Theses
Overview
Theses in the psychology of perception are fundamentally empirical in nature - i.e. you will collect data for a study and evaluate it independently. Depending on the topic, you have a permanent contact person who will accompany you through this process.
No programming knowledge is required if you want to complete your thesis in our department. The experiments are programmed by us and the data will be prepared in such a way that they can be analyzed in SPSS by students. If you are explicitly interested in getting involved in programming or in analyzing the data with your own scripts in R, Matlab, or Python, we are also happy to support you.
Our employees have different expertise and we use various methods. If one of our research topics has aroused your interest, please contact the respective contact person on the studies page - there are often small follow-up studies that are suitable for both bachelor's and master's theses. You will also find a list of current and concrete projects here.
Current projects
We have multiple topics and projects for thesises. Below you can see the current list of projects for the summer semester 2022 (last updated 08.22).
| Topic | B.Sc. / M.Sc. | Contact |
| Sensory attenuation describes the attenuation of self-generated stimuli compared to externally generated stimuli. One's own touch is therefore perceived less strongly than externally generated stimuli. Our experiment aims to investigate the influence of intentional actions on the effect of sensory attenuation. We use a virtual reality set-up for this. Bachelor's theses can start immediately (including experimental data collection). | B.Sc. / M.Sc. | Saskia Johnen |
| People are quite precise when it comes to focusing on a target stimulus using rapid eye movements (saccades). It turns out that saccadic adaptation (unconscious changes in the execution of saccades) affects visual perception performance. But what happens if the target stimulus is inaccurate and the saccade is therefore planned less precisely? How does an inaccurate saccade in the previous trial affect perception performance in the current trial? Are there differences between people with high vs. low autistic traits? The eye movements are measured using eye tracking. The thesis can start immediately. Supervision is only available in English. | B.Sc. / M.Sc | Antonella Pomé |
| Students can study the physiological principles of movement in relation to perception, such as the phenomena of gating and attenuation. These processes are analyzed using advanced techniques such as EEG, eye tracking and haptic devices. What happens when these mechanisms are disrupted or do not work as expected? What impact does this have on perception and motor control? Are there differences in performance in people with different neurological or sensory profiles? The thesis can be started immediately. Supervision is only available in English. | B.Sc. / M.Sc | Pierangelo Nicolás D'Onfrio Pacheco |
| Projects to investigate visual stability in eye movements involve combining eye tracking and psychophysical tasks. This will allow us to investigate the mechanism that allows human observers to perceive the external world as stationary despite the movements of their own visual receptors. New experiments will focus in particular on intra-saccadic habituation to predictable movements to explain transsaccadic visual stability. The experiments will be designed to compare the predictions of this theory with those of competing theories. Supervision is available in English only. | B.Sc. / M.Sc | Umberto Calleri |