Re­search Groups

Head: Jacob En­gel­mann

With the long-​term goal of un­der­stand­ing neural mech­a­nisms in adap­tive sen­sory pro­cess­ing, re­search in the Ac­tive Sens­ing Group fo­cuses on the ac­tive elec­tric sen­sory sys­tem of weakly elec­tric fish.

Head: Jo­hanna Kißler

We study emo­tional pro­cess­ing in hu­mans and the un­der­ly­ing neural mech­a­nisms, es­pe­cially the com­mu­nica­tive as­pects of emo­tions.

Head: Thomas Her­mann

We de­velop in­tel­li­gent en­vi­ron­ments, smart in­ter­ac­tion ob­jects and at­ten­tive sys­tems with focus on mul­ti­modal in­ter­ac­tion and soni­fi­ca­tion for as­sis­tive ap­pli­ca­tions that help hu­mans in every­day life.

Head: Friederike Eyssel

We re­search so­cial psy­cho­log­i­cal as­pects of human-​machine-interaction and ex­plore de­ter­mi­nants and con­se­quences of gen­dered per­cep­tions and prej­u­dice.

Head: Volker Dürr

We work on the sen­sory con­trol of lo­co­mo­tion and ac­tive sens­ing. In our re­search, we com­bine meth­ods from neu­ro­bi­ol­ogy, be­hav­ioural phys­i­ol­ogy, neu­roin­fo­mat­ics and bioro­bot­ics.

Head: Mar­tina Hielscher-​Fastabend

We focus on di­ag­nos­tic meth­ods and ther­apy for lan­guage and speech dis­or­ders of neu­ro­log­i­cal ori­gin (apha­sia, dysarthria), lan­guage ac­qui­si­tion prob­lems as well as voice and com­mu­ni­ca­tion hand­i­caps in de­mand­ing con­texts.

Head: Christoph Kayser

We in­ves­ti­gate the phys­i­o­log­i­cal and com­pu­ta­tional mech­a­nism un­der­ly­ing sen­sory de­ci­sion mak­ing in the human brain. We par­tic­u­larly focus on mul­ti­sen­sory in­te­gra­tion and hear­ing.

Head: Se­bas­t­ian Wrede

We con­duct re­search on meth­ods, ar­chi­tec­ture and tool­chains for ef­fi­cient soft­ware en­gi­neer­ing and in­te­gra­tion of in­ter­ac­tive in­tel­li­gent sys­tems with ap­pli­ca­tions in ro­bot­ics and au­toma­tion.

Head: Ul­rich Rückert

Our main re­search ob­jec­tive is the sys­tem­atic de­sign of resource-​efficient mi­cro­elec­tronic com­po­nents for cog­ni­tive tech­ni­cal sys­tems.

Head: Klaus Neu­mann

The group deals with the in­tu­itive use of col­lab­o­ra­tive robot sys­tems in ma­nip­u­la­tion and as­sem­bly based on im­i­ta­tion learn­ing. In par­tic­u­lar, the focus is on re­con­fig­urable and mod­u­lar ro­bots, in­tel­li­gent prod­uct trans­porta­tion and their neural con­trol and reg­u­la­tion in safe in­ter­ac­tion with human pro­duc­tion work­ers.

Head: Sina Zarrieß

We de­velop and in­ves­ti­gate com­pu­ta­tional mod­els of lan­guage and lin­guis­tic phe­nom­ena in se­man­tics, prag­mat­ics, di­a­logue and mul­ti­modal com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Our re­search com­bines meth­ods from AI and lin­guis­tics to un­der­stand the prin­ci­ples and mech­a­nisms be­hind human com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

Head: Hen­drik Buschmeier

We are in­ves­ti­gat­ing com­pu­ta­tional mod­el­ling of the rep­re­sen­ta­tions, processes, and be­hav­iours un­der­ly­ing the human ca­pa­bil­ity for in­ter­act­ing in di­a­logue. In par­tic­u­lar, I am in­ter­ested in the issue of how a joint un­der­stand­ing can be achieved among au­tonomous con­ver­sa­tional agents (human or ar­ti­fi­cial).

Head: Kirsten Berthold

The group pri­mar­ily con­ducts re­search in the field of in­struc­tional psy­chol­ogy. The focus is on de­vel­op­ing computer-​based train­ing and learn­ing en­vi­ron­ments, which are ex­am­ined for ef­fec­tive­ness and ef­fi­ciency in lab­o­ra­tory and field ex­per­i­ments.

Head: Sab­rina Backs

The re­search fo­cuses on start-​ups, new busi­ness mod­els, knowl­edge trans­fer and the in­flu­ence of in­equal­i­ties, which are ex­am­ined in the con­text of In­dus­try 4.0.

Head: Oliver Bott

The ex­per­i­men­tal se­man­tics and prag­mat­ics group in Biele­feld fo­cuses on the se­man­tic and prag­matic in­ter­pre­ta­tion of com­plex mean­ing by ap­ply­ing meth­ods from psy­cholin­guis­tics. We in­ves­ti­gate the in­cre­men­tal con­struc­tion of mean­ing from the sen­tence to the dis­course level.

Head: David John­son

We aim to en­able human-​machine col­lab­o­ra­tion by en­hanc­ing both human and ma­chine ca­pa­bil­i­ties by putting human knowl­edge, needs, and un­der­stand­ing first in the de­sign of AI-​based sys­tems and in­ter­ac­tions. This in­cludes top­ics such as ex­plain­able AI (XAI) and AI-​assisted decision-​making in dig­i­tal health.

Head: Anna Lisa Vollmer

Our in­ter­dis­ci­pli­nary re­search fo­cuses on robot learn­ing in in­ter­ac­tion with un­ex­pe­ri­enced users,
adap­tiv­ity, trans­parency, and co-​construction, as well as so­cial ro­bot­ics em­ployed in health­care and med­i­cine.

Head: Ben­jamin Paaßen

We de­velop meth­ods to sup­port ma­chine learn­ing with human prior knowl­edge and, con­versely, ex­tract human knowl­edge from ma­chine learn­ing mod­els.

Head: Bar­bara Ham­mer

The re­search of the Ma­chine Learn­ing group (Ham­mer­Lab) cen­ters around key en­abling tech­nolo­gies for ma­chine learn­ing, its the­o­ret­i­cal foun­da­tions and ap­pli­ca­tions in di­verse areas such as bio­med­ical data analy­sis, in­dus­try 4.0 and re­silience of crit­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture.

Head: Britta Wrede

Based on a deep un­der­stand­ing of so­cial in­ter­ac­tion and human cog­ni­tion, we de­velop ef­fec­tive in­tel­li­gent as­sis­tance sys­tems rang­ing from ro­bots to smart home de­vices and apps pro­vide sup­port for peo­ple in phys­i­cal and cog­ni­tive tasks.

Head: Christoph Schütz

We study the com­pu­ta­tional and neu­ro­phys­i­o­log­i­cal mech­a­nisms of human motor plan­ning and con­trol in real and vir­tual en­vi­ron­ments.

Head: Hanna Dri­malla

Our re­search group is ded­i­cated to the au­to­matic analy­sis of so­cial in­ter­ac­tion sig­nals (e.g., fa­cial ex­pres­sion, gaze be­hav­ior, voice etc.) using ma­chine learn­ing as well as speech and image pro­cess­ing. Three as­pects are the focus of our re­search: the de­tec­tion of pos­i­tive and neg­a­tive af­fect, the mea­sure­ment of stress, and the analy­sis of so­cial in­ter­ac­tion pat­terns.

Head: Thomas Schack

The "Neu­rocog­ni­tion and Ac­tion" group in­ves­ti­gates move­ments of bi­o­log­i­cal or­gan­isms, hu­mans, and tech­ni­cal sys­tems in nat­ural and ar­ti­fi­cial en­vi­ron­ments. Our main re­search in­ter­est is human move­ment and its adap­tiv­ity. For that pur­pose, the bi­o­log­i­cal ba­sics, the neu­rocog­ni­tive or­ga­ni­za­tion, and the kine­matic pa­ra­me­ters of human motor ar­chi­tec­ture are an­a­lyzed using mod­ern re­search meth­ods.

Head: Werner Schnei­der

We in­ves­ti­gate at­ten­tional processes in vi­sual per­cep­tion, mem­ory and ac­tion con­trol by means of psy­chophysics, cog­ni­tive and neuro-​psychology meth­ods as well as by­compu­ta­tional mod­el­ing.

Head: Helge Rit­ter

We strive for a deeper un­der­stand­ing of the re­quired in­ter­play of adap­tive con­trol, em­bod­i­ment and knowl­edge to en­able cog­ni­tive in­ter­ac­tion for ro­bots or in­tel­li­gent in­ter­faces.

Head: Petra Wag­ner

We in­ves­ti­gate and model the shapes and func­tions of com­mu­nica­tive speech sig­nals both in the ver­bal and non ver­bal do­main, across var­i­ous sit­u­a­tions, lan­guages, emo­tions or speak­ers. In our work, we are in­ter­ested in in­ter­ac­tions be­tween hu­mans as well as in­ter­ac­tions be­tween hu­mans and ar­ti­fi­cial agents.

Head: Joana Cholin

Our re­search fo­cuses on the ex­per­i­men­tal in­ves­ti­ga­tion and psy­cholin­guis­tic mod­el­ing of flu­ent and non-​fluent as­pects of spo­ken lan­guage pro­duc­tion in mono- and mul­ti­lin­gual speech-​healthy and neu­ro­log­i­cally im­paired speak­ers.

Head: Philipp Cimi­ano

We de­velop com­pu­ta­tional ap­proaches for the emer­gence and ex­trac­tion of se­man­tics in in­tel­li­gent sys­tems. This in­cludes the ex­trac­tion of knowl­edge and mean­ing from large data as well as easy­ing ac­cess to knowl­edge in an in­tu­itive fash­ion.

Head: Ste­fan Kopp

We ex­plore how tech­ni­cal sys­tems can turn into so­cially in­tel­li­gent in­ter­ac­tion part­ners. To this end, we study the be­hav­ioral, sen­sori­motor and cog­ni­tive mech­a­nisms of human com­mu­ni­ca­tion and de­velop meth­ods to at­tain sim­i­lar abil­i­ties in ma­chines.

Head: Anja Aben­droth

At the cen­ter of this group's re­search are ques­tions about the fu­ture of work, the in­ter­play be­tween work and fam­ily life and so­cial in­equal­i­ties in times of dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion.

Head: Helge Rhodin

We focus on mak­ing Ex­tended Re­al­ity (XR) prac­ti­cal for var­i­ous ap­pli­ca­tions by ad­vanc­ing 3D com­puter vi­sion, ma­chine learn­ing, and com­puter graph­ics, with a par­tic­u­lar focus on real-​time re­con­struc­tion, de­vel­op­ing al­go­rithms that en­hance the human ex­pe­ri­ence and en­sure privacy-​preserving so­lu­tions.

Head: Günter Maier

We in­ves­ti­gate the fu­ture of work with its con­se­quences for hu­mans. Our focus in­cludes ac­cep­tance of tech­nol­ogy, par­tic­i­pa­tion in in­no­va­tion, or cor­po­rate so­cial re­spon­si­bil­ity.