Thank you for your interest in writing a thesis in the Department of Cognitive Psychology!

We continuously offer topics for Bachelor's and Master's theses within the research fields of our department. Theses are typically written as part of larger research projects, with each student working on their own (sub-)question. Data collection often takes place in teams, but data analysis and reporting must be conducted independently. We only supervise empirical theses in our lab.

As part of the research projects listed below, extensive data is being collected, for example, on chronic stress experiences, anxiety, or depressive symptoms. Therefore, it is also possible to work on sub-questions within these projects that are independent of the main research question.

Feel free to reach out to us! We are happy to discuss both the content and timeline of your thesis with you individually.

Current research projects:

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 The Missing Link: How Stress Impacts Inference in Healthy Individuals and Those at Risk for Psychosis

Background:
Imagine you see a woman walking a cute dog in the park, the next they you observe a man walking the same dog. From these separate events you might infer that the man and the woman are a couple, despite you never observed them together. This example shows that our brain can infer associations by flexibly combining memories. Without such processes we would need to observe everything directly, i.e., until you observe the man and the woman together it would be impossible to know that they are together. The flexible use of memories was shown to depend on medial temporal structures such as the hippocampus (e.g., Zeithamova et al., 2012) which are known to be affected by stress (e.g.,  Schwabe et al., 2022). Importantly, previous studies have identified hippocampal abnormalities in disorders such as schizophrenia (e.g., Small et al., 2011) and have also reported deficits in memory integration (e.g., Armstrong et al., 2018), further highlighting the dependence on the hippocampus. Thus, in this project we aim to unravel the processes behind memory integration, focusing on the impact of stress and prodromal stages of psychosis.

Design:
Participants will perform a 2-day associative inference task in which they will learn to link different items. During learning they will undergo a stress manipulation or a control condition. Neural responses are measured using EEG. Furthermore, physiological measures such as electrodermal activity and blood pressure are included. Next to these (neuro)physiological measures, multiple psychological constructs such as anxiety, psychotic experiences and stress are measured using various questionnaires.

Importantly, since the sample is set to include a healthy control group as well as a high-risk psychosis group, clinical interviews such as SCID and CAARMS are conducted for screening purposes.

Options for Students:
This project is well-suited for students who want to conduct basic research with clinical relevance. You can either work on a research question associated with main goal of the project (i.e., memory integration) or you can come up with your own research question which can be answered with the given measures. Your involvement in the project would include participants recruitment (incl. conducting clinical interviews), help with data collection (incl. EEG and EDA) and (of course) working on your research question. The project offers the opportunity to analyze various (physiological) data (incl. EEG).

Timeline:
Data collection was started in February 2026
Contact: tim.dressler"AT"uni-hamburg.de 
(Please include your ToR)
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Stress and Adaptive Learning: How Acute Stress Alters Dynamic Belief Updating

Background:
Imagine you take the same route to university every day. Usually, traffic follows a predictable pattern, allowing you to estimate how long your commute will take. One morning, however, you encounter an unexpected traffic jam. Is it just a temporary delay, or has road construction begun, meaning you should choose a different route in the future? To make good decisions, you must constantly distinguish between random events and genuine changes in your environment. This ability to flexibly adapt beliefs in response to new information is known as dynamic belief updating.
Successful belief updating depends on a distributed brain network involving the prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, striatum, salience network, and the locus coeruleus–noradrenergic system, all of which contribute to detecting surprising events and adapting behavior. Acute stress is known to alter the function of these brain systems, yet it remains largely unknown how stress affects our ability to distinguish meaningful environmental changes from random fluctuations. Understanding these mechanisms is important because impaired adaptive learning has been implicated in several psychiatric disorders and may contribute to maladaptive decision making under stress.
In this project, we investigate how acute stress influences dynamic belief updating by combining computational modeling with functional MRI, clinical background data, and endocrine measures.

Design:
Participants complete a three-block dynamic belief updating task while undergoing functional MRI. During the second block, participants are randomly assigned to either an acute stress condition or a non-stress control condition. The stress manipulation consists of an MRI-compatible version of the Socially Evaluated Cold Pressor Test, combining cold stimulation, unpredictable mild electric shocks, and social evaluation. Throughout the experiment, we continuously record brain activity using fMRI together with pupil size, heart rate, respiration, and electrodermal activity. Saliva samples are collected repeatedly to quantify cortisol responses, and subjective stress ratings are obtained after the stress manipulation. Before the MRI session, participants complete an extensive battery of cognitive tasks and questionnaires assessing personality traits, anxiety, stress, and other psychological variables.

Options for Students:
This project is ideal for students interested in cognitive neuroscience, stress research, learning, and neuroimaging. Students can either investigate one of the project's main research questions—for example, how stress influences learning, uncertainty processing, or neural representations—or develop their own research question using the rich behavioral, physiological, and neuroimaging dataset.
Student involvement includes participant recruitment, data collection (including MRI preparation and physiological recordings), data preprocessing, and independent data analysis. Depending on individual interests, projects may focus on behavioral modeling, computational neuroscience, fMRI, or multimodal data integration.

Timeline:
Data collection started in 2026 and is currently ongoing.

Contact:
hendrik.heinbockel"AT"uni-hamburg.de 
(Please include your ToR.)
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What is a habit? – Investigating complex association structures

What exactly is a habit? Traditionally, this question has been explored through dual-system theories, which suggest that human behavior is controlled either by a goal-directed system (focused on achieving specific goals) or by a habitual system (Balleine & Dickinson, 1998). This project aims to test and expand upon an alternative, integrative theory of complex habits (Du et al., 2022), with a particular focus on how habits contribute to motor skill learning.
In this computer-based experiment, we will investigate whether different types of associations can become habitual independently of one another.

Study design and measurements:
During the learning phase, participants will learn different associations (e.g. between a goal and a stimulus, or between a goal and a response) by responding to various stimuli. In this phase, different features of the response, and the stimuli will be manipulated to affect the associative strength.
In the test phase, we will examine how these associations influence behaviour. For this, we will first focus on reaction times, error rates and the quality of errors, and, in later studies also investigate brain activity via EE.

For who is this project?:
This project is an excellent opportunity for Bachelor’s or Master’s students, offering hands-on experience with developing a research question, collecting data and gather experience with analyzing the results.
 
Contact:
sarah.koch"AT"uni-hamburg.de  

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Repetition, depth of processing, and memory consolidation Background

Why do we remember some things for weeks while other memories quickly fade away? This project combines two parallel studies investigating how initial encoding conditions shape the long-term stabilization of memories in the brain. 
The role of repetition: We investigate whether repeating information during learning "fast-tracks" memory stabilization to neocortical networks, and whether this rapid neural shift makes memories more abstract or preserves detailed episodic details.
Depth of processing: We look at how mental effort during learning (e.g., deciding if a word fits a sentence versus simply judging its letter case) affects memory durability and its neural reorganization over a 4-week delay. This study is based on a very famous and foundational Levels of Processing theory. 

Design & measurements:
Both studies combine behavioral memory testing with high-resolution functional MRI (fMRI). Because these two projects are run together, we collect a highly comprehensive dataset that includes: 
- High-resolution 3T functional MRI (fMRI). 
- Eye-tracking metrics (pupil size dynamics, gaze dispersion, and fixation patterns). 
- Autonomic measures (pulse and skin conductance). 
- Psychological and cognitive baseline profiles (e.g., stress, mood, anxiety, depression, processing speed questionnaires). 

Options for students:
Since these studies are run in parallel, you will have access to a rich dataset and a wide variety of research questions. 
Bachelor’s students can focus on behavioral data, eye-tracking metrics, or explore how individual differences (such as stress, anxiety, or processing speed) relate to memory performance. 
Master’s students have the additional option to dive into advanced neuroimaging (fMRI) data, analyzing univariate brain activity or multivariate pattern similarity. 

Your involvement in the project will include assisting with participant recruitment, helping with data collection (including MRI preparation and physiological measurements), and analyzing the data to answer your specific research question. 

Timeline:
Data collection started in late 2025 and is currently ongoing. 

Contact:
ivana.marijanovic"AT"uni-hamburg.de  
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Merging Memories Over Time: How the Brain Blurs Spatial and Temporal Boundaries (MergeMem)
 
Background:
Episodic memories allow us to remember what happened, where, and when. However, as time passes and memories rely less on the hippocampus, do the boundaries between distinct events begin to blur? 
In this project, we investigate "spatiotemporal merging"- the process by which memories originally encoded in different places and on different days become overlapping and interchangeable in the brain. We use a multi-day paradigm and repeated functional neuroimaging to track how these spatial and temporal boundaries change in the hippocampus and neocortex. 
 
Design & measurements
This is a multi-day study where participants learn specific person-detail associations within different visual background contexts across two successive days. Memory retrieval is tested in the MRI scanner either immediately or after a 6-day delay to track how boundaries fade over time. We record: 
- High-resolution fMRI (focusing on pattern similarity along the hippocampal axis and neocortex). 
- Eye-tracking metrics (gaze dispersion and pupil size). 
- Behavioral metrics (memory accuracy, specific error/lure patterns, and reaction times). 
- Psychological and cognitive baseline profiles (e.g., stress, mood, anxiety, depression, processing speed questionnaires). 

Options for students
This project is an excellent fit for students interested in cognitive neuroscience, memory transformation, and neuroimaging. 
- Bachelor’s students can investigate behavioral patterns of memory merging, eye-tracking markers of retrieval effort, or look at how sleep quality and stress levels relate to memory fading. 
- Master’s students can also work with advanced neuroimaging analyses, such as representational similarity analysis (RSA) or encoding-retrieval similarity (ERS). 
Your involvement in the project will include assisting with participant recruitment, helping with data collection (including MRI preparation and physiological measurements), and analyzing the data to answer your specific research question. 

Timeline:
Data collection started in June 2026 and is currently ongoing.

Contact:
ivana.marijanovic"AT"uni-hamburg.de