Thomas Lachmann

• Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Dr. habil.
• Head of Department at Rheinland-Pfälzische Technische Universität Kaiserslautern-Landau

Within the last years, generative artificial intelligence (AI) has not only entered the field of creativity; it might even be marking a turning point for some creative domains. This raises the question of whether AI also poses a turning point for scientific creativity, which comprises the ability to develop new ideas or methodological approaches in...

The increasing spread of artificial intelligence (AI) applications underscores the necessity for an interdisciplinary initiative to ensure the trustworthiness of AI and its alignment to human values and security. A distinction is made between trustworthy AI and trust in AI. The former is defined by adherence to ethical, technical, and legal standar...

We present a novel method for analyzing response trajectory tracking data. Limiting behavioral experiments to discrete, key-press response measures, such as reaction times and accuracy, is unsatisfactory for observing the ongoing dynamics of cognition. We assessed the utility of continuous response tracking in Virtual Reality (VR) by comparing it t...

The visual sensory system is a well-researched system. While virtual reality (VR) is a predominantlyvisual experience, there is still the auditory and tactile aspects that can be considered. This studyexamines finding invisible static and dynamic targets in virtual reality with the help of vibrotactileand auditory cues. Using a ghost hunting settin...

Short-term memory for sequences of verbal items such as written words is reliably impaired by task-irrelevant background sounds, a phenomenon known as the “Irrelevant Sound Effect” (ISE). Different theoretical accounts have been proposed to explain the mechanisms underlying the ISE. Some of these assume specific interference between obligatory soun...

Creative problem-solving has been described as an iterative process of divergent and convergent modes of thinking. With this opinion paper, we illustrate how some tasks, commonly used for the neuroscientific investigation of creativity might provide a condensed representation of divergent and convergent thinking, respectively. We have identified th...

The quest for enhanced cognition has been a driving force behind human advancement, fostering innovation and personal fulfillment. Cognition Altering Technologies (CAT) holds immense promise in elevating the quality of life across diverse domains including education, decision-making, healthcare, and fitness. The current proliferation of Artificial...

Current research confirms the significant role of environmental quality in children´s well-being and mental health. Respective studies targeting young children focused on characteristics of the families´ immediate housing situation, e.g., household chaos. In the framework of the Equal-Life project, we investigated the relationships between neighbor...

We investigated the dose-response relationship between aircraft noise levels and noise annoyance in the French DEBATS study including 1244 participants in 2013 and a sub-study of the German NORAH study including 1039 participants in 2014. In both studies, annoyance due to aircraft noise was assessed using the ICBEN 5-points question. High annoyance...

Current research confirms the significant role of environmental quality in children´s well-being and mental health. In the framework of the Equal-Life project, we investigated the relationships between neighborhood quality and mental health in preschoolers (N=102). Data were acquired through parent questionnaires. Stepwise regression analysis ident...

Background: Aircraft noise is known as one of the most annoying environmental noise sources. Some non-acoustic factors seem to influence reported aircraft noise annoyance. Objectives: We investigated the exposure–response relationship of aircraft noise levels on annoyance in the French DEBATS study including 1,244 participants at baseline in 2013 a...

This study compares creativity test performance in Individual versus Team settings, addressing a gap in research that mostly focuses on individual outcomes. A total of 120 individuals participated in two sessions. The first session involved cognitive assessments, including the Advanced Progressive Matrices (APM), the Creative Reasoning Test (CRT),...

We present a novel method for analyzing response trajectory tracking data. Limiting behavioral experiments to discrete, key-press response measures, such as reaction times and accuracy, is unsatisfactory for observing the ongoing dynamics of cognition. We assessed the utility of continuous response tracking in Virtual Reality (VR) by comparing it t...

This study focuses on the design, development, and evaluation of a virtual reality (VR)-based distance learning application for manual medicine and therapy (MM and MT). Traditional medical education, often lecture-based, faces challenges in the acquisition of practical skills. The rise of digital technology, particularly VR, offers a promising solu...

Bestehende Diagnostikverfahren bei graphomotorischen Schwächen von Kindern sind überwiegend Insellösungen. Forschende der Rheinland-Pfälzischen Technischen Universität Kaiserslautern-Landau und der insight.out GmbH haben daher die digitale Tablet-Stift-Lösung „graphobox“ entwickelt. Vor- und Grundschulkinder lösen in diesem kindgerechten und motivi...

Divergent thinking (i.e., the generation of multiple ideas by thinking in many different directions; Runco, 2007) has widely been recognized as the underlying process of creativity. On the other hand, convergent thinking still is oftentimes exclusively associated with knowledge, fluid intelligence and logical thinking. However, creativity is charac...

This study investigates neural mechanisms of divergent and convergent thinking in the verbal knowledge domain while taking into account activation related to working memory (WM). Divergent thinking was assessed using the Alternate Uses Task (AUT) and convergent thinking using the Compound Remote Associates task (RAT). We analyzed upper alpha band (...

Little is known about creativity in old age. The aim of this study was to investigate to what extent the intensity of engaging in creative activities differs between older and younger people as well as older people with and without cognitive impairment. Moreover, we evaluated associations of creative activities with specific cognitive abilities. Fo...

Biometric systems to measure inherent human characteristics in combination with methods of Artificial Intelligence (AI), can result in innovative applications, especially in the fields of remote access systems and human-machine interfaces. One of these involves the use of Electroencephalography (EEG) equipment to monitor and visualize brain activit...

This study investigated the interplay between working memory, creativity, and intelligence, providing a comprehensive understanding of their relationships. Adopting a multidimensional approach, verbal and visuospatial components of working memory were examined, along with their effects on fluid intelligence in well and ill-defined problem spaces. A...

Developmental dyslexia is recognized worldwide. However, there are cultural differences between countries in dyslexia-related issues, including assessment practices and intervention. Language and orthography are essential cultural factors that influence both literacy acquisition and the possible manifestation of developmental dyslexia. These differ...

AI-based services are becoming more and more common in manufacturing; however, the development, implementation, and operation of these services are associated with challenges. The design of Human-Centered AI (HCAI) is one approach to address these challenges. Design guidelines and principles are provided to assist AI developers in the design of HCA...

Background The exposome approach can be a powerful tool for understanding the intertwining of social, physical, and internal influences that shape mental health and cognitive development throughout childhood. To distil conceptual models for subsequent analyses, the EU-funded project Early Environmental quality and Life-course mental health effects...

The human brain extracts statistical regularities from the surrounding environment in a process called statistical learning. Behavioural evidence suggests that developmental dyslexia affects statistical learning. However, surprisingly few studies have assessed how developmental dyslexia affects the neural processing underlying this type of learning...

Introduction Long-term memory retention is enhanced after testing compared to restudying (testing effect). Notably, memory retrieval further improves when correct-answer feedback is provided after the retrieval attempt (test-potentiated encoding–TPE). Methods To evaluate whether explicit positive or negative feedback further enhances memory perfor...

Background It is well known that older age is associated with losses in cognitive functioning. Less is known about the extent to which creativity is changing with age or dementia. Aim of the current study was to gain more insights into psychometric aspects of creativity in younger and older people as well as people with dementia. Method Our sample...

Developmental dyslexia is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by an unexpected impairment in literacy acquisition leading to specific poor academic achievement and possible secondary symptoms. The multi-level framework of developmental dyslexia considers five levels of a causal pathway on which a given genotype is expressed and hierarchical...

Latest research has shown that one challenge for the development and implementation of Industrial AI-based services is uncertainty of roles and responsibilities. To address this challenge, we developed a generic role model for the systematic development of AI-based services in manufacturing. The role model describes which roles are necessary within...

The development of Human-Centered and Trustworthy AI-based services has recently attracted increased attention in politics and science. Even though that technical advances have received many of the attention lately, ethical considerations are becoming more and more important. One of the most valuable publications in this area is the "Ethics Guideli...

The testing effect describes the finding that retrieval practice enhances memory performance compared to restudy practice. Prior evidence demonstrates that this effect can be boosted by providing feedback after retrieval attempts (i.e. test-potentiated encoding [TPE]). The present fMRI study investigated the neural processes during successful memor...

Background Neurotypical individuals categorize items even during ultra-rapid presentations (20 ms; see Thorpe et al. Nature 381: 520, 1996). In cognitively able autistic adults, these semantic categorization processes may be impaired and/or may require additional time, specifically for the categorization of atypical compared to typical items. Here,...

Most studies investigating the effects of environmental noise on children’s cognitive performance examine the impact of monaural noise (i.e., same signal to both ears), oversimplifying multiple aspects of binaural hearing (i.e., adequately reproducing interaural differences and spatial information). In the current study, the effects of a realistic...

Zusammenfassung. Hintergrund: In Deutschland zeigen etwa 18 Prozent aller Grundschulkinder Defizite im Schriftspracherwerb. Ein möglichst früher Förderbeginn kann negativen Folgen für den Bildungsverlauf und die psychische Gesundheit der Kinder entgegenwirken. Mit Lautarium steht ein computerbasiertes, schriftsprachliches Förderprogramm zur Verfügu...

Chronic aircraft noise impairs children's cognition. In the literature, LAeq and Lden are the dominating noise exposure metrics for calculating the relationship between noise and cognition, although other noise metrics such as the number above threshold (NAT) exist. There is initial evidence from regression models that the NAT metric served as a se...

Instruction at school relies heavily on oral discourse. Listening comprehension is thus of major importance for successful learning. However, in many classrooms, children’s listening is impaired by unfavourable acoustic conditions such as indoor noise and reverberation. Most studies on the effects of environmental noise on children’s speech percept...

Advances and easier accessibility of Virtual Reality (VR) technology are opening up new opportunities for researchers to conduct laboratory experiments under more ecologically valid yet controlled conditions. In the current study, we investigated the feasibility of utilizing VR in experimental psychology using three classical paradigms: a flanker t...

Immediate serial recall of visually presented items is reliably impaired by task-irrelevant speech that the participants are instructed to ignore (“irrelevant speech effect,” ISE). The ISE is stronger with changing speech tokens (words or syllables) when compared to repetitions of single tokens (“changing-state effect,” CSE). These phenomena have b...

Purpose: Productivity in the construction trade has fallen significantly behind other sectors of the economy. Digital assistance systems can help to improve productivity, however they are rarely used in most smaller construction companies. To change this, it is the scope of this paper to investigate acceptance factors of digital assistance systems...

Virtual reality (VR) users interact with virtual objects using motion-tracked controllers. While many devices utilise abstract button pushes for interactions, some allow for limited finger tracking by estimating finger positions based on sensors. In this study, the Vive Wands and the Valve Index controllers were compared in three tasks: direct inte...

Studies on the influence of traffic noise on children's health are usually very comprehensive and collect data on a large number of measured variables in comparatively large samples. In the NORAH Study, for example, almost 700 variables have been considered including 91variables related to traffic noise. With a theory-based approach, the statistica...

This study investigated the universality of emotional prosody in perception of discrete emotions when semantics is not available. In two experiments the perception of emotional prosody in Hebrew and German by listeners who speak one of the languages but not the other was investigated. Having a parallel tool in both languages allowed to conduct cont...

This is an R markdown document representing our poster for TEAP 2022 in Köln. To study the time courses of the global precedence, global-to-local interference, and local-to-global interference effects in a global/local matching task, we analyzed the RT and accuracy distributions using discrete-time event history analysis and conditional accuracy an...

Although the relationship between creativity and fluid intelligence has been studied extensively with divergent and convergent thinking tasks, the underlying neural mechanisms of this relationship are still under debate. As both have been associated to working memory (WM), the question arises if there are shared underlying mechanisms for creativity...

There is a broad consensus on the potential of smart services for production and the added value their use offers. Industrial artificial intelligence (AI) has several advantages. AI technologies, for example, can strengthen resilience, support work processes, increase product quality and thus improve competitiveness. Many companies have recognised...

Although the focus of Virtual Reality (VR) lies predominantly on the visual world, acoustic components enhance the functionality of a 3D environment. To study the interaction between visual and auditory modalities in a 3D environment, we investigated the effect of auditory cues on visual searches in 3D virtual environments with both visual and audi...

Fetuses are able to process olfactory stimuli present in the womb and continue to show a preference for these odors for months after birth. Despite the accumulated knowledge about their early ability to perceive odors, there is a lack of validated scales for odor response in newborns. The evaluation of reactions of the olfactory system to environme...

This study utilises a novel approach to investigate the effectiveness of different learning modalities by combining video‐based learning with eye‐tracking. An excerpt taken from a vocational education instruction for car mechanics was videotaped using two different cameras: a standard 2D video camera and a professional 360° camera. The video record...

Introduction: In adults, olfactory loss is one of the earliest and most frequent acute clinical manifestations of SARS-CoV-2 infection. The number of children infected with SARS-CoV-2 is relatively small, perhaps due to the lower expression of Angiotensin Converting Enzyme 2 (ACE2) in children compared to adults. Little is known about foetal impair...

A considerable amount of the population in more economically developed countries are functionally illiterate (i.e., low literate). Despite some years of schooling and basic reading skills, these individuals cannot properly read and write and, as a consequence have problems to understand even short texts. An often-discussed approach (Greenberg et al...

Objective Providing instruction for assembly tasks is essential in modern manufacturing industry, as well as in households for customers that buy products to be assembled at home. Recent technological developments might be able to assist in completing an assembly task faster and more accurately. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether perform...

The development and implementation of an observational video-based risk assessment is described. Occupational risk assessment is one of the most important yet also challenging tasks for employers. Most assessment tools to date use questionnaires, expert interviews, and similar tools. Video analysis is a promising tool for risk assessment, but it ne...

Encoding of perceptual categorical information has been observed in later cognitive processing like memory encoding and maintenance, starting around 300 ms after stimulus onset (P300). However, it remains open whether categorical information is also encoded in early perceptual processing steps (reflected in the mismatch negativity component; vMMN)....

Perceptual categorization is an important cognitive function. In the auditory domain, categorization already occurs within the first 200 ms of information processing, as indexed by the mismatch negativity. Here, we assessed the characteristics of the visual mismatch negativity (vMMN) elicited during the categorization of previously unknown visual s...

Effects of the Computer-Based Grapho-Phonological Training Lautarium in Children with Developmental Dyslexia The effects of the computer-based training program Lautarium on phonological awareness and literacy skills were investigated in 41 third-grade children with developmental dyslexia who attended special dyslexia classes in a primary school in...

Holistic processing has been shown with both faces and words, but it is unclear how similar their underlying mechanisms are. In this study attention to global and local features was manipulated and the consequences for holistic word and face processing were examined. On each trial participants were presented two Navon figures and told to focus on e...

As a consequence of globalization and migration, the number of children receiving literacy instruction in their second language (L2) is high and still increasing. Therefore, teachers need instruction methods that are effective in both L1 and L2 learners. Here, we investigate the effectiveness of a computerized training program combining phoneme per...

There are few and inconsistent results suggesting that chronic exposure to aircraft noise is associated with poorer quality of life or health in children. In the literature, LAeq and Lden are the dominating noise exposure metrics for calculating the relationship between noise, well-being and health. However, alternative metrics such as the number o...

Background Previous studies have shown that an intellectually stimulating lifestyle is associated with a lower risk for cognitive decline and Alzheimer's disease and related dementia (ADRD). It is unclear so far whether higher intelligence may protect against this. The aim of this study was to conduct a systematic review on the association between...

The study explored whether target detection in a five-character string depends on whether a letter or a non-letter was presented, as a predesignated target. Skilled readers had to identify a single letter or non-letter in a five-character string, randomly composed of letters and non-letters. It was found that an analytic processing strategy is auto...

Virtual Reality (VR) will lead to a significant change in the way we teach and learn. VR is characterized by immersion, sensory feedback and interactivity. A recent meta-analysis showed that the use of VR (in a broader sense) in primary, secondary and higher education increases learning success, especially with short learning contents. However, som...

Das Bauhandwerk ist eines der wichtigsten Sektoren der deutschen Wirtschaft. In diesem Sektor sind allein in Deutschland mehr als 2 Millionen Mitarbeiter täglich damit beschäftigt, neuen Wohnraum zu schaffen oder zu verschönern sowie Arbeitsräume so zu gestalten, dass wir uns wohlfühlen können. Die Baustelle ist meistens ihr persönlicher Arbeitspla...

Purpose Investigating demands within an occupational context has always been an essential endeavor to guarantee worker well-being and performance efficiency. In blue-collar occupations, the physical demands of manual labor have always been the major focus, but recent technological changes may come with higher demands on the intellectual capacities...

Spatial constituents of adult symbolic number representation produce effects of size-value congruity, Spatial Numerical Association of Response Codes (SNARC), and numerical distance. According to behavioral experiments, these effects belong to distinct processing stages. Yet, these effects evoke overlapping responses in both early and late Event Re...

The easy access and availability of Virtual Reality (VR) technologies open s up a plethora of application fields as it is becoming increasingly easier to use from a technical point of view and more affordable from a consumers' perspective. However, current VR applications hardly or only very rudimentarily take plausible acoustics-i.e. binaural / 3D...

In the literature, LAeq and Lden are the dominating noise exposure metrics for calculating the relationship between noise and annoyance. However, alternative metrics such as the number of events above a threshold (NAT), LAmax or Emergence are rarely considered, although they may have the potential to explain additional variance. This seems necessar...

There are few and inconsistent results suggesting that chronic exposure to aircraft noise is associated with poorer quality of life or health in children. Therefore, a recent WHO review pointed out that the current evidence is insufficient. Previous publications mainly analyzed the isolated relationships between single stressors (e.g., aircraft noi...

The easy access and availability of Virtual Reality (VR) technologies open s up a plethora of application fields as it is becoming increasingly easier to use from a technical point of view and more affordable from a consumers' perspective. However, current VR applications hardly or only very rudimentarily take plausible acoustics-i.e. binaural / 3D...

The Proteus effect describes the phenomenon that Immersive Virtual Reality users derive identity cues from their avatar’s appearance which in turn activate specific stereotypes that influence the users’ behavior or attitudes. The aim of this study was to validate faces of different age groups that can be used for avatars in further studies of Prote...

Introduction: Many medical facilities and research institutes start using digital assessment methods to assess cognitive abilities, such as processing speed, instead of the traditional pen and paper versions. Even though many of the new digital assessment methods have shown to have a stable internal validity, the comparability of results across ass...

Abstract. The article discusses the emergence of a functional literacy construct and the rediscovery of illiteracy in industrialized countries during the second half of the 20th century. It offers a short explanation of how the construct evolved over time. In addition, it explores how functional (il)literacy is conceived differently by research dis...

When immersive virtual reality users employ digital self-representations, i.e., avatars, they may be subject to the Proteus effect. This effect describes changes in attitudes and behaviors in accordance with identity cues derived from the employed avatar’s appearance, which can persist after leaving virtual reality. Individual reactions to the expe...

Performance feedback during a speech-nonspeech discrimination task was used to investigate (neuro-)cognitive processes underlying feedback processing under uncertainty. Sensory uncertainty was manipulated by creating stimuli that were stepwise morphs of the German vowels /a/ and /a:/ (speech) and their spectrally rotated counterparts (non-speech)....

We studied the global precedence effect in primary school children with and without developmental dyslexia, using a compound figures task with familiar (Latin) or unfamiliar (Hebrew) letters. The two components of the global precedence effect were considered separately: global advantage (faster processing of global than local letters) and asymmetri...

With the aging of the population comes the aging of the workforce. Due to increased costs of living and medical expenses, many older people have to work for a longer lifetime period before they can afford to retire. At the same time, technological innovations are changing the workplace. The objective of our study was to evaluate how older workers e...

The size congruity effect involves interference between numerical magnitude and physical size of visually presented numbers: congruent numbers (either both small or both large in numerical magnitude and physical size) are responded to faster than incongruent ones (small numerical magnitude/large physical size or vice versa). Besides, numerical magn...

Considering active digitization projects, the construction industry seems yet a mostly unconquered field. Complex dynamics and sometimes harsh (e.g. weather influence, no infrastructure, etc.) environments of construction sites challenge the technology and adds harder requirements compared to an industrial application on a shop floor. Moreover, the...