Prof. Dr. Paul Sauseng: „Waves to remember: what is the role of rhythmical brain activity in human working memory processes?"
Rhythmical fluctuations of electrical field potentials in the nervous system have been linked to controlled and coordinated firing of neurons. In most higher cognitive processes coordinated neural activity is absolutely essential, so that efficient information processing can take place. Thus, it is not surprising that during human working memory processes we can find very pronounced rhythmical brain activation patterns, such as theta activity (brain waves around 5 Hz) over prefrontal cortex. I will present data suggesting that these theta waves play an essential role in tuning the cooperation of distributed cortical network activity during working memory processes. But could these theta waves be even essential in establishing working memory traces? New data from intracranial recordings in humans suggest just that. I will present findings indicating that theta and gamma (fast frequency rhythms) waves travel through the temporal lobes buffering information in a highly flexible way..
Dr. Yixin Zou: „Who Counts as the Human in Human-Centered AI?"
Human-centered artificial intelligence (HCAI) seeks to shift the focus in AI development from technology to people. But the field rests on a question rarely asked: which human? In my talk, I will trace three strands of my group's work, each centering a different one. At the individual level, the human is a lay user: we study which interaction paradigms sustain creativity in human–AI collaboration, and how far AI can go in teaching people to recognize scams or supporting victims through recovery. At the institutional level, the human is a professional inside an organization. Anti-fraud analysts delegate evidence gathering and summarization to AI but keep approve-or-block decisions for themselves, reconciling personal judgment with organizational compliance. At the societal level, the human is a member of the public: we document systematic misalignment between how the public perceives AI risk and how the EU AI Act regulates it, while finding that few people, experts included, calibrate that risk well. Across these cases, different humans want something different from AI. Whose needs and narratives should count in AI design and governance, and how do we navigate these tensions as we move toward agentic AI?
Prof. Dr. Fredrik Falkenström: „From Correlation to Causation: Advanced Longitudinal Methods for Studying Mechanisms of Change"
How does psychotherapy work? Most studies of mechanisms of change rely on one or two measurements during treatment, which at best provides a very coarse picture of what drives therapeutic change. In this talk, I will present longitudinal methods for modeling how mechanisms drive treatment outcome continuously throughout therapy, bringing us closer to identifying cause-and-effect relationships. I will also discuss the implications for research and the limitations of this approach.
Prof. Dr. Aja Murray: „Leveraging multi-timeframe designs to illuminate the links between daily life experiences and mental health development"
In this talk Aja Murray will outline and discuss key findings from a series of 'multi-timeframe' studies that combine longitudinal and ecological momentary assessment data collection. Based across the UK and Switzerland, the 'Decades-to-Minutes' and 'Mental Health in the Moment' studies seek to illuminate the links between daily life dynamics (e.g., sleep, social interaction, emotion regulation) and longer-term mental health development. She will discuss what we have learned from these studies thus far about how mental health symptoms and their longer-term developmental trajectories relate to daily life emotion and behavioural regulation dynamics. She will also discuss some key methodological considerations in designing and implementing 'multi-timeframe' studies with combining surveys, EMA, biosampling, and passive sensing.
