Bielefeld University analyzes chess behavior

Chess is one of the oldest – and most popular – board games. On Christmas Eve, the classic game is given as a gift several hundred thousand times over, whether as a chess set, computer game, or chess computer. Yet what is the secret of successful chess players? Cognitive scientists at the Cluster of Excellence Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC) at Bielefeld University have been investigating this question for the past year in the project “Ceege” by recording players’ eye movements and facial expressions. Now, the researchers are revealing their preliminary results and explain why Norwegian grandmaster Magnus Carlsen again earned the title of world chess champion at this year’s tournament.

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Researchers at the CITEC Cluster of Excellence discover a catalyzer for cognition 

Hearing or seeing a word doesn’t mean that it is immediately understood. The brain must first recognize the letters as such, put them together, and “look up” what the word means in its mental lexicon. In an experiment, cognitive psychologists at Bielefeld University’s Cluster of Excellence Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC) have shown how word comprehension can be sped up – namely by having study participants grasp objects while reading at the same time. Privatdozent Dr. Dirk Koester and his colleagues reported the findings of their discovery in the research journal “PLOS One.” According to the researchers, the method could offer an approach for new therapies, such as treating stroke patients.    [Weiterlesen]

Vice-Rector Angelika Epple: “Freedom of academic and scientific inquiry is an ultimate good”

 For the first time, Bielefeld University is taking in three threatened academics facing danger in their home countries to contribute to research projects at the university. Two of these researchers are being funded with fellowships from the Philipp Schwartz Initiative, and one scholar is receiving funding from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation).

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Physicists from Bielefeld University report on new methods in ‘Nature Communications’

Up to now, if scientists wanted to study blood cells, algae, or bacteria under the microscope, they had to mount these cells on a substrate such as a glass slide. Physicists at Bielefeld and Frankfurt Universities have developed a method that traps biological cells with a laser beam enabling them to study them at very high resolutions. In science fiction books and films, the principle is known as the ‘tractor beam’. Using this procedure, the physicists have obtained superresolution images of the DNA in single bacteria. The physicist Robin Diekmann and his colleagues are publishing this new development this Tuesday (13.12.2016) in the latest issue of the research journal ‘Nature Communications’.[Weiterlesen]

Publication of latest issue of BI.research

For nearly ten years now, Bielefeld University’s Cluster of Excellence Center in Cognitive Interactive Technology (CITEC) has been carrying out basic research on smart technical systems that adapt their behaviour autonomously to the expectations and needs of their human interaction partners. The main theme of the latest issue of BI.research – Bielefeld University’s research magazine – is the innovative projects with which CITEC wants to improve our lives in the future, the researchers who are working there, and how the Cluster of Excellence has grown over the years.[Weiterlesen]