Joined OCC in 2026
Research Project
The project focuses on understanding the behavioral and neuronal mechanisms of joint actions, coordination, and cooperation. This involves several processes, including observing and monitoring actions, representing actions, and predicting and integrating the effects of one’s own and others’ actions. The overarching question is: how are we able to do this? The proposed framework is based on motor processes, predictive coding, and hierarchical modelling to investigate this issue. The general assumption is that the concept of flexible coupling between the three hierarchical layers – motor, subgoal, and goal layer – enables coordination between them all. We hypothesize that this hierarchy is involved not only in controlling our own actions, but also in predicting the others’ behavior. In collaboration with the University of Göttingen, we are planning to develop a quantitative computational framework that reflects the processes of these predictive hierarchies. We will examine these hierarchies by independently manipulating the three hypothesized layers within a single experimental design. Specifically, we will investigate the different levels of coordination in a cooperative setting, examining how participants adjust their coordination based on the hierarchy’s levels. Following our behavioral experiment which used eye tracking to investigate the issue, we will transfer the experimental design to an MRI scanner in order to examine the neuronal underpinnings. Assuming that the three-layer cognitive architecture accurately describes how the brain implements flexible joint action coupling, we would expect to see distinct sets of areas reflecting the coupling at each of the three levels.
PhD Committee
Prof. Dr. Ricarda Schubotz
Prof. Dr. Markus Lappe
Prof. Dr. Florentin Worgötter
CV
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