May 2025 – The Excellence Strategy is in final sprint. The decision on the funding of the Clusters of Excellence will be made in May 2025; the actual funding of the selected projects will then start on January 1, 2026 for a period of seven years. The preparation of the Hessian excellence applications has benefited greatly from the funding provided by the state of Hesse. Learn more

April 14, 2025 – Congratulations! Matthias Schultheis successfully defended his dissertation “Inverse Reinforcement Learning for Human Decision-Making Under Uncertainty”. The thesis was supervised by Prof. Dr. Heinz Koeppl and Prof. Constantin A. Rothkopf, Ph.D. Learn more

February 5, 2025 – At the invitation of WhiteBox and the Centre for Cognitive Science, David Franklin (Technical University of Munich) presented his work on “Computational Mechanisms of Human Sensorimotor Adaptation” in Darmstadt today, and discussed our scientific approaches.

November 20, 2024 – At the invitation of WhiteBox and the Centre for Cognitive Science, Anna Hughes (University of Essex) presented her work on “Hide and seek: the psychology of camouflage and motion confusion” in Darmstadt today, and discussed our scientific approaches.

November 6, 2024 – At the invitation of WhiteBox and the Centre for Cognitive Science, Mate Lengyel (University of Cambridge) presented his work on “Normative models of cortical dynamics” in Darmstadt today, and discussed our scientific approaches.

October 23, 2024 – At the invitation of WhiteBox and the Centre for Cognitive Science, Leonie Oostwoud Wijdenes (Radboud University Nijmegen) presented her work on “Variability in sensorimotor control” in Darmstadt today, and discussed our scientific approaches.

October 2024 – The WhiteBox research team met from October 7 to 11 at Laacher See in the Eifel for their third retreat. The main topics were interdisciplinary scientific exchange and discussion of the current status of the work.

July 17, 2024 – At the invitation of WhiteBox and the Centre for Cognitive Science, Jozsef Fiser (Central European University, Vienna, Austria) presented his work on “Complex perceptual decision making processes in humans” in Darmstadt today, and discussed our scientific approaches.

July 15, 2024 – WhiteBox is engaged in the science simulation game “Knowledge versus Opinion” at schools in the federal state of Hesse. The simulation game introduces pupils to the importance of science and democracy. Learn more

July 10, 2024 – At the invitation of WhiteBox and the Centre for Cognitive Science, Ralf Haefner (University of Rochester) presented his work on “Causal inference during motion perception, and its neural basis” in Darmstadt today, and discussed our scientific approaches.

June 2024 – From 13-14 June 2024 the 4th Movement Academy took place in Bensheim with over 50 participants, which was mainly organized by the DFG RTG LokoAssist. The aim of the Movement Academy is to create a unique learning space for movement experts and people interested in movements, national and international, that come from a variety of backgrounds including arts, sports, medicine, therapy and science. The conference was also supported by the Center for Cognitive Science and due to the involved topics by the WhiteBox research cluster, among others. Learn more

June 12, 2024 – At the invitation of WhiteBox and the Centre for Cognitive Science, Maria Eckstein (Google DeepMind) presented her work on “Hybrid Modeling with Artificial Neural Networks Reveals how Memory Shapes Human Reward-Guided Learning” in Darmstadt today, and discussed our scientific approaches.

April 25, 2024 – WhiteBox supported this year’s Girls' Day, aimed at fostering curiosity and interest in cognitive science. The participants engaged in immersive sessions exploring various topics within the field. Learn more

April 2024 – WhiteBox supports the awareness event: “Uncovered Biases: The Power of Awareness in Dealing with Unconscious Bias” on 24th of April 2024. (The event is held in German only.) Learn more

January 2024 – In a publication in the renowned journal “Nature Human Behaviour”, WhiteBox researchers investigate the properties of behavioral economic theories automatically learned by artificial intelligence. The study highlights that cognitive science still cannot be easily automated by artificial intelligence and that a careful combination of theoretical reasoning, machine learning and data analysis is needed to understand and explain why human decisions are the way they are and deviate from the mathematical optimum. Read more (in German)

December 7, 2023– In the ProLOEWE discussion format “Hessen's cutting-edge research in 45 minutes”, WhiteBox discussed with interested members of the Hessian state parliament. The topic was: “AI – more human than expected?”.Read more

September 2023 – Joseph German joins the project – welcome to the team!

August 2023 – Claire Ott, Inga Ibs and Morteza Khosrotabar join the project – welcome to the team!

July 2023 – The WhiteBox team of researchers met in Kleinwalsertal from July 19 to 25 for the second physical retreat. The main topics were interdisciplinary scientific exchange, discussion of the current status of the work and planning of further work.

July 13, 2023 – WhiteBox hosted the inspiring invited talk of Michael Wibral “Information theory for the age of neural networks” and offered a Systems Neurophysiology Lab tour.

July 4, 2023 – Hessen schafft Wissen published a new animated video on project WhiteBox.

March 28, 2023 – Milestone 1 event, day 2: After a Research Data Management workshop, the project members met for the internal project evaluation and the first post-COVID project Steering Committee and Plenum in presence.

March 27, 2023 – Milestone 1 event, day 1: WhiteBox and the Centre for Cognitive Science hosted the “Symposium on Explainability”. The results of the WhiteBox project so far were presented and different facets of explainability were discussed with experts and guests. Learn more

February 2, 2023 – The WhiteBox team met for a robot juggling seminar @ Intelligent Autonomous Systems robot lab.

January 2023 – Ute Korn now officially joins the project – once again, welcome to the team!

December 2022 – A symposium addressing “Explaining adaptive vision” was held on 8 December 2022 with an international line-up of speakers, with the support and participation of WhiteBox and its members. Learn more

October 2022 – ProLOEWE celebrates its birthday, WhiteBox congratulates!
On the occasion of ProLOEWE's 10th anniversary, a special edition of ProLOEWE News has been published. A feature of the WhiteBox project can be found on pages 26+27. Learn more

August 2022 –The WhiteBox team of researchers met in Dahn from 8 to 12 August for the first physical retreat. The main topics were interdisciplinary exchange, discussion of the current status of the work and planning of further work, especially the development of new scientific synergies.

March 2022 – Meike Kietzmann joins the project – welcome to the team!

February 2022 – Asghar Mahmoudi Khomami joins the project – welcome to the team!

2021 – Ute Korn supports the project as an associated researcher since the end of 2021 – welcome to the team!

December 2021 – Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the HWMK (Hessian State Ministry of Higher Education, Research and the Arts) extended the WhiteBox project duration until 31.12.2025.

November 2021 – Rabea Turon & Sven Schultze join the project – welcome to the team!

October 2021 – Two new introduction videos about project WhiteBox released in collaboration with ProLOEWE: Watch (1) Watch (2) (in German)

September 2021 – Rupert Mitchell joins the project – welcome to the team!

July 2021 – New video trailer released for the ProLOEWE Science Rallye!

July 2021 – WhiteBox starts a quiz video too in the frame of the ProLOEWE Science Rallye. The Rallye starts on August 2 on proloewe.de. Looking forward to puzzle enthusiasts!

July 2021 – Niteesh Midlagajni joins the project – welcome to the team!

June 2021 – Omid Mohseni Shorgheini joins the project – welcome to the team!

May 2021 – Maziar Sherbafi & Kai Ploeger join the project – welcome to the team!

January 2021 – Matthias Schultheis joins the project – welcome to the team!

January 2021 – Official start of project “WhiteBox – explainable models for human and artificial intelligence”