Breaks:	altogether 30 months of maternity leave and parental leave between 2014 and 2020 (3 children)

Journal Articles

2023/2024/ in press

35	Pfister, R., Schwarz, K. A., Holzmann, P., Reis, M., Yogeeswaran, K., & Kunde, W. (2023). Headlines win elections: Mere exposure to fictitious news media alters voting behavior. PLOS ONE. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0289341	OSF
34	Reis, M., Pfister, R., & Schwarz, K. A. (2023). The value of control. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making. https://doi.org/10.1002/bdm.2325	OSF
33	Schwarz, K. A., Tonn, S., Büttner, J., Kunde, W., & Pfister, R. (2023). Sense of agency in social hierarchies. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 152(10), 2957-2976. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001426	OSF
32	Schwarz, K. A., & Weller, L. (2023). Distracted to a fault - Attention, actions, and time perception. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 85, 301-314. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-022-02632-x	OSF

2021/2022

31	Foerster, A., Steinhauser, M., Schwarz, K. A., Kunde, W., & Pfister, R. (2022). Error cancellation. Royal Society Open Science, 9(3). https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.210397	OSF
30	Schwarz, K. A., Klaffehn, A. L., Hauke-Forman, N., Muth, F. V., & Pfister, R. (2022). Never run a changing system: Action-effect contingency shapes prospective agency. Cognition, 229, 105250. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105250	OSF
29	Pfister, R., Tonn, S., Weller, L., Kunde, W., & Schwarz, K. A. (2021). To prevent means to know: Explicit but no implicit agency for prevention behavior. Cognition, 206, 104489. (* equal author contribution) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104489	OSF
28	Tonn, S., Pfister, R., Klaffehn, A. L., Weller, L., Schwarz, K. A. (2021). Two faces of temporal binding: Action- and effect-binding are not correlated. Consciousness and Cognition, 96, 103219. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2021.103219	OSF

2019/2020

27	Weller, L., Schwarz, K. A., Kunde, W., & Pfister, R. (2020). Something from nothing: Agency for deliberate nonactions. Cognition, 104136, 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2019.104136	OSF
26	Pfister, R., Wirth, R., Weller, L., Foerster, A., & Schwarz, K. A. (2019). Taking shortcuts: Cognitive conflict during motivated rule-breaking. Journal of Economic Psychology, 71, 138-147. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joep.2018.06.005	OSF
25	Schwarz, K. A., Sprenger, C., Hidalgo, P., Pfister, R., Diekhof, E. K., & Büchel, C. (2019). How stereotypes affect pain. Scientific Reports. 9, 8626. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-45044-y
24	Schwarz, K. A., Weller, L., Klaffehn, A. L., & Pfister, R. (2019). The effects of action choice on temporal binding, agency ratings, and their correlation. Consciousness and Cognition, 75, 102807. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2019.102807	OSF
23	Schwarz, K. A., Weller, L., Pfister, R., & Kunde, W. (2019). Connecting action control and agency: Does action-effect binding affect temporal binding? Consciousness and Cognition, 76, 102833. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2019.102833	OSF

2017/2018

22	Klaffehn, A. L., Schwarz, K. A., Kunde, W., & Pfister, R. (2018). Similar task-switching performance of real-time strategy and first-person shooter players: Implications for cognitive training. Journal of Cognitive Enhancement, 2(3), 240-258. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41465-018-0066-3	OSF
21	Pfister, R., & Schwarz, K. A. (2018). Should we pre-date the beginning of scientific psychology to 1787? Frontiers in Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 9, 2481. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02481
20	Schwarz, K. A., Burger, S., Dignath, D., Kunde, W., & Pfister, R. (2018). Action-effect binding and agency. Consciousness and Cognition, 65, 304-309. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2018.10.001	OSF
19	Schwarz, K. A., Pfister, R., Kluge, M., Weller, L., & Kunde, W. (2018). Do we see it or not? Sensory attenuation in the visual domain. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 147(3), 418-430. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000353	OSF
18	Schwarz, K.A., Pfister, R., Wirth, R., & Kunde, W. (2018). Dissociating action-effect activation and effect-based response selection. Acta Psychologica, 188, 16-24. (* = equal author contribution) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2017.10.007	OSF
17	Weller, L., Schwarz, K. A., Kunde, W., & Pfister, R. (2018). My mistake? Enhanced error processing for commanded compared to passively observed actions. Psychophysiology. https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.13057
16	Jusyte, A., Pfister, R., Mayer, S. V., Schwarz, K. A., Wirth, R., Kunde, W., & Schönenberg, M. (2017). Smooth criminal: Convicted rule-breakers show reduced cognitive conflict during deliberate rule violations. Psychological Research, 81(5), 939-946. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-016-0798-6
15	Muth, F. V., Schwarz, K. A., Kunde, W., & Pfister, R. (2017). Feeling watched: What determines perceived observation? Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice, 4(3), 298-309. https://doi.org/10.1037/cns0000127	OSF
14	Pfister, R., Schwarz, K. A., Wirth, R., & Lindner, I. (2017). My command, my act: Observation inflation in face-to-face interactions. Advances in Cognitive Psychology, 13(2), 166-176. https://10.5709/acp-0268-8	OSF
13	Schwarz, K. A., Pfister, R., & Büchel, C. (2017). The Being a Patient effect: Negative expectations based on group labeling and corresponding treatment affect patient performance. Psychology, Health & Medicine, 23(1), 99-105. https://doi.org/10.1080/13548506.2017.1332375
12	Weller, L., Schwarz, K. A., Kunde, W., & Pfister, R. (2017). Was it me? - Filling the interval between action and effects increases agency but not sensory attenuation. Biological Psychology, 123, 241-249. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2016.12.015

2015/2016

11	Schwarz, K. A., Pfister, R., & Büchel, C. (2016). Rethinking explicit expectations: Connecting placebos, social cognition, and contextual perception. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 20(6), 469-480. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2016.04.001	PDF
10	Holtfrerich, S. K. C., Schwarz, K. A., Sprenger, C., Reimers, L., & Diekhof, E. K. (2016). Endogenous testosterone and exogenous oxytocin modulate attentional processing of infant faces. PLoS ONE, 11(11), e0166617. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0166617
9	Pfister, R., Wirth, R., Schwarz, K. A., Foerster, A., Steinhauser, M., & Kunde, W. (2016). The electrophysiological signature of deliberate rule violations. Psychophysiology, 53, 1870-1877. https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.12771
8	Pfister, R., Wirth, R., Schwarz, K. A., Steinhauser, M., & Kunde, W. (2016). Burdens of non-conformity: Motor execution reveals cognitive conflict during deliberate rule violations. Cognition, 147, 93-99. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2015.11.009
7	Schwarz, K. A., & Pfister, R. (2016). Scientific psychology in the 18th century: a historical rediscovery. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 11(3), 399-407. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691616635601
6	Schwarz, K. A., & Büchel, C. (2015). Cognition and the placebo effect - Dissociating subjective perception and actual performance. PLoS ONE, 10(7), e0130492. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0130492

2014 and before

5	Wieser, M. J., Gerdes, A., Büngel, I., Schwarz, K. A., Mühlberger, A., & Pauli, P. (2014) Not so harmless anymore: How context impacts the perception and electrocortical processing of neutral faces. NeuroImage 93, 74-82. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2014.01.022
4	Pfister, R., Schwarz, K. A., Janczyk, M., Dale, R., & Freeman, J. B. (2013). Good things peak in pairs: A note on the bimodality coefficient. Frontiers in Quantitive Psychology and Measurement, 4, 700. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00700
3	Pfister, R., Schwarz, K. A., Carson, R., & Janczyk, M. (2013). Easy methods for extracting individual regression slopes: Comparing SPSS, R, and Excel. Tutorials in Quantitative Methods for Psychology, 9(2), 72-78. https://doi.org/10.20982/TQMP.09.2.P072
2	Schwarz, K. A., Wieser, M.J., Gerdes A. B. M., Mühlberger, A., & Pauli, P. (2013). Why are you looking like that? How the context influences evaluation and processing of human faces. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 8, 438-445. https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nss013
1	Pfister, R., Schwarz, K. A., & Janczyk, M. (2012). Ubi irritatio, ibi affluxus: A 19th century perspective on haemodynamic brain activity. Cortex, 48(8), 1061-1063. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2012.05.006

Books, Book Chapters

Pfister, R., Foerster, A., Schwarz, K. A., & Wirth, R. (2014). Lässt sich ein guter Hochstapler als solcher entlarven? Wenn ja: Wie? In W. Schwanebeck (Eds.), Über Hochstapelei: Perspektiven auf eine kulturelle Praxis (pp 63-72). Berlin: Neofelis Verlag.