Nils Wendel Heinrich

- Research Assistant -

Ratzeburger Allee 160
23562 Lübeck

Email:	nils.heinrich(at)uni-luebeck.de
Phone:

Curriculum Vitae

Since 05/2023: Researcher in the DFG-funded projects RU1743/5-1 and RU1743/7-2, supervised by Prof. Dr. Nele Rußwinkel.
03/2022 - 04/2023: Research Associate in the Cognitive Modeling in dynamic Human-Machine Systems Team at the Department of Psychology and Ergonomics, Technische Universität Berlin
07/2021 - 02/2022: Scholarship holder of the Graduate School of Embodied Choices supervised by Prof. Markus Raab (German Sport University Cologne)
03/2021: Master of Science
Cognitive Science – Embodied Cognition, University of Potsdam, Master´s thesis: „Statistical inference for a computational model of eye-movement control in reading“ by Prof. Ralf Engbert
03/2019 - 03/2020: Research assistant: General and biological psychology, University of Potsdam
SFB 1294: Data assimilation; Project B03: Parameter inference and model comparison in dynamical cognitive models
03/2018: Bachelor of Sience
Psychology, FernUniversität in Hagen, Bachelor´s thesis: „The effect of memory retrieval on proactive inference – challenging the episodic context account“ by Prof. Robert Gaschler

Research Interests

Computational Models of Cognition
Dynamical Systems for Modeling Cognitive Processes
Embodied Cognition
Situated Action (Situated Action Control)
Eye Movements and their Underlying Cognitive Processes

Publications

2026

Annika Österdiekhoff, Nils Wendel Heinrich, Nele Russwinkel, and Stefan Kopp,
Giving AI agents a sense of control facilitates reinforcement learning in multitasking scenarios, PLOS One , 2026. PLOS.

Bibtex:

@article{osterdiekhoff2026giving,
  title={Giving AI agents a sense of control facilitates reinforcement learning in multitasking scenarios},
  author={{\"O}sterdiekhoff, Annika and Heinrich, Nils Wendel and Ru{\ss}winkel, Nele and Kopp, Stefan},
  journal={Plos One},
  year={2026}
}

2025

Maren Giersiepen, Nils Wendel Heinrich, Annika Österdiekhoff, Stefan Kopp, Nele Russwinkel, Simone Schütz-Bosbach, and Jakob Kaiser,
Am I in control? The dynamics of sensory information, performance feedback, and personality in shaping the sense of control, Consciousness and Cognition , vol. 135, pp. 103938, 2025. Elsevier,

Weblink:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S105381002500131X

Bibtex:

@article{giersiepen2025control,
  title={Am I in control? The dynamics of sensory information, performance feedback, and personality in shaping the sense of control},
  author={Giersiepen, Maren and Heinrich, Nils Wendel and {\"O}sterdiekhoff, Annika and Kopp, Stefan and Russwinkel, Nele and Sch{\"u}tz-Bosbach, Simone and Kaiser, Jakob},
  journal={Consciousness and Cognition},
  volume={135},
  pages={103938},
  year={2025},
  publisher={Elsevier}
}

Nils Wendel Heinrich, Rebecca von Engelhardt, Annika Österdiekhoff, Stefan Kopp, and Nele Russwinkel,
Towards a Bayesian Cognitive Model of Self-Belief Updating, in Proceedings of International Conference on Cognitive Modeling (ICCM 2025) , PA: Applied Cognitive Science Lab, Penn State, 2025. pp. 68-74.

Weblink:

https://acs.ist.psu.edu/papers/ICCM2025Proceedings.pdf

Bibtex:

@inproceedings{heinrich2025towards,
  title={Towards a Bayesian Cognitive Model of Self-Belief Updating},
  author={Heinrich, Nils Wendel and von Engelhardt, Rebecca and {\"O}sterdiekhoff, Annika and Kopp, Stefan and Russwinkel, Nele},
  booktitle={Proceedings of International Conference on Cognitive Modeling (ICCM 2025)},
  year={2025}
}

Nils Wendel Heinrich, Annika Österdiekhoff, Stefan Kopp, and Nele Russwinkel,
Using Eye Movements to Understand Sense of Control in Situated Action, Cognitive Science , vol. 49, pp. e70154, 2025. Wiley Periodicals LLC,

DOI:

10.1111/cogs.70154

Weblink:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/cogs.70154

Bibtex:

@article{heinrich2025using,
  title={Using Eye Movements to Understand Sense of Control in Situated Action},
  author={Heinrich, Nils Wendel and {\"O}sterdiekhoff, Annika and Kopp, Stefan and Russwinkel, Nele},
  journal={Cognitive Science},
  volume={49},
  number={12},
  pages={e70154},
  year={2025},
  publisher={Wiley Online Library}
}

2024

Nikita Abalakin, Nils Wendel Heinrich, Annika Österdiekhoff, Stefan Kopp, and Nele Russwinkel,
Allocation of Fixational Eye Movements in Response to Uncertainty in Dynamic Environments, in CogSci 2024 , Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 2024.

Nils Wendel Heinrich, Annika Österdiekhoff, Stefan Kopp, and Nele Russwinkel,
Developing and Evaluating a Computational Cognitive Model of Sensorimotor Grounded Action Selection Based on Eye-movement Behavior, in Mathpsych / ICCM 2024 , The Society for Mathematical Psychology, 2024.

Weblink:

https://mathpsych.org/presentation/1584

Nils Wendel Heinrich, Annika Österdiekhoff, Stefan Kopp, and Nele Russwinkel,
Goal-directed Allocation of Gaze Reflects Situated Action Control in Dynamic Tasks, in CogSci 2024 , Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 2024.

Annika Österdiekhoff, Nils Wendel Heinrich, Nele Russwinkel, and Stefan Kopp,
Sense of Control in Dynamic Multitasking and its Impact on Voluntary Task-Switching Behavior, in CogSci 2024 , Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 2024.

2023

Nils Wendel Heinrich,
A Straightforward Implementation of Sensorimotor Abstraction in a Two-Layer Architecture for Dynamic Decision-Making, In Proceedings of Mathpsych/ICCM 2023 , 2023.

Bibtex:

@inproceedings{heinrichn.oestediekhoffa.kopps.russwinkeln2023,
    author  = {Heinrich, N., Östediekhoff, A., Kopp, S., Russwinkel, N.},
    title   = {A Straightforward Implementation of Sensorimotor Abstraction in a Two-Layer Architecture for Dynamic Decision-Making},
    booktitle = {In Proceedings of Mathpsych/ICCM 2023},
    year    = {2023},
    note    = {MathPsych/ICCM 2023 Amsterdam (International Conference on Cognitive Modelling).},
url = {https://mathpsych.org/presentation/1140}
}