Author: dziobeklab

📣 Dziobek Lab at the 1st Digital Scientific Conference Autism Spectrum (WTAS)

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The Scientific Conference Autism Spectrum (WTAS) is the largest symposium on autism in the German-speaking world and is organized annually by the Society for Research in Autism Spectrum Conditions (WGAS), which was co-founded by Prof. Dziobek. This year, Sandra Naumann, one of our PhD candidates, was in charge of organizing the WTAS, which took place from March, 3-5 2021. The conference had the overarching theme “Significance of the Environment”.

The Dziobek lab participated with various talks and posters at the 1st Digital WTAS: Magdalena Matyjek and Simone Kirst gave an oral presentation, while Mareike Bayer, Katharina Bögl, Silke Lipinski and Muyu Lin presented posters. Thus, the WTAS 2021 provided a stimulating platform to exchange our knowledge with other researchers, practitioners as well as affected persons and their relatives.

📹 SCOTT and Zirkus Empathico on air at Deutsche Welle!

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In our digital intervention tools, S.C.O.T.T. and Zirkus Empathico were documented on behalf of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs for a Deutsche Welle contribution. Isabel Dziobek reports about their benefits for individuals on the autism spectrum and Zirkus Empathico is tested for the first time with an autistic boy (production by CONTEXT FILM Produktion for doc.station Medienproduktion GmbH; in German).

New member! 👥 Welcome, Mahi!

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Mahlet Kassa has recently joined us as a PhD student!

She is interested in the relationship between our sense of bodily self and social
cognition i.e. how we interact with others. Specifically, how interoception (the perception
of signals from within the body) contributes to one’s concept of self and how this in turn interacts and influences affective and cognitive empathy.

We wish her all the best for her doctoral studies!

📺 Isabel Dziobek on TV! “nano” features our robot Pepper and the Virtual Interaction Task

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The TV program “nano” from September 24, 2019 (min. 17.30, in German) reports about the “Virtual Interaction Task” (VIT) that was developed by Hanna Drimalla and Isabel Dziobek. And, for the first time, an autistic boy accompanied by Isabel Dziobek meets our robot “Pepper” (project “ERIK” on child-robot interaction).

We are at the Long Night of Science 🔬

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“Long Night of Science” is a an annual popular science event in Berlin, during which interested visitors can approach scientists, learn about what they do, and participate in short experiments.

For the 2019 edition, we prepared a short experiment, in which participants played a repeat-a-pattern game on a gamepad and we monitored their pupillary responses to received social feedback.

The mini-experiment was very popular and we got to record 40+ datasets! It was fun and informative for the visitors and a great learning experience for us – we had a chance to talk about our lab and communicate our research to the general public!

A big thank you goes to Lena Matyjek who organised the experiment and the stand, and to all the students who volunteered their time and conducted the recordings: Sarah Margo Gawronska, Theresa Weinstein, Ekin Gül Demirsoy and Luca Settembrino! 🙌🏻