ABC Lab
Institute of Psychology, University of Lübeck
Institute of Psychology, University of Lübeck
How does the brain stay stable—and still remain ready to change?
We study how dynamic brain states, adaptive resets, decisions, confidence, and individual differences shape human behaviour across the lifespan.
Research programme
Human cognition depends on a balance between stability and flexibility.
We examine this balance across brain dynamics, adaptive resets, perceptual decisions, metacognition, personality, and cognitive ageing.
News
New publications, project updates, talks, and workshops will be shared here.
Dynamic Brain States
Ongoing neural dynamics, entropy, variability, and trajectories through state space.
Why can the same kind of neural variability support one person but hinder another?
We combine resting-state EEG, entropy, and multivariate brain–behaviour analysis to examine individual neural operating regimes and how their functional meaning changes across adulthood.
Do spontaneous blinks reveal naturally occurring moments of neural reorganisation?
Spontaneous blinks are usually discarded as artefacts. We use them as temporal anchors to study pre-blink state, post-blink quenching, recovery, and age-related differences in trajectories through neural state space.
Adaptive Reset
Surprise, blinks, pupil-linked arousal, volatility, and rapid reconfiguration.
How does adaptation differ when change is signalled directly versus inferred from feedback?
We compare cue-based task switching with feedback-driven inference in stable and volatile environments, combining behaviour, pupillometry, and computational models of surprise and belief updating.
Decisions & Metacognition
Choices, confidence, evidence, beliefs, and self-knowledge under uncertainty.
Why do some people trust sensory evidence while others rely more strongly on beliefs or subjective certainty?
We study individual and age-related differences in the balance between perceptual evidence, confidence bias, metacognitive sensitivity, and broader decision-making style.
Believer–Empiricist Decision Style
What happens to decisions and self-evaluation when people enter a highly engaged task state?
Using an auditory decision task, confidence ratings, flow reports, and pupillometry, we examine how subjective engagement relates to speed, certainty, response strategy, and arousal.
Behavioural Individuality
Personality, ability, ageing, decision style, and stable individual differences.
Where does inaccurate self-evaluation come from?
A connected set of student projects separates trial-level confidence, global self-assessment, evidence accumulation, true ability, and measurement effects to identify which mechanisms produce apparent overconfidence.
Lab lead
Leads the lab's research programme on adaptive cognition, brain dynamics, metacognition, and behavioural individuality.
Student assistant
Student Assistant
Workshops & methods training
6 courses
Lecture and seminar · Compulsory · 4th semester
Lecture and seminar
Seminar · Compulsory · 1st semester
Seminar · Compulsory · 2nd semester
Seminar · Compulsory · 3rd semester
Seminar · Compulsory · 3rd semester
2 courses
Seminar · Compulsory
Seminar · Elective · 1st semester
Current student research
Believer–Empiricist Decision Style
The publication list is being curated so citation format, DOI links, open-access PDFs, code, and data links can be handled consistently.
Google ScholarTime-resolved multiscale entropy analysis for electrophysiological data within FieldTrip workflows.
A FieldTrip-style wrapper around the Baycrest PLS toolbox for multivariate group, condition, and brain–behaviour analyses.
Research lead
For collaborations, student projects, workshops, and scientific questions, contact the research lead directly.
Contact details
n.kloosterman@uni-luebeck.deInstitute of Psychology, University of Lübeck
MFC 8
2nd floor, room 6
Lübeck, Germany