Lunch Seminar in presence

Building BL26/B – Room 0.19 (ground floor)
Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering
Via R. Lambruschini, 4/B

Arnd Meiser
University of Bremen

Abstract:

Understanding the human mind in the working context, including states of attention and distraction, stress or strain has great potential for operations management to improve working safety and efficiency.

Insights into the processes of the human mind, however, are far from easy to obtain. A common method is self-observation, which is highly subjective and therefore difficult to generalize to a broader context. With external observations, one can describe behavior, yet the underlying internal processes remain hidden.

During the last century, electroencephalography (EEG) has proven a powerful tool to directly observe the functioning of the brain in laboratory environments. In recent years, efforts have been made to transition from stationary EEG in the lab to mobile applications of EEG in real-life working situations. Pioneering in this field is the KARAT project in Germany. It was the goal of this project to learn about the working conditions of professional drivers. To this end, mobile EEG was recorded over the course of a normal working day, without external observation of the drivers and without additional experimental instructions. The EEG recorded led to insights about the waxing and waning of driver’s vigilance. In this presentation, potentials and challenges of neuroscience applications in operations management research are discussed.

Arnd Meiser started his academic career in Lüneburg in Germany, where he obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Business Psychology in 2016. In 2019, he finished his Master’s degree in Cognitive Neuropsychology in Oldenburg and continued his studies as a doctoral candidate in the same year. Arnd obtained his doctoral degree in 2022 with a dissertation on the sensitivity of mobile ear-EEG to cognitive processes of the brain. The core of his work is the application of EEG-research in real-life situations. His main interest is understanding how the brain works outside of laboratory environments and what technical advancements are needed to overcome the challenges of real-life EEG recordings. To pursue his curiosity, Arnd started as a post-doc in the KARAT project at the University of Bremen, where he used EEG for monitoring vigilance of professional drivers.