Cognitive and Biological Psychology

Research of our unit focuses on issues in Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience. Using methods of Biological and Experimental Psychology, processes and architectures of voluntary and involuntary attention, (auditory, visual, and audio-visual) perception, (working) memory, learning, emotion, language and judgment are investigated in healthy adults and in children. Our research follows an human information processing approach and emphasizes the predictive nature of our mental system. The laboratory's equipment has been selected to meet this goal.

• [2022-12-06] We congratulate our former researcher Dr. Maria Viktoria Stuckenberg who was awarded the Katharina Windscheid Prize a week ago. She received the prize as a member of the Graduate Centre Life Sciences - International Max Planck Research School NeuroCom for her dissertation "Preceding visual information modulates auditory information processing: A crossmodalprediction view" under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Erich Schröger.
• [2022-04-27] Prof Dr Erich Schröger, head of the working group has been awarded the Werner Heisenberg Medal by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. He received the award in recognition of his special services in promoting international scientific cooperation. An article by the University of Leipzig on the award can be found in German on the university's news portal.
• Higher-level associations applied in a top-down manner are involved in the elicitation of the prediction error signal reflected by the Incongruency Response (IR). We demonstrate that contextual aspects are necessary to generate these higher-level associations. Please see “Cross-modal predictive processing depends on context rather than local contingencies” by Tjerk T. Dercksen, Maria V. Stuckenberg, Erich Schröger, Nicole Wetzel and Andreas Widmann (Psychophysiology) for details.
• [2021-01-28] What happens if a visual cue misleads auditory expectations? We demonstrate that the thereby elicited Incongruency Response (IR) reflects a sensorial prediction error signal. Please see „Modulation of early auditory processing by visual information: Prediction or bimodal integration?“ by Maria V. Stuckenberg, Erich Schröger and Andreas Widmann (Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics) for details.
• [2020-12-03] According to a study by Ioannidis et al. ( Ioannidis JPA, Boyack KW, Baas J (2020) Updated science-wide author databases of standardized citation indicators. PLoS Biol 18(10): e3000918) Erich Schröger belongs to the worldwide most cited scientists (top 2 promille) across all disciplines.
• [2020-03-20] Dear students, since physical attendance of courses during the beginning of the summer semester 2020 is not an option, we will provide our course content in electronic form. For specific information on access and modalities, please click on the tab "Lehre" of the according modules. You will also be informed via your student email account. In spite of the current situation our aim is to provide high quality teaching as well as to avoid any disadvantages for our students.
• [2020-01-17] During memorization of pictures, changes in pupil diameter can predict later successful recognition in children aged 8-9 and adults. During retrieval, novel pictures showed stronger pupil constriction than familiar pictures (Wetzel, Einhäuser, & Widmann, in press. Picture-Evoked Changes in Pupil Size Predict Learning Success in Children, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology)
• [2020-01-16] Prof. Erich Schröger is appointed to the Commission of the Elite Network of Bavaria. From January 2020 on, he is one of 14 members of the Commission selecting and evaluating the Elite Graduate Programs, the International Doctorate Programs as well as the International Junior Research Groups.
• [2020-01-14] The Univerity of Leipzig science podcast „Auf einen Kaffee mit ...“ has Elisabeth Krollpfeiffer speaking with Prof. Erich Schröger about his research on attention, memory and fascinating experiments.