Blog 2022

Last week, I was able to experience once again what it means to think together topics in human factors research. The recipe is simple: Take a few psychologists together with a few engineers, spend an afternoon together with different technologies and the results are numerous ideas for future research topics. In addition to classical engineering topics the Chair of Mechatronics at the University of Duisburg-Essen lives and breathes the topic of Human Factors within their individual research focus. Many thanks to Maximilian Jarofka, Christian Hürten, Dr. Frédéric Etienne Kracht, Markus Nieradzik, Stephan Schweig, Verena Staab, Eva Gößwein, Maike Ramrath, Vanessa Böhmer, Leonie Bergerhausen and the DST - Development Centre for Ship Technology and Transport Systems for a great day. #future #research #university #engineers #humanfactors

This week we (Verena Staab, Eva Gößwein and I) had the plesure to visit our collegues from Transport Psychology at DTU in Copenhagen, Denmark. We presented our work on psychological aspects of interacting with highly automated technologies and spend one week at the DTU discussing different research themes and ideas in the field of Human Factors. Look forward to future collaborations and many thanks for hosting us.

We pitched something! And won something!

Our idea is about mental workload & measuring it through a new technology, we won 3rd place in the GUIDE Idea Contest 2022. Together with Pia Musebrink, Verena Staab and Eva Gößwein. You find our pitch online

In our project Cobotank we spend the last two days in Hamburg to get a first insight into the process flows of loading and unloading liquid goods. We are looking forward to the next steps. Many thanks to John Fischer from Hamburg Hafen Marketing for the organization.

You can access the book via the following link: Psychologie. The table of contents, the foreword and a reading sample are also available there.

Look forward to seeing you at my presentation on Tuesday, 2022-09-13 at 2pm at the main campus (N007).  Find my abstract: 52.DGPs-Kongress

Using digital media has become the most popular leisure activity for children and adolescents. The effects of digital media use on the developing brain and cognitive processes of children are subject to debate. Here, we examine the effect of digital media use on attention subdomains in children aged 6 to 10 years. In total, 77 children participated in the study. Read more: Children

With the drastic expansion of the games industry, psychological research is concerned with the question as to why certain genres might be more addictive than others. Besides specific games characteristics and motivational profiles of gamers, skills that are relevant to play certain games and genres might provide more insights for answering this question. An exploratory online survey was designed, asking for played genres, subjective relevance of required skills to play the game, gaming motives, and symptom severity. The analyses aimed at investigating which genres are associated with higher and lower symptoms of their players and the relationship between the relevance of skills required for certain genres and the symptom severity of players. Read more: Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking

Many thanks to Prof. Bernhard Schick and the whole team for this event. It was two days full of impressions of new technologies and insights into an impressive institute with great potential. See also: IFM (Insittute for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems and Connected Mobility).

The project aims at developing and testing a semi-automatic system for loading and unloading tankers using a collaborative robot ("cobot") in human-technology interaction. I am looking forward to an exciting 3 years in an interdisciplinary team.

It was a pleasure to speak at ICBA 2022 in Nottingham about Mindfulness Meditation and Neurofeedback in the context of behavioural addictions. They were enriching days full of of informative exchange and new impressions.

I am happy to be part of this interdisciplinary project. Together with the Hochschule Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences and the Chair of Mechatronics at the University of Duisburg-Essen, we are aiming to develop an optimal, hybrid on-demand solution for public transport in Krefeld and the surrounding area. Together with SWK MOBIL and the city of Krefeld, an approach is to be developed in which a wide range of user-oriented services for rural and urban areas can be created, which at the same time covers additional costs due to the increase in customers. Read more: BestMOD

Digital media defines modern childhood, but iths cognitive effects are unclear and hotly debated. We believe that studies with genetic data could clarify causal claims and correct for the typically unaccounted role of genetic predispositions. Here, we estimated the impact of different types of screen time (watching, socializing, or gaming) on childrens's intelligence while controlling for the confounding effects of genetic differences in cognition and socioeconomic status. We analyzed 9855 children from the USA who were part of the ABCD dataset with measures of intelligence at baseline (age 9-10) and after two years.  Read more: Scientific Reports