Knowledge is exchanged in almost every form of interpersonal communication: People share their knowledge to signal support, they communicate their views and judgements to highlight their position or to persuade others. The process of knowledge exchange is of increased importance in situations that heavily rely on cognitive processes, such as team problem solving in companies or group learning settings in schools. Digital technologies can provide opportunities to support knowledge exchange between group members in various ways. They may provide a channel for knowledge exchange (e.g. e-mails, e-conferences, etc.) in spatially distributed teams and thus enable communication across time and space. Alternatively, digital technologies can shape face-to-face communication within a team to facilitate knowledge exchange. By providing tools to highlight how knowledge is distributed between team members, the technology allows a targeted communication about knowledge gaps or may display "bits of knowledge" to establish common ground in the group more quickly.

The Knowledge Exchange Lab explores this field both in basic and applied research. Some areas of interest in basic research are: What kinds of knowledge do people use and communicate? How is knowledge exchange processed in the cognitive system? Which cognitive functions can be supported by digital technologies? How can digital technologies help to prevent biases in cognitive systems? Based on these questions, scenarios are derived to develop and apply digital technologies for knowledge exchange processes, e.g., to enhance group decisions and group problem solving. The processes of knowledge exchange differ with regard to the spatial distribution of the participants; hence the research is guided by two main foci: Knowledge exchange in spatially distributed teams and knowledge exchange in face-to-face teams.