At the moment, we have openings for students at TU Berlin who would like to work on the following masters thesis topics:
1) The Affordances of Cellphones
Cellphones started out as mere mobile telephones used primarily for making voice calls, but over the last decades they have become powerful computing devices capable of assisting a wide range of human behaviors and activities. This masters thesis is a theoretical literature review with the goal of identifying factors contributing to the discovery/invention of new affordances in cellphone use. Special attention will be given to innovation and the emergence of novel uses in different cultural contexts.
2) The Embodied Dynamics of Reading Comprehension
Reading comprehension is a psychological phenomenon of central importance for human factors, with implications for the design of information displays and user experience, for workplace safety and interaction with warning information and instructions in manuals, and in human-computer interaction more generally. Previous research has found a number of physiological markers associated with reading comprehension, from patterns in heart rate and eye movement to patterns in neural activity. This masters thesis is a literature review aimed at identifying the state of the art in applications of nonlinear methods (especially DFA and RQA) to the analysis of these physiological measures of reading comprehension, with special focus on the effect of text difficulty and expertise on comprehension.
3) Complex Behavioral and Neural Dynamics Over Time
In recent years a lot of research has been done applying nonlinear methods to investigate complex dynamics (e.g., fractality and recurrence) at the behavioral and neural levels. But most of this work focuses on data obtained from human activity from a single observation, at a single point in time. This masters thesis is a methodological literature review with the goal of identifying the state of the art in research focusing on nonlinear behavioral and neural dynamics coming from multiple observations of the same subjects over time (i.e., repeated-measures, longitudinal studies). The results should be considered with respect to how nonlinear methods could be applied to neural data for the assessment of user state in interaction with technical systems.
Other masters thesis topics are possible too. And we are always open to new group members and new collaborations. Get in touch with the research group leader (Gui Sanches de Oliveira) at embody.rg@gmail.com if you are interested in working with us.