Department of Psychology: Leading Experiences from Cooperative Education Abroad

Merve Kınıklıoğlu: University of Leipzig, Germany

“BioCog Lab. at the University of Leipzig is a cognitive neuroscience laboratory studying the mechanisms underlying visual and aureal attention, operational memory, and perception, using a number of methods including EEG, pupil size measurement, and behavioral assessments. Using the ‘visual mismatch negativity (vMNN)’ phenomenon, we investigate the role played by attention in the development of visual objects, with reference to behavioral assessments and EEG. My duties in this context involve the preparation of experiment materials, the optimization of stimulants, and the analysis of behavioral data. Furthermore, I am carrying out the experiments for a pilot study for another project to be initiated soon. We intend to complete the pilot study and start with the experiments by August.”

Afife Konyalı: Max-Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Science, Leipzig / Germany

“Within the framework of the Cooperative education program, I work as a student intern at ODYCCEUS (Opinion Dynamics and Cultural Conflict in European Space) project supported by the European Union. The project basically focuses on developing a digital application capable of discovering the dynamics which can lead to polarization and conflicts, predicting –if possible– conflicts in advance, and implementing interventions to prevent them at all. Given the fact that it is a project involving academics from different disciplines (sociology, mathematics, computer sciences, economics), it is divided into a number of sub-fields. As a student of psychology and mathematics, I work on how human mind represents the attitudes regarding a topic / object, and how such representations can be modeled mathematically. Furthermore, the part of the project I contribute to entails the designing of an experiment to understand which social / individual factors affect attitudes and lead to polarization / conflicts on a political matter, in order to solidify the experimental foundations of the theories which serve as the basis of the models and practices to be developed later on.”

Burcu Avcı: Universitat de Barcelona / Spain

“During my Cooperative education in the spring semester, within the framework of the Erasmus+ Internship Mobility Program, I had a 3-months internship on January-April 2017 at the Brainlab Neuroscience Research Group at the University of Barcelona, Department of Psychology. This research group including members from a number of countries, focusing on a number of distinct fields, gave me the opportunity to observe and take part in EEG studies. I took part in a project on EEG containing linguistic stimulants, working with Carles Escera, Ph.D., Jordi Costa-Faidella, Ph.D. and Marta Ortega-Llebaria, Ph.D. The meetings at the laboratory, seminars provided, and the workshops organized gave me the chance to get more and more information about a number of distinct research topics concerning EEG and neuropsychology.”

Havva Nur Çelik – Sevinç Ayşe Kaya: Kappio Kindergarten, the Netherlands

“We had our internship for Summer semester of the academic year 2015-2016, at Kappio kindergarten. During the internship we had with pedagogs, we observed the children, and got the chance to improve our skills on working and communicating with children who have special needs. We also contributed to the authoring of Kappio’s pedagogic directive on the participation by children. By attending meetings with psychologists, we made utmost use of the chances we received to learn about cultural differences.”