In times of fake news, it is particularly important to understand when and why people may believe in unconfirmed or suspected information. Here, we address the question of how people deal with possible causal explanations (e.g. in news headlines), that are – up to today - unexplained. When are (confirmed) facts being valued and treated differently than mere suspicions? And when do different stages of certainty of explanations may become blurred?
Information for example in museum contexts often is presented in immersive digital environments. The project examines the influence of these rooms on basic cognitive aspects of perception and information processing: Is there a difference in viewing duration or the subjective flow of time in rooms of varying size? And do the rooms influence the processing of information presented in these environments?
The aim of this knowledge transfer project is to draw on empirical evidence to design and implement a prototypical exhibition space in the Deutsches Museum, where museum visitors can encounter conflicting information on a current science topic. In addition, an evidence-based, practice-oriented wiki on the subject of presenting conflicting information in museums and exhibitions will be developed.
As part of the "DigiMat" project, scientists from the fields of cultural studies, psychology and materials science are working together to combine digital imaging with physical-chemical analysis of historical museum artifacts in order to create new levels of perception and interaction between museum visitors and the exhibits. The assumption of digital imaging is that it can make new and otherwise hidden information about the respective exhibition objects accessible to the museum visitor.
How do different ways of visualization of the spatial distribution of animal species affect the acquisition of competence and knowledge as well as the citizen science commitment? The project "Experience biodiversity" is investigating this question. To this end, we develop an online portal that offers citizen scientists extended possibilities for analysing and evaluating their data on bird sightings.
The project examines the influence of acoustic and semantic audio-text characteristics such as the position of the audio information in the room, speech characteristics, personalization and naming of depicted content on the text-picture processing.
The DFG-project "Influence of spoken text on cognitive processing of complex pictorial presentations" examines the influence of audio information texts on cognitive processing of art works as can be found in television documentaries or museums and exhibitions.
The project 'Learning with 3D reconstructions' examines the influence of visual and auditive types of presentations on cognitive processing of archaeological 3D reconstructions and concentrates, among other things, on the depiction of uncertain information.
Human observers tend to perceive simple geometric shapes that move spatio-temporarilly coordinated as if they were alive (Heider & Simmel, 1944, The American Journal of Psychology, 57, 243-259). This phenomenon is called perceptual animacy. Although perceptual animacy has been studied for over 60 years, it has not yet been linked to other psychological concepts such as attention. This research gap arises from difficulties in quantifying animate impressions.
In most situations, human perception combines information from different modalities. Whereas recent research has highlighted that information streams from different modalities are capable of influencing each other, the formation of long-term memory representations from different modalities remains understudied. The central discussion within this field addresses the question whether information from different sensory modalities are integrated with each other and result in a joint representation (integration) or whether the distinct modalities are encoded and stored independently of each other (dual coding).
Multimodal information is capable of changing the perception and interpretation of visual events. For instance, a display that is perceived as two discs streaming past each other when presented in isolation switches to two discs bouncing of each other when a tone or a tactile stimulus coincides with the visual event. The theoretical explanation behind this phenomenon is controversial; cognitive (e.g. inferences) as well as perceptual explanations have been proposed within the literature.
How do readers acquire canonical texts? The project will develop a ReadingApp that provides a canon of literary texts in German and enables the analysis of reading data. The results can be relevant for the practice fields of school, university and museums.
Artificial intelligence-based applications, especially deep learning techniques, allow the manipulation of visual and auditory information. In the context of knowledge acquisition, these technological developments offer the potential to personalize learning materials and optimize their utility. Aim of the project is to investigate the extent to which aligning the tutor with the learner influences the learning process.
While current theories on learning in multimedia learning environments concentrate on visual and auditory access, this dissertation project focuses on a different sensory approach to learning content: The haptics and haptic exploration of physical objects. Thus, the extent to which this haptic experience - in combination with visual impressions - influences learning and the learning experience in informal learning environments, such as museums and exhibitions, is investigated.
The project „Visitors’ view on Obersalzberg“ focuses on two research questions: How can propaganda pictures get deconstructed? And how does the awareness of being in a historic place related to Nazi-history influence the perception, the processing and the judgements about associated pictures? Cooperation partner is the Institute for Contemporary History (Dokumentation Obersalzberg). Empiric findings are meant to flow into the realm of practice, the museum.
Places of remembrance linked to the history of National Socialism (NS, Nazi) are gaining importance during the last two decades. Obersalzberg is a place with references to the Nazi-regime and was used as a setting for Nazi-propaganda. Today an educational center about history and politics is located there. The project is divided into two thematic blocks: on the one hand the deconstruction of propaganda, on the other the impact of historical places.
A first experimental study already showed that prior information about the crimes that happened during the time of NS as well as the awareness of being at a place linked to that history had a negative influence on the personal mood. The negative personal mood in a next step influences the valence ratings of associated pictures. Within the project, both field studies and lab studies are conducted. Methodologically, a broad spectrum of objective (computer-based speech analyses, eye-tracking) and subjective measurements (questionnaires, rating scales) is used. Methods for the deconstruction of propaganda images are also investigated in virtual realities and with multi-touch surfaces.
The empiric findings are meant to build a basement for further psychological research as well as to get transferred to the conception of the new permanent exhibition of the Dokumentation Obersalzberg.
