Research Group Evolutionary Cognition

Adaptations to environmental conditions and living conditions in the course of evolution have shaped the development and establishment of currently observable cognitive abilities of organisms. Against the background of phylogenetic development, the Research Group Evolutionary Cognition is concerned with the cognitive mechanisms of human behaviour.
For example, we are pursuing the questions of which mechanisms allow us to clearly interpret our environment and come to a consistent perception. We examine whether and how we can bundle cognitive processing resources to improve our perception and action. We want to know how language is interpreted as an expression of our thoughts in context and which brain structures are involved in this process. We are also interested in which features contribute to the aesthetic impression of an object. We investigate these questions with different experimental methods and use electrophysiological as well as imaging techniques, the measurement of eye movements and behavioural observations.