Dear German and Chinese Members of the IRTG "Adaptive Minds",

Dear German and Chinese Members of the IRTG "Adaptive Minds",
We decided to initiate a new communication instrument in our Sino-German research training group,
i.e. the “IRTG Newsletter”, which will be sent to all German and Chinese IRTG members in more or
less regular intervals (ca. every 2-3 months or whenever appropriate).
We hope that everybody of you will enjoy reading interesting news from the IRTG in the first IRTG
Newsletter below. Please do not hesitate to send us your feedback or questions on the contents of
the newsletter.
Best regards,
The coordination team of the IRTG at the German side
Axel, Hubert, Theo & Johanna
1.) New IRTG Members
Postdoctoral researcher:
Since 15 May 2011, the IRTG has a new postdoctoral researcher after Sarah
Brieber had completed her two-years working period. The new postdoc is familiar to you, it is Julia Schneiders, who now works as the postdoctoral researcher of the IRTG with fMRI expertise. We are looking forward to the contributions by Julia to the research and teaching/supervision activities related to
fMRI and wish Sarah Brieber good luck for her further career.
Ying Su, PhD student in Frank Spinath’s group from 1 June 2011:
“Hi, I am Ying Su. I come from southern China and obtained my Bachelor degree
in Psychology there. I did my Masters in the Psychology of Individual Differences at the University of Edinburgh in UK. I am very much looking forward to a
wonderful experience with the IRTG team.”
Corina Möller, PhD student in Gisa Aschersleben’s group from 1 June 2011:
“My name is Corina Möller, I’m 25 years old, and I recently finished my studies
of Psychology at the University of Hamburg. Beginning in June, I will join the
IRTG as a PhD student and work on my research project under the supervision
of Prof. Dr. Aschersleben. I enjoy social activities, especially if they involve
sports or spending time with friends. I’m looking forward to meeting you
soon!”
Lena Schmidt, PhD student in Georg Kerkhoff’s group from 1 July 2011:
“Hello, my name is Lena Schmidt and I am one of the new PhD students in the
IRTG beginning in July 2011. I am 25 years old and I was born in the beautiful
Saarland. Since 2006, I studied Psychology at the Saarland University and
graduated in June 2011. I am looking forward to working in the IRTG and cooperating with all of you.”
Charlotte Schwedes, new associated PhD student from Dirk Wentura’s
group:
“I have studied psychology at Saarland University. Since October 2010, I am a
PhD student in Dirk Wentura’s group. My research interests are in the field of
eyewitness psychology. Specifically, I investigate memory processes using eyetracking.”
Qingfang Zhang, coordinating professor of Chinese Academy of Sciences:
We would like to welcome Qingfang Zhang, who has been appointed to be
the new coordinating professor at the Chinese side of the IRTG. We are very
much looking forward to cooperating with Qingfang Zhang and the other
Chinese principal investigators during the next years! Among others, one of
the research topics of Qingfang Zhang is the investigation of Chinese language
production and processing by applying event-related potentials (see
http://sourcedb.cas.cn/sourcedb_psych_cas/en/epsychexpert/200907/t2009
0731_2287143.html).
Tanja Michael, new principal investigator for the second funding period:
We would like to welcome Tanja Michael, the professor for Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy at Saarland University, as an additional principal investigator of the IRTG in the second funding period, for which the professors
now have to submit a renewal proposal (see below). We are very much looking forward to the project/s that Tanja Michael is going to conceptualize for
the IRTG!
2.) RISE Fellowship Within the IRTG for the Group of Georg Kerkhoff
On behalf of the IRTG, the group of Georg Kerkhoff with Mareike Kardinal as the responsible PhD
student has raised funds from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) for a short-term fellowship for an undergraduate student in the context of the RISE program of the DAAD (for details
about the program see http://www.daad.de/rise/en). By this, a student from the U.K., namely Ruta
Garbacenkaite ([email protected]) from the lab of Igor Schindler at the University of
Hull will be able to come to Saarland University to be an intern of Georg Kerkhoff’s lab from 6 June to
21 August 2011. We would like to warmly welcome Ruta at the IRTG. She will be working on the topic
“Turn your head to the future: Modulating the recollection of subjective life
events by body rotation and Galvanic-vestibular stimulation”. Here is a short
introduction of Ruta about herself:
“I am a second year psychology student at the University of Hull and at the
moment my aim in life is to become a clinical neuropsychologist. I would
describe myself as an eternal optimist who loves people and life. I am very
passionate to learn about different cultures and I cannot wait to discover all
the hidden gems that Germany has to offer!”
3.) IRTG News
The first associated PhD student of the IRTG at the German side has recently handed in her doctoral
thesis, namely Nicole Brunnemann. We would like to congratulate Nicole for having finalized her
thesis “Development of Declarative Memory in Preterm and Full-Term Born Children – Evidence from
Neuropsychological Tests, Structural Brain Imaging, and Event-Related Potentials“. Since May 2011,
Nicole works in a postdoctoral position at the “Zentrum für Klinische Psychologie und Rehabilitation”
at the University of Bremen. We wish Nicole all the best for her future career.
4.) New IRTG Publications
We would like to happily announce two new journal papers of the IRTG that will soon be published in
Neuroscience and Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, respectively:

Arend, A.M. & Zimmer, H.D. (in press). What does ipsilateral delay activity reflect? Inferences
from slow potentials in a lateralized visual working memory task. Journal of Cognitive
Neuroscience.

Utz, K.S., Keller, I., Artinger, F., Stumpf, O., Funk, J., & Kerkhoff, G. (in press). Multimodal and
multispatial deficits of verticality perception in hemispatial neglect. Neuroscience.
Congratulations to the authors Anna, Kathrin, Georg, and Hubert for publishing these papers!
The website that lists all publications of the IRTG has been updated with these references (please let
Theo Jaeger know if any publication of yours is missing):
http://www.uni-saarland.de/de/campus/forschung/forschungsaktivitaeten/graduiertenkollegs/graduiertenkolleg-adaptive-minds/publications.html
5.) Starting Grants for two Graduates of the IRTG
In February 2011, the IRTG called for proposals regarding a new funding instrument, i.e. the Starting
Grant for Graduates of the IRTG at the German side. This grant reflects a scholarship of the IRTG for
the duration of six months and starts not before the doctoral thesis has been handed in. The aim of
the grant is to support the first six months of the postdoctoral phase of IRTG graduates who want to
initiate their further scientific career, e.g. by writing a proposal for third-party funding.
The joint decision by the German principal investigators was to award a Starting Grant to Olka Kriukova and René Liesefeld. While Olga is going to pursue the topic “True and False Familiarity-Based
Associative Recognition of Semantic Relations: Taking Advantage of Hemishperic Differences in Information Processing”, René intends to continue the topic of Mental Rotation by developing an instrument to assess the Orientation Span by individuals. Moreover, René plans to go to Ed Vogel’s lab
at the University of Oregon for a short-term research visit.
6.) Second Sino-German Fall School of the IRTG in October 2011
The IRTG will organize the second SinoGerman Fall School in St. Goar (Germany)
from 2-8 October 2011. It will be a joint event
by the partner institutions of the IRTG – Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of
Sciences (IP-CAS) and Departments of Psychology and Neuroradiology of Saarland University.
The Fall School will take place in the Castle
Rheinfels in St. Goar. The Castle is situated in
the Loreley valley, which is included in the
UNESCO world heritage list and “certainly
one of the most romantic spots in Germany”. The 4 star castle hotel is set on a hilltop
overlooking the Rhine river and is part of
one of the biggest castle complexes in Germany.
In total, ca. 40 researchers will take part in
the Sino-German Fall School. From the Chinese side, there will be 15 professors and PhD students.
From the German side, the professors, postdocs and doctoral scholarship holders (including Jing
Zhao) will take part in the event. Furthermore, if spaces are available, we will try to enable participation also to PhD students of the IRTG who will not yet have finished their PhD and are not funded
anymore by a scholarship.
Finally, there will be between four and six renowned invited speakers. We are happy to announce
that the professors John Aggleton (School of Psychology, Cardiff University), Ed Awh (Institute of
Neuroscience, University of Oregon), Xun Liu (Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences,
Beijing), and Klaus Oberauer (Department of Psychology, University of Zurich) accepted our invitation
to be guest speakers during our Sino-German Fall School.
Please find some further impressions of the nice venue for the Fall School at:
http://www.uni-saarland.de/de/campus/forschung/forschungsaktivitaeten/graduiertenkollegs/graduiertenkolleg-adaptive-minds/study-program/winter-term201112/fall-school-2011-in-st-goar.html
7.) Renewal Proposal at the German Research Foundation (DFG)
The IRTG has started to conceptualize and write the renewal proposal for a second funding period of
4,5 years. The proposal will be written by both the German and Chinese professors and be handed in
until 30 September 2011.
We are highly thankful for the contributions that have been or will be provided by all of you in order
to support a successful renewal proposal of the IRTG.