Cognitive Factors

The extent to which individuals utilize their mental resources during a task depends on many internal and external factors. For example, interruptions and concurrent tasks can impair the cognitive resources available for a primary task. Another (cognitive) influencing factor on information processing is assumptions about and evaluations of tasks. These factors and their impact on cognitive performance are examined here, based on psychological experiments with concurrent measurement of electroencephalography (EEG).

A key objective of these projects is to implement psychological experiments with a strong relevance to specific demands in the workplace. The experiments are adapted under laboratory conditions in such a way that they, for example, replicate specific demands of the work of nursing staff in clinics or the driving of a motor vehicle.

Rösner M, Zickerick B, Sabo M, Schneider D: Aging impairs primary task resumption and attentional control processes following interruptions. Behav Brain Res 430: 113932 (2022)

Zickerick B, Rösner M, Sabo M, Schneider D: How to refocus attention on working memory representations following interruptions – Evidence from frontal theta and posterior alpha oscillations. Eur J Neurosci 54: 7820-7838 (2021)

Arnau S, Brümmer T, Liegel N, Wascher E: Inverse effects of time-on-task in task-related and task-unrelated theta activity. Psychophysiology 58: e13805 (2021) (15 pp)

Zickerick B, Kobald SO, Thönes S, Küper K, Wascher E, Schneider D: Don’t stop me now: Hampered retrieval of action plans following interruptions. Psychophysiology 58: e13725 (2021) (17 pp)

Thönes S, Arnau S, Wascher E, Schneider D: Boosting working memory with accelerated clocks. NeuroImage 226: 117601 (2021) (12 pp)