Hans Kirschner

About Me

I am currently a postdoctoral research fellow in the lab of Markus Ullsperger at Otto-von-Guericke-University. My research explores how the brain combines information over multiple timescales to facilitate adaptive, goal-directed behaviour. I investigate this problem in health and disease using a combination of experimental and computational tools.

I enjoy teaching cognitive neuroscience, statistics, and methods. I've taught courses on these topics at undergraduate and graduate level. Moreover, I am regularly invited to teach workshops on advanced EEG single-trial analyses.

I make a concerted effort to share data, analysis code, and materials in well-documented, reusable formats through trusted repositories and platforms. Wherever ethically and legally possible, I provide open access to these resources via this website, which serves as a central hub for exploring and reusing my research, including links to toolboxes and analysis scripts (typically archived on my GitHub page), as well as papers and data.

Besides research, I am a proud dad and music enthusiast. I studied music on a University of Exeter music scholarship during my time as a PhD student. In my current music project The Monotrones, we are mixing dub and reggae with a sprinkling of spicy bass, finished off with a pinch of punk.

You can find direct links to my research profiles, code repositories, and music projects via the icons displayed on this page, and links to PDFs and data repositories via the hyperlinks below the respective papers.

News

• [Jan. 2026] I am happy to be involved in a research topic accompanying a conference that is dear to my heart—the International Conference on Motivational and Cognitive Control (MCC). You can find more information about the conference and the associated Frontiers research topic here:
  🔗 https://www.helsinki.fi/en/conferences/international-conference-motivational-and-cognitive-control
  🔗 https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/76941/integrative-evidence-for-motivation-and-cognitive-control

• [December 2025] I am excited to have been awarded a Collaborative Research in Computational Neuroscience (CRCNS) grant as part of the NSF–BMBF U.S.–Germany bilateral program. Together with Prof. Matthew Nassar (Brown University) and Prof. Markus Ullsperger, we will work on testing a task-general model of cognitive control. You can read the press release here.

• [May 2024] We contributed an article in German to Neuro Aktuell on computational psychiatry and neuro-computational deficits in depression and schizophrenia. Have a read here.

• [Feb. 2024] Die Welt featured our work on inflexible learning dynamics in depression and schizophrenia

Preprints and Preregistrations

• Effects of working memory load on performance and reinforcement learning dynamics in a reversal learning task – An online behavioural study
  Janssen, L., Kirschner, H., Klymentiev, R., Kramer, LP., & Ullsperger, M.
  [Preregistration]

Peer-Reviewed Publications

• Decoding deception with the P300: A meta-analysis of the Concealed Information Test.
  Knappe, J., Ullsperger, M., & Kirschner, H.
  International Journal of Psychophysiology
  [PDF] [Code & Data]

• Task-irrelevant variability in reward magnitude and feedback salience bias reinforcement learning
  Kirschner, H., Nassar, M. R., & Ullsperger, M. (2025)
  Extended conference paper at the conference on reinforcement learning and decision making
  [PDF] [Code & Data]

• Error-driven upregulation of memory representations.
  Weuthen, A., Kirschner, H., & Ullsperger, M. (2025)
  communications psychology
  [PDF] [Code & Data]

• Methamphetamine-induced adaptation of learning rate dynamics depend on baseline performance
  Kirschner, H, Molla, H. M.,Nassar, M. R.,de Wit, H., & Ullsperger, M. (2024)
  eLife
  [PDF] [Code & Data]

• Cortical β Power Reflects a Neural Implementation of Decision Boundary Collapse in Speeded Decisions
  Kirschner, H., Fischer, A. G., Danielmeier, C.,Klein, T. A., & Ullsperger, M. (2024)
  Journal of Neuroscience
  [PDF] [Code & Data]

• Transdiagnostic inflexible learning dynamics explain deficits in depression and schizophrenia
  Kirschner, H., Nassar, M. R., Fischer, A. G., Frodl, T., Meyer-Lotz, G., Froböse, S., Seidenbecher, S., Klein, T. A., & Ullsperger, M. (2024).
  Brain
  [PDF]

• The medial frontal cortex, performance monitoring, cognitive control, and decision making
  Kirschner, H., & Ullsperger, M. (2024).
  Reference Module in Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Psychology. Elsevier.
  [PDF]

• Unraveling the influence of trial-based motivational changes on performance monitoring stages in a flanker task.
  Overmeyer, R., Kirschner, H., Fischer, A. G., & Endrass, T. (2023).
  Scientific Reports
  [PDF] [Code & Data]

• Feedback-related EEG dynamics separately reflect decision parameters, biases, and future choices.
  Kirschner, H., Fischer, A. G., & Ullsperger, M. (2022).
  Neuroimage
  [PDF] [Code & Data]

• Beyond a blunted ERN - Biobehavioral correlates of performance monitoring in schizophrenia
  Kirschner, H., & Klein, T. A. (2022).
  Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews
  [PDF]

• Disentangling performance-monitoring signals encoded in feedback-related EEG dynamics.
  Kirsch, F.(+), Kirschner, H.(+), Fischer, A. G., Klein, T. A., & Ullsperger, M. (2022).(+ equal)
  Neuroimage
  [PDF]

• A Biobehavioural Approach to Understand How Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy Reduces Dispositional Negative Self-Bias in Recurrent Depression
  Kirschner, H., Kuyken, W., & Karl, A. (2022).
  Mindfulness
  [PDF]

• Neural and behavioral traces of error awareness.
  Kirschner, H., Humann, J., Derrfuss, J., Danielmeier, C., & Ullsperger, M. (2021).
  Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience
  [PDF] [Data]

• Soothing Your Heart and Feeling Connected: A New Experimental Paradigm to Study the Benefits of Self-Compassion.
  Kirschner, H., Kuyken, W., Wright, K., Roberts, H., Brejcha, C., & Karl, A. (2019). Soothing Your
  Clinical Psychological Science
  [PDF]

• Psychophsyiological reactivity during uncertainty and ambiguity processing in high and low worriers.
  Kirschner, H., Hilbert, K., Hoyer, J., Lueken, U., & Beesdo-Baum, K. (2016).
  Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry
  [PDF]

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