Our research focuses on processes of cognitive control. Cognitive control enables humans to dynamically adjust their thoughts and actions to changing goals and task demands. To give just one example: Cognitive control allows people to resist a strong but currently inappropriate response tendency (e.g., reaching for their mobile phone to check for possible news) and instead choose a weaker but appropriate response (e.g., listening to their ) partner).
More broadly, the chair's research interests center around five themes:
- Task switching and the functional role of task rules
- Context-sensitive adjustment of cognitive control
- Conflicts as aversive signals for control adaptations
- Affective and motivational modulation of cognitive control
- Training of executive functions
Overview of current third-party funded projects
From representation to action: uncovering how task representations shape voluntary task choice
Subproject of the funded research group FOR 6047 "Voluntary task switching: Cognitive processes and models to account for task choices"
Funding: German Research Foundation (DR 392/15-1, MU 5241/4-1)
Funding Period: 48 months (starting spring 2026)
A central question in cognitive psychology is how mental representations influence behaviour, particularly when individuals navigate the everyday challenges of managing multiple tasks. Early task-switching research introduced the concept of a "task set" and largely focused on the mechanisms involved in switching tasks (e.g., Allport et al., 1995; Rogers & Monsell, 1995). However, these studies provided limited insights into how tasks are mentally represented and, conversely, how task representations influence task-switching behaviour. Others (e.g., Dreisbach, 2012; Gilbert & Shallice, 2002; Herd et al., 2014; Musslick & Cohen, 2021) have suggested that the way in which tasks are represented critically influences our ability to switch between tasks. Yet relatively little is known about how these representations emerge and how they shape our willingness to change tasks. In this project, we aim to close this gap by combining behavioural experiments with neural network modelling. This project investigates how task representations emerge and how they affect task choice. Additionally, we will examine how task representations, once established, are updated or modified in response to new stimuli that violate the established representation Finally, we will explore how task representations are individually formed based on prior similarity judgments of stimuli. Each behavioural experiment will be complemented by computational simulations of a connectionist model, offering mechanistic accounts of how different patterns of behaviour emerge from varying representations of stimuli and tasks. Taken together this project aims to elucidate the cognitive and computational mechanisms underlying the relationship between task representations and task switching behaviour, providing new insights into how people flexibly adapt to changing task demands and choose between tasks.
PI - Project 1 (behavioural studies): Prof. Dr. Gesine Dreisbach (University of Regensburg)
Ph.D. student: M.Sc. Manuel Pöhlmann (University of Regensburg)
PI - Project 2 (computational modelling): Prof. Dr. Sebastian Musslick (University of Osnabrück) (external link, opens in a new window)
Ph.D. student: N.N. (University of Osnabrück)
Toward an integrative understanding of the flexibility-stability-balance and its underlying mechanisms via computational modelling and behavioral experimentation
Funding: German Research Foundation (DR 392/14-1, MU 5241/3-1)
Funding Period: 36 months (since 10/2025)
The ability to balance cognitive flexibility and stability is crucial for human adaptive behaviour in constantly changing environments. However, there is a lack of consensus on the mechanisms that underlie both faculties. This lack of integration is a significant obstacle to comprehending the regulation of cognitive flexibility and stability in human cognition, such as understanding whether flexibility and stability are regulated independently or whether they need to be traded off against each other via shared mechanisms. Thus, a more mechanistic understanding is needed to advance our current understanding of cognitive flexibility and stability, and, ultimately, to devising effective interventions to enhance both faculties. With this grant proposal, we seek to obtain a more integrative understanding of the mechanisms underlying the regulation of cognitive flexibility and stability. Specifically, we seek to address recent conflicting results that (a) suggest that cognitive flexibility and stability trade off against each other versus (b) that they are regulated independently (Egner, 2023; Mayr & Grätz, 2024). The theoretical account probed in this work is capable of reconcealing these two differing perspectives, suggesting that cognitive flexibility and stability can be both dependent and independent: Cognitive flexibility and stability trade off within a level of information processing (e.g., the processing of task sets) but can be regulated independently across levels of information processing (e.g., the processing of task sets versus the processing of response sets).
PI - Project 1: Prof. Dr. Gesine Dreisbach (University of Regensburg)
Ph.D. student: M.Sc. Andrea Janker (University of Regensburg)
PI - Project 2: Prof. Dr. Sebastian Musslick (University of Osnabrück) (external link, opens in a new window)
Ph.D. student: M.Sc. Alessandra Brondetta (University of Osnabrück) (external link, opens in a new window)
The (in)flexibility of control adaptations
Funding: German Research Foundation (DR 392/12-1, FI 1624/8-1)
Funding Period: 36 months (since 10/2023)
Adaptive control forms the basis of cognitive and behavioural flexibility. It is sensitive to normal aging and its malfunction is closely related to neurological and psychiatric conditions. In general, human beings have the astonishing ability to flexibly adapt action and thought in response to changing requirements from the environment. At the same time, they can be surprisingly stuck in set, for example when they continue using a formerly successful but no longer adaptive processing strategy. Such stuck-in-set phenomena, originally reported in problem solving tasks (Luchins, 1942) are not restricted to neuropsychological abnormalities like perseveration in frontal lobe patients but have recently also been reported for control strategies in context processing- and response conflict-tasks in healthy individuals (e.g., Abrahamse, Duthoo, Notebaert, & Risko, 2013; Hefer & Dreisbach, 2017). In this research project, we intend to investigate two so far highly neglected phenomena that expose a weakness of the much-vaunted cognitive flexibility: (1) The asymmetrical costs when switching between a shielded and a more relaxed mode of control, which show that it can be harder to let go from a shielding control mode and switch to a more relaxed control mode than vice versa.and (2) the observation that the flexibility to adapt control to different context demands is further limited by the volatility and frequency of context changes. The importance of adaptive control for cognitive and behavioural flexibility highlights the need for understanding the underlying cognitive mechanisms (e.g., the flexible (dis)engagement of different control states), which may offer fertile grounds for subsequent translational research.
PI - Project 1: Prof. Dr. Gesine Dreisbach (University of Regensburg)
Ph.D. student: M.Sc. Kathrin Treittinger (University of Regensburg)
PI - Project 2: Prof. Dr. Rico Fischer (University of Greifswald) (external link, opens in a new window)
Ph.D. student: M.A. Shu Yang (University of Greifswald) (external link, opens in a new window)