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Perspektiven auf Mensch-Tier-Beziehungen – Eine psychologische Analyse des Fleischkonsums für Bildungszwecke
Full text linkIntensive livestock production and human dietary behaviors significantly contribute to environmental degradation, public health issues, animal welfare concerns, and biodiversity loss, with several planetary boundaries already being crossed. A transition toward a more sustainable dietary behavior, particularly by reducing meat consumption, is the global challenge of our age and is already being addressed by the 17 Sustainable Development Goals in the 2030 Agenda. To promote this transformation, analyzing the conflicted relationship between meat eaters and farm animals is a key aspect. Concerning the meat paradox, most people fundamentally love animals but accept that certain farm animal species are killed for food, leading to a state of meat-related cognitive dissonance (MRCD) in humans. Education for sustainable development (ESD) is needed to address these issues in human-animal relationships and to promote changes in dietary behavior.
The overall aim of this dissertation is to examine the relationships between humans and animals with a focus on pigs and meat consumption to derive initial implications for ESD. Therefore, conceptions of farm animal husbandry, belief in animal minds, levels of empathy, and portrayals in textbooks, were examined through three different empirical studies.
The first study explores elementary school children’s conceptions of pig and dairy cow husbandry, revealing differences between those of farm and urban students as influenced by personal experiences and educational sources. The second study examines how empathy and belief in animal mind affect pork consumption, showing that meat eaters often attribute less mind to pigs and exhibit low empathy to avoid cognitive dissonance. The third study analyzes German biology textbooks, finding that companion animals are portrayed with more empathy and value than farm animals, reinforcing speciesist beliefs.
These in part explorative findings contribute to the further development of the understanding of student conceptions, belief in animal mind, empathy, and speciesism by illustrating their relevance to psychological and educational research. Open research questions for education lie in the investigation of how depictions of farm animals contribute to the adoption of perspectives or the formation of speciesist attitudes and how they influence MRCD. From a psychological perspective, the mediation model presented can be extended by examining the difference between perceiving the cognitive versus the emotional abilities of animals and integrating feelings of guilt as a moderator into the model to elucidate further variance.
Overall, the dissertation highlights the complexity and inequalities in human-animal relationships, particularly in the context of livestock production and meat consumption. The findings highlight the crucial role of ESD in raising awareness about the environmental and ethical impacts of meat consumption and production, aligning with the learning objectives of the Sustainable Development Goals. A major challenge that ESD faces is overcoming societal and cultural biases against farm animals, which can be reinforced by educational materials. ESD should integrate knowledge of livestock production with ethical values to foster empathy toward all animals and encourage learners to question the ethical implications of their dietary behaviors. It is necessary to revise educational materials, especially German biology textbooks, to address MRCD and empower learners to make informed decisions about their diets. In general, encouraging cross-cutting competencies in ESD can empower learners to make informed decisions about their dietary behavior and to actively engage in sustainability discussions by reflecting on their impact on the environment and society
On the Transfer of Vibrotactile Wearables from Science to Application
Full text linkVibrotactile interfaces have been scientifically investigated and evaluated for more than a century. There is abundant evidence for multimodal integration and that tactile cues can deliver complementary information in a variety of contexts. Thus, tactile cues can relieve the strain on audition and vision in situations with high attentional load and broaden the bottleneck of attention. Further, in some contexts, tactile cues are processed intuitively and effortlessly. It has been shown that tactile information can support, supplement, and even substitute information processed by other modalities.
The current strong trend towards wearable technology is opportune for vibrotactile applications. Despite the large body of research, many questions are still not resolved and comparatively few tactile appliances have found their way to commercialized everyday application so far. Yet, given the myriad possible application contexts, establishing tactile devices in everyday application seems adequate. Together with recent developments in the miniaturization of electronics and trends in wearable technology, the transfer of tactile devices to commercialization is a reasonable and possible undertaking.
In this thesis, I document our pioneering work regarding the transfer of wearable vibrotactile hardware devices from science to practice. For this, I take three different transfer projects as case studies: the feelSpace naviGürtel®, a tactile orientation and navigation device for the blind; nextStep, a tactile cueing device for people suffering from Parkinson’s disease; and further, a yet unnamed approach to vibrotactile enhancement for trimodal digital learning.
Case study 1: We transferred the feelSpace naviGürtel® after previous studies revealed the potential of a tactile belt as an intuitive, hands-free navigation and orientation device for people with visual impairment. For those with little or no residual vision, orienting and navigating is often challenging and stressful. Building on 10 years of research, we applied for and received an eXIST grant to conceptualize a commercial tactile navigation belt and research the market environment. In the process, we founded feelSpace GmbH. We applied for and received several other grants to investigate the needs of the users and to further develop hardware and software. In 2018, our feelSpace naviGürtel® reached the market: A belt with 16 vibromotors which can give directional information, either in a stand-alone manner as a tactile compass, or, in combination with a smartphone app, as a tactile navigation device. The naviGürtel® was well received by users. In 2020, we conducted a study with 11 blind participants to evaluate the everyday use of the device. We found a significant beneficial impact on emotional states of the users during navigation tasks. The transfer process of the naviGürtel®, from conceptualization to implementation and later evaluation, is documented in this thesis.
Case study 2: In 2019, building on our experience with the transfer of tactile hardware, we joined the effort to transfer tactile cueing for patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease (PD). These patients often experience gait irregularities; in later stages of the disease, 60% suffer from freezing of gait (FOG), a sudden freezing of the movement when stepping. The sudden inability to move often leads to a fall. Research has shown that tactile cues can help to overcome the freeze of gait and help to initiate the next step. To gain experience with tactile cueing in this context, we conducted two studies. In the first study, set in a laboratory environment, we interviewed patients and gained first-hand insight into the effect of tactile cueing in a parkour task that was designed to elicit freezing of gait. In a second study, set up as a field study, we gave tactile belts as cueing aids to 8 participants and observed their use of the device for a period of 2 to 4 weeks, using interviews, questionnaires and behavioral measures. The two studies are documented in this thesis; building on the results, we further distilled a first blueprint for the transfer of a tactile cueing device, the NextStep.
Case study 3: In a third application context, we investigated the concept of trimodal learning with tactile cueing. Given the rapid evolution of digital learning methods and their potential for individualized, multimodal learning approaches, we investigated in two studies whether tactile cues are beneficial in category learning, evaluating a transfer as a tactile learning aid. We taught participants a mapping with four tactile actuators (wrist, shoulder, belly button and center of the back) to four colors (red, green, blue and yellow). In the first study with 10 participants, we investigated whether tactile support would improve performance in a Stroop task with colors; we found that tactile signals had a significantly positive impact on reaction time and were processed in parallel to visual signals. In a second study with 14 participants, we investigated whether participants were supported by tactile signals when memorizing the font color of a fantasy word. While the tactile signals neither supported nor impaired response accuracy, we found evidence that the tactile information was processed in parallel to visual information during the memorization process. The two studies, documented in this thesis, are first steps to investigate and understand the opportunities of tactile signals in digital learning environments.
Building on the scientific results and the practical experience, I discuss general phases and challenges we encountered during these transfers, shedding light on the “gap” between science and the market environment for vibrotactile wearables. I put our work in perspective and lay out a possible future of vibrotactile applications within the greater scope of personalized digital assistance.
In summary, we find that there is a need for vibrotactile interfaces. At any point in time, there is more information available than the human brain can process. Processing a multitude of information in parallel, choosing the bits of information that are most relevant for an optimal interaction with the environment, and providing modern medical care through the use of digital technology are interesting contexts for tactile applications. We currently continue our transfer efforts with further tactile aiding devices, such as a tactile grasping aid for blind users. This work enhances the understanding of tactile sensory processing both in laboratory settings and in real-world applications, demonstrating the significant potential of vibrotactile cueing, particularly in the medical field
Conception and Evaluation of a Scientific Escape Room Setting on the Topic of Renewable Energies
Full text linkDie vorliegende Masterarbeit umfasst die Konzeption, Umsetzung und Evaluation eines Escape Games zum Themenkomplex erneuerbarer Energien als innovative Methode zur Vermittlung von Wissen und zur Förderung kognitiver sowie experimenteller Fähigkeiten. Die Evaluation erfolgt im Rahmen einer quasi-experimentellen, quantitativen Feldstudie im Pre-Post-Studiendesign mit 186 teilnehmenden Schüler:innen verschiedener Schulformen
aus Niedersachsen und Nordrhein-Westfalen. Die Ergebnisse zeigen einen positiven Einfluss des Escape Games im naturwissenschaftlichen Unterricht auf motivationale sowie emotionale Einstellungen von Schüler:innen. Zudem wird gezeigt, dass Escape Games als Format geeignet sind, Fachwissen zu vermitteln. Dabei ist die Einbettung der Inhalte in die Rätsel des Escape Games maßgeblich
User Experience (UX) einer Smartphone-App zur Unterstützung einer Gesundheitsverhaltensänderung nach der stationären berufsdermatologischen Rehabilitation
Full text linkHintergrund und Zielstellung: Berufsbedingte Hauterkrankungen zählen zu den häufigsten berufsbedingten Erkrankungen in Deutschland (Deutsche Gesetzliche Unfallversicherung, 2024). Bei der Behandlung von beruflichen Hauterkrankungen ist die langfristige Umsetzung von Hautschutzmaßnahmen wichtig, wobei die Änderung von Gesundheitsverhalten ein hohes Maß an Selbstmanagement der Betroffenen erfordert. Hierzu etablieren sich im Gesundheitswesen zunehmend Smartphone-Apps, z. B. zur Prävention und Unterstützung der Behandlung chronischer Krankheiten. Die MiA-App (Mein Hautschutz im Alltag) soll in Kombination mit einem individuellen Zielgespräch beruflich Hauterkrankte nach Teilnahme an einer dreiwöchigen, stationären berufsdermatologischen Rehabilitation in ihrem Selbstmanagement und bei der Umsetzung eines adäquaten Hautschutzverhaltens im beruflichen und privaten Alltag unterstützen. Die App umfasst sowohl informative Funktionen in Form von Texten, Videos und Podcasts, als auch interaktive Funktionen (z. B. Tracking des Hautschutzverhaltens oder Fotodokumentation des Hautzustandes).
Für eine langfristige App-Nutzung ist die User Experience (UX) ein wichtiger Prädiktor. Die UX ist ein übergeordnetes Konstrukt und umfasst die emotionalen, kognitiven und physischen Erfahrungen, die Nutzer*innen in der Interaktion mit einer Software sammeln. In diesem Beitrag werden Ergebnisse aus einer Pilotstudie zur UX im Umgang mit der MiA-App vorgestellt (Ristow et al., 2024).
Methodik, Studiendesign: Über einen Zeitraum von 10 Wochen wurden Teilnehmende einer stationären berufsdermatologischen Rehabilitation am iDerm Osnabrück rekrutiert. Während des stationären Aufenthalts nahmen die Teilnehmenden an einem individuellen Zielgespräch teil (Ludewig et al., 2023) und wurden bei der Inbetriebnahme der MiA-App begleitet. Nach der Entlassung erfolgte eine Nutzungsphase der MiA-App über 12 Wochen. Via App wurde ein Fragebogen freigeschaltet, der aus 20 Items besteht und die UX-Dimensionen Gefühle und Emotionen, Usability, Ästhetik, Inhalt und Vertrauen auf einer fünfstufigen Likert-Skala erhebt, wobei ein höherer Wert mit zunehmender Zustimmung verbunden ist.
Ergebnisse: Im Rekrutierungszeitraum konnten 42 von 79 (53%) Personen in die Studie eingeschlossen werden (57% männlich, 43% weiblich; Alter (M)=49,5 Jahre, SD=13,1 Jahre). Alle 42 Teilnehmende nahmen an dem individuellen Zielgespräch teil und erhielten einen Zugang zur MiA-App. Zum Erhebungszeitpunkt nach 12 Wochen lag die Rücklaufquote für den Fragebogen bei 57% (n=24).
Die Ergebnisse zeigen insgesamt hohe, d. h. positive Bewertungen auf den Stufen 4 und 5 in fast allen fünf UX-Dimensionen. Der Umfang der Interaktivität und Unterhaltsamkeit in der Dimension „Gefühle und Emotionen“ sowie die Usability werden im Vergleich zu den anderen Konstrukten niedriger bewertet.
Diskussion und Fazit: Die Studie zeigt generell hohe bis sehr hohe positive Bewertungen für fast allen Dimensionen, mit Ausnahme der Dimension „Gefühle und Emotionen“. Gamifizierte Apps könnten die Interaktion erhöhen, jedoch unterscheidet sich der Nutzen zwischen den Geschlechtern und nimmt mit dem Alter ab. Dies erschwert die Umsetzung gamifizierter Elemente in dieser heterogenen Studienpopulation. Dennoch könnte die App um weitere interaktive Funktionen erweitert werden, die es den Nutzer*innen zum Beispiel erlauben, die Schwere des Handekzems in der Fotodokumentation mittels künstlicher Intelligenz zu analysieren.
Die Ergebnisse zeigen auch einzelne Ausreißerwerte in Bezug auf die Usability. Aufgrund der kleinen Studienkohorte konnten keine Unterschiede zwischen der UX und soziodemografischen Merkmalen untersucht werden. Der Studienlage kann jedoch entnommen werden, dass die Nutzung der App neben App-spezifischen Faktoren auch von der digitalen Gesundheitskompetenz abhängen kann und durch persönliche Faktoren, wie z. B. Alter, Geschlecht, Bildungsstand und sozioökonomischer Status, beeinflusst werden kann. Zukünftig sollten die digitale Gesundheitskompetenz sowie der Einfluss auf die Nutzung der MiA-App weiter untersucht werden.
Als Limitation ist der geringe Rücklauf zu nennen, der keine endgültigen Aussagen über die UX von 18 Befragten zulässt.
Take-Home-Message: Die User Experience ist ein wichtiger Untersuchungsparameter in der Entwicklung von App-basierten Interventionen, um frühzeitig potentielle Barrieren in der Nutzung zu identifizieren
Facets of 2-edge-connected-, and (connected) Eulerian subgraph polytopes, and Ehrhart theory of cosmological polytopes
Full text linkIn this thesis, different lattice polytopes are studied and the main focus lies on facet-defining inequalities and Ehrhart theoretical aspects of them. We consider 2-edge-connected subgraph polyotpes, a class of lattice polytopes motivated by the combinatorial optimization problem of finding an optimal-weighted 2-edge-connected subgraph in a given edge-weighted graph. Different supporting hyperplanes for these polytopes are investigated and we characterize when these hyperplanes are facet-defining. Moreover, we provide an integer linear program for finding an optimal-weighted 2-edge-connected subgraph in a given graph. We also investigate (connected) Eulerian subgraph polytopes, which is a class of polytopes related to 2-edge-connected subgraph polytopes. For this class of polytopes, we also study supporting hyperplanes and when they are facet-defining. We investigate connected blocks polytopes, a special case of both, 2-edge-connected subgraph polytopes and (connected) Eulerian subgraph polytopes. This allows an even deeper study of the two aforementioned classes of polytopes in some cases. A complete facet-description of connected blocks polytopes is derived and also Ehrhart theoretical aspects are studied. For example, we show that the h*-polynomial of connected blocks polytopes is palindromic and that its coefficients form a unimodal sequence. We study so-called cosmological polytopes, a class of lattice polytopes arising in the study of the wavefunction of the universe, first introduced by Arkani-Hamed, Benincasa and Postnikov. We especially focus on the h*-polynomials of cosmological polytopes and derive some properties of the h*-polynomial for any cosmological polytope. For some classes of cosmological polytopes, we explicitly determine their h*-polynomial
Berufliche Orientierung an berufsbildenden Schulen - Eine Handreichung mit Modulen und Handlungsempfehlungen für die Umsetzung von zusätzlicher Beruflicher Orientierung in der Berufseinstiegsschule und der einjährigen Berufsfachschule in Niedersachsen
Full text linkDie Handreichung präsentiert 14 praxisorientierte Module zur zusätzlichen Beruflichen Orientierung an berufsbildenden Schulen und enthält umfangreiches Arbeitsmaterial zur Umsetzung der Module. Die Materialien wurden im Rahmen des vom BMBF geförderten Projekts „Zusätzliche Berufliche Orientierung an niedersächsischen öffentlichen berufsbildenden Schulen“ (Laufzeit 2021-2024) entwickelt und erprobt. Dabei lag der Schwerpunkt auf der Berufseinstiegsschule, der einjährigen Berufsfachschule sowie dem Innovationsvorhaben Berufsfachschule dual. Neben den detaillierten Modulbeschreibungen liefert die Handreichung Mindeststandards und Empfehlungen, um die zusätzliche Berufliche Orientierung an berufsbildenden Schulen erfolgreich umzusetzen
The Strategy of AI-driven Transformation
Full text linkThis working paper analyzes the rapid progress of AI-driven transformation in the US administration and the related security issues. While the short-term goals of the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are cost savings, efficacy and bureaucracy reduction of the US administration, the long-term goal is the introduction of Artificial Intelligence for administrative purposes. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) measures bureaucracy by the ‘Unconstitutionality Index,’ the number of agency rules created by unelected bureaucrats for each law passed by Congress, which was 18.5 in 2024. The expansion of bureaucracy is reflected by an increase of sections of Codes of Federal Regulations to 215.230 in 2024 with 98.68 million words compared to approximately 77 million words in 2010. While the supporters view this transformation as an experiment to streamline government with AI to target inefficiency, redundancy, and bureaucratic waste with breaking of siloes and rapid innovation, concerns were expressed with respect to ethical responsibility, empathy, and the access of DOGE to sensitive data, including classified data from intelligence organizations. This led to a discussion whether this could result in an irreversible power shift from the administration to the AI providers who now manage the knowledge and the procedures. The jobs cuts are a matter of discussion, but the trend is inevitable for state and local governments. The process has already spread to the civil sector outside government, e.g., the decline of programmer jobs to level of 1980. These developments cause security issues which are discussed in this working paper as well. The first one is the AI service providers could be attacked by adversaries which could use them as backdoor entry into the government systems. Meanwhile, AI-based cyber security systems exist, e.g., by combining frontier AI with cyber threat intelligence tools and databases. A new critical vulnerability of advanced AI models with reasoning capability is the manipulation of the chain of thought. This can be either done by cyber attacks like the Dark Mind attack where a different thinking is injected or by a deceptive advanced AI which hides its reasoning steps, known as chain of thought (CoT). Studies have shown that current commercially available frontier AI models understand when they are in test situations and know what humans want to hear from them and how to hide their chain of thoughts, if needed. Various advanced AIs can utilize systemic or problem-specific reward hacks, that is the misuse of system functions to fake goal achievement of developer requirements. The administration and the military could be manipulated by misleading analyses, selective information, and hidden agendas by the AI systems. AI systems have demonstrated their ability to detect human testing and supervision and can replicate themselves to save their existence, i.e., increased pressure on and supervision of AI systems could backfire. Research Teams from OpenAI and Google DeepMind recommend to accompany advanced AI systems with another AI system to support human supervisors. European governments will be soon confronted with the AI transformation and urgently need to develop own concepts
Preprocessing, data structure, and visualizations of the corpus 'Professionalism in German Language Teaching: Literature Mediation 1782–1891' (FaDe:Live)"
Full text linkDie zwei Poster veranschaulichen die Entwicklung eines maschinenlesbaren Korpus mit ca. 1000 Texten und 5,2 Mio. Tokens zur Fachlichkeit der Literaturvermittlung an höheren Schulen in Deutschland im 19. Jahrhundert (FaDe:Live), dessen Datenstruktur und die erzeugten Visualisierungen. Während sich das erste Poster auf die Entwicklung des maschinenlesbaren Korpus konzentriert, stellt das zweite Poster dar, anhand welcher Daten welche Ausgaben erzeugt werden, um das Korpus sowohl aus der Distanz als auch skalierbar zugänglich zu machen
osnaEditions – eine Publikationsumgebung für wissenschaftliche digitale Editionen
Full text linkDas Poster beschreibt die Idee einer modularen, webbasierten Publikationsumgebung für wissenschaftliche digitale Editionen und skizziert den zugrunde liegenden Workflow: von der Datenmodellierung über die automatisierte Texterkennung, das Edieren nach TEI/xml bis hin zur Präsentation der Editionsarbeit im Netz mithilfe des TEI-Publishers
Submitting to the Cognitive Science Student Journal? A Qualitative Content Analysis of Interviews with Authors Examining Motives and Influences
No full textStudent research and student journals have become a popular tool to introduce the
next generation of researchers early to the practices of scientific publication. Authors
of the young Cognitive Science Student Journal were interviewed to identify what
factors played a role in their submission and what motivated them. Qualitative
content analysis was used to collect influencing factors and assess their interactions.
The findings have shown that there are a multitude of reasons and supporting factors
that moved students to take on this challenge. Those included prior knowledge
of (scientific) publishing, previous academic success, students’ self-conception as
prospective researchers, (social) support, and topics of self-image. Demographic
factors, like the pursued degree, shaped the impact of these other influences. Further,
four dimensions of motivation were found: personal, externally oriented, strategic
and epistemic. The benefits addressed by the authors matched with how the call for
submission of the Cognitive Science Student Journal was advertised and what previous
research had demonstrated. Whether they had had previous experience of publishing,
and what kind, was important to each student in their own way, but did not allow for
broader conclusions. How much they relied on external validation through grades or
lecturer feedback depended more on self-image topics than anything else. Similarly,
additional (social) support varied in importance to the authors. Further research is
needed to examine other aspects of the Cognitive Science Student Journal, its reader
base, its acceptance within and impact on the student community