Behavior and Cognition

Students of the PhD program Behavior and Cognition

  • Lena Ackermann ◌ Psychology of Language
    PhD project: Exploring infants' learning

  • Simone Anza ◌ Behavioral Ecology
    PhD project: Prenatal stress effects on sociality, health and fitness in wild Assamese macaque

  • Anaïs Avilés de Diego ◌ Cognitive Ethology, DPZ
    PhD project: Patterns of social behaviour and partner preferences in infants, yearlings and juveniles of wild Guinea baboons (Papio papio)


  • Lauren Cassidy ◌ Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory
    PhD project: Advancing multi-modal laboratory animal welfare assessment systems towards objectivity and comparability

  • Charlotte Defolie ◌ Sociobiology and Behavioral Ecology, DPZ
    PhD project: A healthy social life? Sociality, stress and indicators of health in wild redfronted lemurs (Eulemur rufifrons)

  • Ronja Demel ◌ Affective Neuroscience and Psychophysiology
    PhD project: The Role of Emotion in Moral Judgments: Behavioral and Electrophysiological Evidence

  • Delphine de Moor ◌ Behavioral Ecology
    PhD project: Paternal and maternal kin biases in the social behavior of male and female wild Assamese macaques

  • Julie Driebe ◌ Cognitive Personality Psychology
    PhD project: Predictive Validity and Change of Partner Preferences: A Longitudinal Investigation


  • Neele Engelmann ◌ Cognition and Decision Making
    PhD project: The Role of Causal Representations in Moral Judgment

  • Francesco Grassi ◌ Affective Neuroscience and Psychophysiology
    PhD project: Modulations of emotional valence by motivational salience

  • Johanna Henke-von der Malsburg ◌ Sociobiology & Behavioral Ecology, DPZ
    PhD project Cognition in two sympatrically living mouse lemur species, the Gray mouse lemur (Microcebus murinus) and the Madame Berthe's mouse lemur (Microcebus berthae)

  • Franziska Hübner ◌ Sociobiology & Behavioral Ecology, DPZ
    PhD project: The link between cognition and fitness in wild gray mouse lemurs (Microcebus murinus)

  • Niels Kil◌ Behavioral Ecology
    PhD project: Social and genetic relationships of dispersing male macaques

  • Alexandra Korzeczek ◌ Clinical Neurophysiology, University Medical Center
    PhD project: Neurophysioglogical mechanisms enhancing speech fluency of persons who stutter

  • Alexander Kraut ◌ Experimental Psychology
    PhD project: Unmasking the perception of temporal successions: bridge building between metacontrast masking and temporal integration and segregation processes

  • Ben Malem ◌ Psychology of Language
    PhD project: Infant-driven learning from social signals

  • Juan Carlos Marulanda Hernández ◌ Cognition and Decision Making
    PhD project: Moral Judgments about Permissible and Non-permissible Harm in War

  • Sonia Tatiana Murillo Corrales ◌ Sociobiology & Behavioral Ecology, DPZ
    PhD project: Social relationships: key to gut microbiome composition in wild redfronted lemurs?

  • Vivien Radtke ◌ Psychology of Language
    PhD project: Infant-driven learning from different kinds of social signals

  • Yasaman Rafiee ◌ Affective Neuroscience and Psychophysiology
    PhD project: Endocrinologic and neural basis of emotion perception during the menstrual cycle

  • Eva-Maria Rathke ◌ Cognitive Ethology, DPZ
    PhD project: Determinants of cognititve performance and social preferences across age in Barbary macaques

  • Alan Rincon ◌ Behavioral Ecology
    PhD project: The quality of affiliative relationships and endogenous oxytocin

  • Marie Ritter ◌ Social and Communication Psychology
    PhD projectEffective decision making in groups - HoneyComb as a tool in decision research

  • Johannes Rollwage◌ Wirtschafts- und Sozialpsychologie
    Projekt: Emergence of leadership: Predicting leadership initiative and followership from individual traits and behavioral styles

  • Katja Rudolph ◌ Sociobiology and Behavioral Ecology
    PhD project: Health consequences of group size variation in Verreaux's sifakas (Propithecus verreauxi)

    • punkt>Lukas Schad ◌ Cognitive Ethology, DPZ
    PhD project: Auditory and social learning and its link to social network position in West African green monkeys (Chlorocebus sabaeus)
  • Lara Schleifenbaum ◌ Biological Personality Psychology
    PhD project: Hormone-linked shifts in female motivational priorities and empathic accuracy in romantic couples

  • Friederike Schütte ◌ Cognitive Developmental Psychology
    PhD project: Learning from reliable and unreliable speakers

  • Britta Schünemann ◌ Cognitive Developmental Psychology
    PhD project: Do we have two systems to explain and evaluate other people's behavior? - A systematic examination of the 2-system theory

  • Anne Sommerfeld ◌ Experimental Psychology
    PhD project: Do different types of masking interfere with information processing on different levels in the visual hierarchy

  • James Stranks ◌ Behavioral Ecology
    PhD project: Social buffering and genetic variation in wild macaques

  • Rowan Titchener ◌ Cognitive Ethology, DPZ
    PhD project: Social information sampling and decision-making in long-tailed macaques, Macaca fascicularis

  • Sonia Touitou ◌ Behavioral Ecology
    PhD project: Physiology and energetics of female reproduction in wild assamese macaques (Macaca assamensis)

  • Dominique Treschnak ◌ Cognitive Ethology, DPZ
    PhD project: The microcosm of Guinea baboon units: Regulation of mating and social relationships within the basal level of the Guinea baboon society

  • Christoph von Borell ◌ Biological Personality Psychology
    PhD project: A comparative perspective on personality models


  • Lisa Wenzel ◌ Cognitive Developmental Psychology
    PhD project: Implicit Theory of Mind

  • Annika Ziereis ◌ Affective Neuroscience and Psychophysiology
    PhD project: Audio-visual integration in emotion communication- neurophysiological evidence

    • ALUMNI:

  • Laura Almeling ◌ Cognitive Ethology, DPZ
    PhD project: Aging and its impact on sociality in Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus)

  • Nicolas Becker ◌ Experimental Psychology
    PhD project: Is semantic priming possible without consciousness?

  • Peter Bednarik ◌ Evolution of Cooperation, CRC "Evolution of Social Behaviour"
    PhD project: Theoretical and Empirical Analysis of the Evolution of Cooperative Behavior

  • Katja Brodmann ◌ Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Medical Center
    PhD project: The influence of oxytocin on the neural activity implicated in action control and decision making

  • Federica Dal Pesco ◌ Cognitive Ethology, DPZ
    PhD project: Dynamics and fitness benefits of male-male social bonds in wild Guinea baboons (Papio papio)

  • Johanna Eckert ◌ Cognitive Developmental Psychology
    PhD project: The evolutionary roots of intuitive statistics

  • Sarah Eiteljörge ◌ Psychology of Language
    PhD project: Cross-domain influences of early word and action learning

  • Lauriane Faraut ◌ Cognitive Ethology, DPZ
    PhD project: Social monitoring in a multilevel primate society

  • Christine Haunhorst ◌ Behavioral Ecology
    PhD project: Evolutionary Origin of the Human Pair-Bond - the Adaptive Significance of Male-Female Friendships in Wild Assamese Macaques

  • Annika Grass ◌ Experimental Psycholinguistics, CRC "Text Structures"
    PhD project: Origins of Early Emotion Effects in Written and Spoken Word Processing

  • Daria Gutleb ◌ Behavioral Ecology
    PhD project: Integrating Behavior, Hormones & Genes associated with the Primate HPA-Axis

  • Wiebke Hammerschmidt ◌Affective Neuroscience and Psychophysiology
    PhD project: Dissociating Biological and Associated Salience in Human Faces

  • Jonas Hermes ◌ Cognitive Developmental Psychology
    PhD project: Cognitive foundations and ontogenetic roots of selective trust in preschoolers

  • Marina Josephs ◌ Biological Developmental Psychology
    PhD project: The development of social cognition and normativity in young children

  • Julia Jünger ◌ Cognitive Personality Psychology
    PhD project: Hormones, personality and social signalling

  • Tobias Kordsmeyer ◌ Biological Personality Psychology
    PhD project: The effects of male testosterone reactivity in the mating context on self- and observer-rated personality

  • Adi Lausen ◌ Affective Neuroscience and Psychophysiology
    PhD project: Emotion communication: neurocognitive mechanisms and inter-individual differences

  • Caio Margarido Moreira ◌ Cognitive Neurosciences, DPZ
    PhD project: Neural mechanisms of mental and physical effort in adaptive decision-making in primates

  • Kristina Miloserdov ◌ Cognitive Neurology
    PhD project: Visual perception in Parkinson's disease: Dissocation of vision for action and vision for perception

  • Davide Montanari ◌ Cognitive Ethology, DPZ
    PhD project: Group Coordination in Guinea Baboons

  • Nadja Miosga ◌ Cognitive Developmental Psychology
    PhD project: Selective advice taking in children

  • Nadine Müller ◌ Behavioral Ecology
    PhD project: The costs and benefits of sociality in semi-free ranging Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus)

  • Niina Nurmi ◌ Behavioral Ecology
    PhD project: The tolerant chimpanzee - Quantifying the costs and benefits of sociality in wild female bonobos (Pan paniscus)

  • Johanna Prüfer ◌ Economic and Social Psychology
    PhD project: Emergence of Leadership

  • Nese Oktay-Gür ◌ Cognitive Developmental Psychology
    PhD project: Theory of Mind and Intentionality Development

  • Sarah Placì ◌ Cognitive Ethology, DPZ
    PhD project: Statistical learning and social inferences in human children and nonhuman primates

  • Annika Primaßin ◌ Clinical Neurophysiology, University Medical Center
    PhD project: Structural and functional brain correlates of long-term clinical improvement of speech fluency in adults who stutter undergoing intense stuttering therapy

  • Anja Richter ◌ Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Medical Center
    PhD project: Functional neuroimaging of pathophysiological mesolimbic dopamine system and aberrant motivational salience in schizophrenia

  • Jana Samland ◌ Cognition and Decision Making
    PhD project: The mutual influence of judgments of causality, intentionality and morality: Cognitive processes and intercultural comparison

  • Benjamin Schmid ◌ Cognitive Developmental Psychology
    PhD project: Learning from reliable and unreliable speakers

  • Anna Sperber ◌ Sociobiology and Behavioral Ecology, DPZ
    PhD project: The role of social network structure and personality in group movement decisions in red-fronted lemurs

  • Simon Stephan ◌ Cognition and Decision Making
    PhD project: The mutual influence of generic-level causal information and single-case level causal information on causal cognition

  • Sarah Wolter ◌ Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Medical Center
    PhD project: Pathophysiological changes of neurofunctional interaction between hippocampus, prefrontal cortex and nucleus accumbens in schizophrenia