Field of Focus III - Funded Projects Eye Tracking-Laboratory

Project Leader:

Prof. Dr. Oscar Loureda (Institute of Translating and Interpreting)

Funding Line:

Core facilities

 

Over the past few years, numerous research projects dedicated to cognitive studies have been carried out at Heidelberg University’s Department of Translation and Interpreting (IÜD), the Department of German as a Foreign Language Philology (IDF), and the Ibero-American Center (IAZ).

These research projects focus both problems associated with the mental processing of language under cross-linguistic aspects and on issues regarding the interaction of graphic and textual information in comprehension processes. The method employed is that of measuring thethe reader’s visual attention as the expression of thought processes taking place in the mind. The measuring of eye movements is the element common to all the research projects carried out notably at Heidelberg University's Language and Cognition Laboratory (HULC Lab), an association of young scholars and post-graduate students from the IÜD, IDF and IAZ, investigating psycholinguistic issues from language-independent, language-specific or cross-linguistic perspectives. For our laboratory for experimental studies on human language processing, we are now developing a basic technical and methodological package, that will enable us to give methodological support to various research projects and respond to the constantly increasing requests for cooperation by colleagues from different disciplines. On this basis, the objectives and results of current and planned projects involving the academic staff, PhD candidates and post-graduate students can be dovetailed. Joint projects can be initiated and interdisciplinary research projects in the humanities, psychology and the neurosciences can be collated to from a research focus at Heidelberg University on cognitive studies, to be pursued with even greater tenacity in the coming years.