Investigating action control by event-related brain potentials: From basic cognitive mechanisms to applied research
Building 1, hall 20
Organizer:
Departement Cognitive science and Psychology
Lector:
Dr. Birgit Stürmer (General Psychology and Neurocognitive Psychology, International Psychoanalytic University (IPU) Berlin)
Moderator:
Аssoc. Prof. Penka Hristova, PhD
Action control is basically about how automatically prepared response tendencies underlie voluntary control. Stimulus-response compatibility tasks like the Stroop task or Eriksen flanker task are predestined to investigate cognitive mechanisms related to executive control over such automatically primed responses.
Event-related brain potentials represent electrical brain activity in real time and are, therefore, suitable to measure cognitive processes from early perception to late motor preparation. The lateralized readiness potential (LRP), for example, is measured over the primary motor cortex and can record cognitive processes related to central motor preparation. In stimulus-response compatibility tasks the LRP is used to differentiate between early activation related to stimulus-driven response priming whereas later activation is based on voluntary response selection rules.
In the first part of my talk, I will address basic cognitive mechanisms involved in monitoring conflicts between primed and voluntarily selected responses to exert behaviour control.
How such cognitive processes are involved in applied situations will then be addressed in two applied fields. One line of research addresses the question how different meal situations at lunch time affect cognitive processing afterwards. The other line investigates how basic cognitive processes are altered in the course of effective psychotherapy.
Prof. Dr. Birgit Stürmer is a cognitive psychologist and neuroscientist, currently serving as Vice President and Professor of General and Neurocognitive Psychology at the International Psychoanalytic University (IPU) Berlin. Her academic work bridges experimental psychology and neuroscience, focusing on the interaction between automatic and controlled actions in human cognition. She investigates how voluntary action processes override habitual responses, especially in situations involving cognitive conflict or performance monitoring.
Using methods such as event-related brain potentials (ERPs), Prof. Stürmer explores how internal goals and external stimuli influence action selection, conflict resolution, and error processing. Her research often extends to social and clinical contexts, including studies on anxiety, social interaction, and eating behavior. She has been involved in multiple interdisciplinary research collaborations, including the DFG-funded research group “Conflicts as Signals” and the Wolfgang-Köhler-Center for Conflict Research.
Through her teaching and research, Prof. Stürmer contributes to a deeper understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying cognition, behavior regulation, and mental health.