Tian Zhou
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Hi there ;)
I am Tian Zhou (M.Sc.), an academic staff member and PhD candidate at the University of Freiburg, Germany. I am affiliated with the Research Training Group “Statistical Modeling in Psychology” (SMiP), funded by the German Research Foundation.
With an interdisciplinary background in cognitive psychology, informatics, and human factors, my research is dedicated to elucidating the unconscious modulation of cognition and the decline of executive functions associated with aging. My current work involves analyzing a large geriatric database focusing on cognitive-motor dual-task performance in older adults. This project, undertaken in collaboration with an interdisciplinary team of psychologists, sports scientists, and gerontologists, integrates task performance data with spatiotemporal gait parameters and clinical diagnoses. Such a multifaceted approach enables an in-depth retrospective analysis of fall risk factors in the elderly, facilitating the construction of sophisticated statistical models to understand cognitive-motor dual-task performance, postural control, and fall risk.
See also: https://www.uni-mannheim.de/smip/team/phd-candidates/cohort-2023/tian-zhou/
Research Interests
- Executive Functions
- Multitasking and Cognitive Aging
- Unconscious Cognitive Modulation
- Cognitive Modeling
Background
| Since Oct. 2023 | Academic Staff, Ph.D. Candidate, DFG Research Training Group "Statistical Modeling in Psychology", University of Freiburg |
| Oct. 2020 – May. 2023 | M. Sc. Cognitive Systems, Ulm University |
| Jan. 2023 – Sep. 2023 | Student Research Assistant, Department Human Factors, Ulm University |
| Sep. 2016 – Jun. 2020 | B. Sc. Applied Psychology, Anhui University |
| May. 2017 – Jul. 2019 | Student Assistant, Mental Health Education and Counseling Center, Anhui University |
Current Project
GAITRite Database - retrospective study on risk factors of older adults’ fall
This video might appear in your Reels, showing pedestrians making phone calls while briskly walking and grabbing any random items handed to them. Cognitive-motor interference occurs when a person engages in both a cognitive and a motor task simultaneously (dual-tasking), leading to poorer performance in one or both tasks compared to when they are performed separately (Plummer et al., 2013). For older adults, cognitive-motor dual-tasking can be particularly challenging due to the loss in cognitive and motor integrities associated with aging (Bernard-Demanze et al., 2009; Brustio et al., 2018; López-Otín et al., 2013).
The Basel Mobility Center in Switzerland applied Basel Cognitive-Motor Dual-Task Paradigm (Theill et al., 2011) on patients as support for diagnosis. With clinic and socio-demographical information integrated, a large-scale database with more than ten thousand samples and six hundred parameters was developed.
Thesis Supervision
Please feel free to contact me if you find shared research interests via email! :)
For the current GAITRite project, as a potential Bachelor's or Master's Thesis, one may focus on one of the following five aspects and investigate their relationship with fall variables. These are only a broad overview, you are strongly encouraged to develop ideas together on the factors in the given database: 1) socio-demographical factors, e.g., living status and physical exercises; 2) clinical factors, e.g., cognitive status measurements (like MMSE) and medication usage; 3) physical factors, e.g., sensory and walking aids usage, and muscle extremity assessment; 4) gait factors, e.g., velocity and body sway; 5) cognitive workload - dual-task cost.
Based on your interest, statistical modeling on fall risk is also possible, especially for a master's thesis. It is also possible to conduct your own experiments in the lab or online. For example, one can conduct experiments to retest the characteristics of cognitive-motor interference on younger adults for comparison. Self-developed thesis topics are also welcomed!
Note: currently I can only supervise Thesis Projects in English, sorry about that.
Posters
- Zhou T., Straub E., Kiesel A., Gehring D., Granacher U., Haslbauer A., Kressig, R. W. & Rössler R. (2024, June 20 - 21). Cognitive motor interference and aging: An analysis plan for the GAITRite database [Poster presentation]. SMiP-IOPS Summer Conference, Mannheim, Germany.
- Zhou T., Straub E., Kiesel A., Gehring D., Granacher U., Haslbauer A., Kressig, R. W. & Rössler R. (2024, November 21 - 24). Cognitive-Motor Dual-Task Cost as a Risk Factor: Retrospective Analysis of Older Adults' Falling History [Poster presentation]. 65th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, New York City, NY, United States.
- Zhou T., Straub E., Kiesel A., Gehring D., Granacher U., Haslbauer A., Kressig, R. W. & Rössler R. (2025, March 9 - 12). Aging on the Move - "Stop Walking when Talking" as an Extreme Compensatory Strategy against Cognitive-Motor Interference [Poster presentation]. 67th Conference of Experimental Psychologists (Tagung experimentell arbeitender Psycholog:innen, TeaP), Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Literatures
Bernard-Demanze, L., Dumitrescu, M., Jimeno, P., Borel, L., & Lacour, M. (2009). Age-related changes in posture control are differentially affected by postural and cognitive task complexity. Current aging science, 2(2), 135-149.
Brustio, P. R., Rabaglietti, E., Formica, S., & Liubicich, M. E. (2018). Dual-task training in older adults: The effect of additional motor tasks on mobility performance. Archives of gerontology and geriatrics, 75, 119-124.
López-Otín, C., Blasco, M. A., Partridge, L., Serrano, M., & Kroemer, G. (2013). The hallmarks of aging. Cell, 153(6), 1194-1217.
Plummer, P., Eskes, G., Wallace, S., Giuffrida, C., Fraas, M., Campbell, G., ... & Skidmore, E. R. (2013). Cognitive-motor interference during functional mobility after stroke: state of the science and implications for future research. Archives of physical medicine and rehabilitation, 94(12), 2565-2574.
Theill, N., Martin, M., Schumacher, V., Bridenbaugh, S. A., & Kressig, R. W. (2011). Simultaneously measuring gait and cognitive performance in cognitively healthy and cognitively impaired older adults: The Basel motor–cognition dual‐task paradigm. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 59(6), 1012-1018.