Our department research
The research conducted at Cognitive Psychology unit focusses on a whole range of basic psychological processes.
Specifically, we are interested in processes that concern Attention, Perception, Actions, and Memory:
Selective Attention
How do humans ignore distractors?
Which cognitive processes allow us to ignore irrelevant information?
Binding of Stimuli and Distractors to Responses
How do stimulus-response bindings and distractor-response bindings modulate action processes?
We postulate that selective attention and bindings make human action control efficient.
Starting in 2019, the German Research Council (DFG) founds the Research Unit Binding and Retrieval in Action Control.
Memory
For example, how does memorizing certain information potentially block processing of other memorisable content?
The research conducted here is related to the DFG priority program SPP1921 Intentional Forgetting in Organizations.
Perception and Processing of Multisensory Information
How are visual, auditory, and tactile stimuli combined to elicit a final, multisensory percept?
Does the presentation of a tactile and/ or auditory stimulus interfere with the processing of a visual stimulus?
Psychobiology of Stress
Are there causal relationships between biological stress factors and psychological processes?
The research conducted here is part of the University Research Program Psychobiology of Stress.
The influence of Self-Relevance and Emotion on Attention, Perception and Memory
How does the self-relevance of a stimulus, in other words the meaning of a stimulus for a particular person, influence the processing of it?
What is behind the cocktail-party effect: Does self-relevance guide our attention similar to, for example, highly negative stimuli?
Ergonomics
How can the findings of basic research be applied in more applied settings, e.g., in ergonomics?
For example, based on our findings in attentional and binding processes, we try to optimize human-machine interactions in the car.
Want more?
Feel free to take a look at the individual research interests and publications of our team or visit our weekly colloquium (during the semester).
You are interested in an internship or writing your bachelor`s or master`s thesis on one of these topics? Feel free to contact us (noncommittal) and/or visit our information for students.
You are interested in participating in our experiments? Click here to find out how to sign up.
Research Unit 2790 Binding and Retrieval in Action Control
‚Action‘ is probably the most significant outcome human cognition produces. Through actions humans interact with their environment – including other humans.
We are an international group of cognitive psychologists investigating the cognitive processes underlying human action and are funded by the German Research Foundation.
https://brac-psy.de/ (external page)