GRK 1457:  Adaptive Minds: Neural and Environmental Constraints on Learning and Memory

• Subject Area: Psychology
• Term: from 2008 to 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 42922499

The International Research Training Group aims at enhancing our understanding of learning and memory processes by examining how environmental constraints shape these processes and their underlying neural organisation. The view that memory consists of a number of different subsystems and -processes by which information is transferred not only has brought up new concepts in memory psychology, but has also stimulated research in other fields of cognitive psychology. Even though there is compelling evidence that environmental factors, such as the cultural environment an individual functions in, can affect cognitive processes and thereby adapt these to the physical and social aspects of this environment, very little is known about the mechanisms by which experience shapes cognitive processes.
Within this Research Training Group we shall educate the principles of learning and memory and their modulation by environmental factors within and across cultures. By adopting a cross-cultural perspective, we expect high synergy from the research teams of both cultures in exploring how Western and East Asian cultural milieus affect cognitive processes and their underlying neural organisation. The project aims at identifying and characterising those learning and memory processes and their neural correlates that are invariant across cultures and those modified by cultural context.
The research programme is subdivided into two complementary areas: Area I (Basic Mechanisms of Learning and Memory) will explore the basic functional characteristics of learning and memory systems and how they are adapted to various task and environmental demands. Area II (Cognitive and Neural Plasticity of Learning and Memory) will focus on the cognitive and neural plasticity of learning and memory processes as revealed by maturational development and by training-induced changes of cognitive behaviour and its neural organisation in the lesioned and intact adult brain.
We expect a sustained and significant enhancement of our knowledge of experience-related modulation of learning and memory processes in the brain with important implications especially for neurocognitive psychology, the psychology of individual differences and developmental psychology.

• DFG Programme: International Research Training Groups
• International Connection: China
• Applicant Institution: Universität des Saarlandes
• IRTG-Partner Institution: Chinese Academy of Sciences
• Spokesperson: Professor Dr. Axel Mecklinger
• IRTG-Partner: Spokesperson: Professorin Dr. Qingfang Zhang
• Cooperation Partners: Professor Dr. Raymond Chan; Professorin Dr. Xiaolan Fu; Professorin Dr. Su Li; Professorin Dr. Juan Li; Professor Dr. Xun Liu; Professor Dr. Jiannong Shi; Professor Dr. Kan Zhang
• Participating Researchers: Professorin Dr. Gisa Aschersleben; Professor Dr. Georg Kerkhoff; Professorin Dr. Jutta Kray; Professorin Dr. Tanja Michael; Professor Dr. Wolfgang Reith; Professor Dr. Frank M. Spinath; Professor Dr. Dirk Wentura; Professor Dr. Hubert Zimmer