Theses in Biological Psychology

For literature reviews (BSc), please contact the department members whom you believe have the best thematic fit for your planned work.

Empirical theses (BSc, MSc) in our department, particularly in the areas of modeling and web scraping, require the willingness and motivation to familiarize oneself with a programming environment (e.g., R, Python, Matlab). Empirical work can be conducted in the following thematic areas:

Learning and Decision Processes / Modeling

Projects in this area may involve the extension or evaluation of existing computational models (e.g., reinforcement learning models, discounting models, sequential sampling models), empirical investigation of influencing factors on human learning and decision processes, or re-analyses and consolidation of existing datasets.
Contact: Prof. Dr. Jan Peters

Web Scraping / Gambling and Gambling-like Mechanisms

Projects in this area might explore user behavior on social media or internet platforms relevant to (pathological) gambling or gambling-like mechanisms (e.g., in computer games).
Contacts: Dr. Elke Smith, Prof. Dr. Jan Peters

Biological and Neural Mechanisms of Decision Processes

Projects in this area investigate the role of dopamine and specific dietary supplements (e.g., tyrosine) and physiological factors (e.g., arousal) in the regulation of decision-making and learning processes.
Contact: Prof. Dr. Jan Peters