VIENNA Young is a 16-minute, passive virtual-environment paradigm expressly developed to examine visuospatial and executive aspects of spatial navigation while minimizing episodic-memory demands. The assessment runs locally (Python/PsychoPy) or remotely (web-based). In a hybrid onsite/online study of 422 healthy adults (18–67 years) VIENNA Young showed strong reliability and construct validity. We provide a flexible regression-based norming framework that lets users select the most appropriate reference cohort by adjusting for age, gender and video-gaming experience.
The study yields two substantive insights:
• Gaming phenotype: Even without controller interaction, gamers outperformed non-gamers, and the advantage was especially pronounced in regular players of allocentric (top-down) games, but not in egocentric gamers, indicating that beyond mere exposure, gaming style shapes spatial skill.
• Urban–rural dynamics: Unexpectedly, current city residents scored higher than rural residents, yet controlling for current residency, individuals raised in rural settings achieved higher VIENNA Young scores. This interaction hints at nuanced interplay of environmental and sociodemographic factors that merit further investigation.
By combining rigorous psychometrics, flexible administration options and fine-grained normative modelling, VIENNA Young provides researchers with an accessible and scalable tool for evaluating everyday spatial navigation performance in research in clinical settings.

Reference:
Rekers, S., Meyer, T. C., & Finke, C. (2025). Psychometric data and regression-based norms for the virtual environments navigation assessment for young and middle-aged adults (VIENNA Young). Computers in Human Behavior Reports, 19, 100730. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chbr.2025.100730 [pdf]

Our paper on the German psychometric and normative data of the Multifactorial Memory Questionnaire (MMQ) is finally published in Journal of Neurology [link to paper] . It’s completely open access (paper, data, analyses) and the questionnaire freely available for researchers and clinicians at online and can be downloaded here:  [link to questionnaire]

Next to a comprehensive examination of the MMQ scales’ distribution, validity, and reliability in 336 participants with a follow-up after 8 months, we provide reliable change scores, normative data for both the validated 3-factor and 4-factor models, and practical recommendations for their application and interpretation.

Moreover, we show that memory satisfaction and self-rated ability are already decreased at subclinically elevated levels of anxiety, and depressiveness, and that neuropsychiatric factors have a differential impact on metamemory across the lifespan.

Ausschreibung Werkvertrag, Webdeveloper (m/w/d)

We’re hiring! PhD „Contextual modulation of spatial memory consolidation” within the Collaborative Research Center 1315 “Memory Consolidation” (SFB 1315)

We’re hiring! Postdoctoral Position „Contextual modulation of spatial memory consolidation” within the Collaborative Research Center 1315 “Memory Consolidation” (SFB 1315)

New preprint – Translating spatial navigation evaluation from experimental to clinical settings – the virtual environments navigation assessment (VIENNA)

New study in Annals of Neurology is Paper of the Month

Sophia Rekers received Penny Standen Award – Congratulations!

Sophia received the Penny Standen Award for Early Career Multidisciplinary Research in Disability at the “13th International Conference on Disability, Virtual Reality & Associated Technologies” (ICDVRAT) for the development of a memory independent spatial navigation paradigm (VIENNA) in a virtual reality setting. Congratulations!

Read more about her amazing work here.

New preprint – A spatiotemporal complexity architecture of human brain activity

The human brain is a complex network. Ever since the first description of “functional connectivity” in the 1990s, network neuroscience has emerged as one of the leading approaches to study the brain, including unparalleled international collaborations like the Human Connectome Project (HCP).

While our understanding of the connectome is rapidly increasing, some fundamental questions about brain networks remain: How does a functional connection between two brain regions form? Why are some regions more functionally connected than others? And what determines the spatial and temporal organization of the network?

In our latest preprint, we shed some light on these questions through complexity analysis of resting-state data from the HCP. In this manuscript, we report a mechanism by which the brain’s network architecture arises from spontaneous episodes of neural regularity. These episodes become visible as “complexity drops” and provide a unifying explanation for many known properties of the human brain, including functional connectivity, brain states, structure-function relationships, and network hierarchies. For more on this human “complexome”, check out the preprint!