Working Student - Physiological Signals as a Measure of Cognitive Load in Virtual Reality (all genders)

As part of the »Advanced Speech Research« group, you will be involved in performing empirical research on the perception and cognition of audio in an interactive virtual environment. One of the goals is to understand how physiological signals can be used to assess the cognitive load of processing speech information. Specifically, a study will be conducted to assess eye data such as pupillometry and gaze-tracking while people perform mind-wandering and N-back tasks. A controlled virtual reality environment will be developed to induce different cognitive states in a systematic manner using different speech passages, enabling research into mental demand in a reproducible environment. The research provides a unique opportunity to combine:

• Creative Design and Implementation: You will design and implement an audiovisual environment in a virtual reality environment and integrate tools to record physiological signals.
• Gathering Ground Truth Data: You will coordinate and conduct an empirical research experiment to collect data from participants reflecting cognitive states throughout various tasks.
• Data Analysis: You will perform statistical analysis of data following publishing methods in addition to supporting new modelling methods.
• Scientific Writing: You will be given the chance to contribute to publishing the research through scientific journals or conferences, in addition to showcasing your results through online datasets.

• Organize your schedule: Benefit from flexible working hours that are perfectly compatible with your studies.
• Become part of a creative team: Experience an open and friendly working atmosphere in which your ideas are valued.
• Variety that inspires: Look forward to divers tasks that inspire and challenge you.
• Shape the future with us: Take part in application-oriented research and put your theoretical knowledge to practice.
• Innovation that inspires: Exciting and pioneering projects that make a real difference.

We will agree your start date and weekly working hours with you individually (as a working student 10 to 15 hours per week or for an internship at least three months) . You can reduce your hours before exams and increase them during semester breaks. You can set your working days flexibly. After your studies, there are attractive opportunities to join the institute on a full-time or part-time basis. You can flexibly determine the working days of your fixed-term employment contract.

We would be happy to offer you the opportunity to write a bachelor's or master's thesis in cooperation with us in the above-mentioned subject area. The thesis will be assigned and carried out in accordance with the rules of your university. For this reason, please discuss the thesis with a professor who can advise you over the course of the project.

We value and promote the diversity of our employees' skills and therefore welcome all applications - regardless of age, gender, nationality, ethnic and social origin, religion, ideology, disability, sexual orientation and identity. Severely disabled people are given preference if they are equally qualified.