Bachelor and Master Theses

If you are interested in doing your BSc or MSc thesis in the Experimental Cognitive Science group, please do the following:

• Have a look at our research page, where we give an overview of our current research topics.
• Attend our colloquium (please feel free to come only to those sessions that are of most interest to you).
• Contact our group members to discuss potential topics. Best would be right after one of our colloquium sessions, but you can also contact us via email, of course.

Sometimes we also have very specific ideas for BSc/MSc theses and list them below. Note, however, that this list is not exhaustive and you still can approach our group members for potential (additional) topics.

Previous research investigated how accurately humans can discriminate the size of different objects. We found that accuracy of size estimation (manually with the finger and thumb) is quite low, but the accuracy of judging the size as 'small' or 'large' is higher. Now we want to investigate accuracy in matching the size to a stimulus by adjusting the size of a comparison stimulus. How is the size discrimination accuracy influenced when participants can respond on a continuous adjustment scale vs. a binary small/large response? This BSc thesis will involve programming an experiment in MATLAB, collecting data and conducting statistical analyses in R. Details about our current and previous work on related topics can be found here: Two visual systems or one?. The project is supervised by Kriti Bhatia. If you are interested in this topic, please send an email with a short description of your background and interests.

When people observe a sequence of sounds or visual patterns, they learn the underlying regularities and generate expectations. When these expectations are violated (e.g., in transitions such as ABCABC → CCCCC), the pupil dilates; reflecting a phasic arousal response. This project aims to investigate if pupil reveals a window on sequence processing of individuals. You will work with an eye-tracker and collect data of pupil size and gaze locations, preprocess and analyze pupil size recordings using python, and use statistical analyses to quantify individual differences in response patterns. You can find the details about this line of research here: Can eyes be surprised? The project is supervised by Hamit Basgol. Send an email if you are interested in!

This is an external BSc thesis (or lab rotation), which could be held in the lab of Prof. M. Giese. Please find here more information.