October 30, 2025 at 3:45pm
Title: Belief, Conspiracy Theories and Uncertainty from a Cognitive Neuroscience Perspective
Speaker: Martin Fungisai Gerchen (Biological Psychology - ZI Mannheim; invited By Vera Eymann)
Abstract: Belief is a genuine psychological construct defined by William James as “the psychological process or function of cognizing reality” which nature has been debated in psychology and philosophy for several centuries, and more recently also in cognitive science and cognitive neuroscience. In the talk, I will present results from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies in which we applied the experimental procedure to present short statements from different domains to participants and let them rate their belief in the statements. While most effects appear to be general and are present over belief domains, we identified associations in the hippocampal formation that seem to be specific for the conspiracy theory domain. Further, our results emphasize a prominent role of uncertainty, or, more psychologically speaking, doubt, as a factor in human belief, which also appears to be connected to the levels of graded belief. Overall, our results add to the understanding of human belief by differentiating the involved subprocesses from a cognitive neuroscience perspective.
Location: RPTU - Campus Kaiserslautern, Building 57, Room 508
OR
Zoom Link: https://uni-kl-de.zoom-x.de/j/61441414848?pwd=yQR2uvJkI5YnSJCQxY8TQaucEz2qXP.1
November 6, 2025 at 3:45pm
Title: Solo and duet: Neural bases of music production
Speaker: Daniela Sammler (Neurocognition of Music und Language - MPI for Empirical Aesthetics Frankfurt; invited by Thomas Lachmann)
Abstract: Making music involves more than just striking the right keys of a piano or bowing the right strings of a violin. How does a musical idea turn into finger movements on the musical instrument? And how do musicians coordinate fingers, sounds, and multiple brains when they perform in groups? The present talk will explore behavioural and neural mechanisms of solo and duet performance in pianists using fMRI, fNIRS, and (dual) EEG. It will dissect the contribution of sensory and cognitive processes to motor control and interpersonal synchronization, reveal prefrontal gradients of musical action plans and their genre-dependency, and discuss mechanisms of prediction. Altogether, it will become clear that music production relies—beyond audio-motor loops—on a range of cognitive processes and neural networks tuned to coordinate brains, bodies, and performers.
Location: RPTU - Campus Kaiserslautern, Building 57, Room 508
OR
Zoom Link: https://uni-kl-de.zoom-x.de/j/61441414848?pwd=yQR2uvJkI5YnSJCQxY8TQaucEz2qXP.1
November 27, 2025 at 3:45pm
Title: Aging as a Subjective Process
Speaker: Fiona Rupprecht (Cognition and Developmental Lab RPTU - Landau; invited by Daniela Czernochowski)
Abstract: Aging cannot only be detected on the biological level, but is also perceived, evaluated, and acted upon subjectively. In particular, individuals often perceive aging in negative terms, focus on losses and struggle to see opportunities to take action and shape their own development. The talk will focus on our recently published framework on the interconnections between subjective and successful aging. That is, how subjective aging shapes (and is shaped) by health, physical and cognitive functioning, as well as continued engagement with life. Own research on the interconnections demonstrated in the framework will be showcased throughout.
Location: RPTU - Campus Kaiserslautern, Building 57, Room 508
OR
Zoom Link: uni-kl-de.zoom-x.de/j/61441414848
CANCELLED
January 15, 2026 at 3:45pm
Title: Learning, memory and cognitive control across the lifespan
Speaker: Yana Fandakova (Department of Psychology - Learning Brain Lab, Trier University; invited by Daniela Czernochowski)
Abstract: Ensuring efficient learning and memory is not an easy feat: we need to select what and how to learn, acquire new information so that it can be retrieved when needed, often in a new context or after prolonged periods of time. Cognitive control processes play a critical role for scaffolding learning and memory by monitoring and regulating information processing in line with current goals and task demands. These processes are implemented by a core set of frontal and parietal brain regions that undergo a relatively protracted development across childhood and adolescence, and decline in old age. I will first highlight work demonstrating that changes in monitoring and control across childhood and in old age contribute to individual differences in episodic memory. I will then outline ongoing work probing the neural basis of cognitive control development in children. Finally, I will discuss how curiosity contributes to learing across childhood and adolescence. Together, this work seeks to understand the mechanisms through which cognitive control processes and intrinsic motivation shape learning and memory development across the lifespan.
CANCELLED
January 22, 2026 at 3:45pm
Title: Using diachronic change to predict variation in heritage languages
Speaker: Sol Lago (Institute of Romance Languages and Literatures - Goethe Universtiy - Frankfurt; invited by Shanley Allen)
Abstract: Can processes of language change help explain variability in heritage languages? This talk addresses this question through two Romance phenomena: null objects in Portuguese and clitic doubling in Spanish. I present behavioral and eye-tracking evidence comparing heritage speakers of European Spanish and Portuguese with speakers of varieties that are diachronically more advanced with respect to these phenomena—Argentinian Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese. The experiments test whether the real-time processing profiles of heritage speakers mirror those observed in diachronically more advanced varieties. By integrating methods and perspectives from psycholinguistics and historical linguistics, the talk advances a different view of heritage language variability as part of broader trajectories of grammatical change.
Location: RPTU - Campus Kaiserslautern, Building 57, Room 508
OR
Zoom Link:
February 05, 2026 at 3:45pm
Title: Reflections on crossmodal correspondences
Speaker: Carlos Velasco (Experimental Psychology - Norwegian Businnes School; invited by Thomas Lachmann)
Abstract: Cross-modal correspondences refer to systematic associations between attributes across different sensory modalities, such as the pairing of high pitch with visual brightness or sweet taste with rounded shapes. Accumulated evidence indicates that these correspondences are typically relative rather than absolute, and that they can arise both from physically present stimuli and from linguistic or imagined representations. This talk examines the conceptual and empirical foundations of cross-modal correspondences, drawing on a fourfold taxonomy that distinguishes physiological, statistical, semantic, and affective sources. Two complementary perspectives are considered: a phenomenal view grounded in subjective experiences of similarity, and a behavioural response view operationalised through congruency effects in reaction time paradigms. The talk discusses several unresolved issues, including whether different forms of correspondence, such as quantitative versus qualitative and lower-level perceptual versus higher-level cognitive, rely on shared mechanisms, and how cross-modal correspondences can be distinguished from related phenomena such as synaesthesia and semantic congruence. Clarifying these issues is necessary to determine whether cross-modal correspondences constitute a coherent explanatory construct or a heterogeneous set of associative processes.
Location: RPTU - Campus Kaiserslautern, Building 57, Room 508
OR
Zoom Link: https://uni-kl-de.zoom-x.de/j/61441414848?pwd=yQR2uvJkI5YnSJCQxY8TQaucEz2qXP.1
Additional talk – please note the start time
February 17, 2026 at 3:30pm
Title: How do young children acquire and represent two languages?
Speaker: Kate Messenger (Lancaster University; invited by Shanley Allen)
Abstract: The field of language acquisition research aims to understand how children acquire and come to represent the properties of their native language/languages from the input that they receive. In this talk, I will explore bilingual children's acquisition of the grammar of two languages and I will present research that examines whether paradigms used primarily with monolingual learners from English-speaking backgrounds generalise to under-studied languages and bilingual populations. This research explores key questions in the study of language representation in bilinguals: is early knowledge verb-general and abstract and is grammatical knowledge shared across languages?
Location: RPTU - Campus Kaiserslautern, Building 57, Room 508