To do or not to do II: Principles and neuroanatomical correlates of affordance based decision-making

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Jennifer Randerath
• Subject Area: General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology ; Human Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 438470816

The present proposal is a follow-up project to our previous DFG-funded research initiative investigating affordance-based decision-making (AE). These motor-cognitive abilities enable us to make safe decisions about possible actions in everyday life—for example, determining whether an object is within reach or whether an opening appears passable. Our previous work has shown that AE performance is influenced by personal factors such as age or neurological impairments (e.g., after strokes), as well as by contextual and methodological variables. Additionally, we have developed initial approaches for targeted diagnostics and training methods. The proposed follow-up project builds on these findings and pursues three key research objectives: 1. Investigating the neural and behavioral mechanisms influencing AE performance, particularly in the context of aging processes and neurological damage. 2. Developing and validating effective training methods to enhance AE performance. 3. Analyzing differences and convergences in behavior in real versus virtual environments concerning the trainability and diagnostic applicability of AE tasks in virtual settings. To achieve these goals, we combine experimental approaches from motor cognition and neuropsychology with virtual reality (VR) methods and extend our patient study to include neuroanatomical imaging analyses. This study aims to establish essential foundations for developing standardized diagnostic and intervention programs, to eventually be applied in clinical and rehabilitative contexts. With the transition to the University of Regensburg, we have access to excellent research infrastructure and a new collaboration with Prof. A. Mühlberger in the field of VR technologies. The requested funding will enable us to systematically advance the long-term goals of the project and establish innovative approaches for diagnosing and treating affordance-based decision-making deficits.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants