Fachgebiet Cognitive and Developmental Psychology

Omar Jubran, Dr.Phil.

SENIOR RESEARCH SCIENTIST

Phone+ 49 (0)631 / 205 3629
emailojubran(at)rptu.de
building57, Room 538
office hoursMondays and Tuesdays, from 14:00 to 15:00.

 

Profile summary

I am a postdoctoral researcher at RPTU Kaiserslautern–Landau, where I study how cognitive processes unfold over time using immersive Virtual Reality. My work focuses on moving beyond traditional button-press measures by capturing continuous trajectories of hand movements, allowing me to trace decision-making in real time.  My goal is to provide cognitive science with tools that are both precise and naturalistic, bridging psychology and human–computer interaction. In addition, I replicate classical psychology experiments in Virtual Reality (VR) in different collaborative projects. A key focus of mine is developing novel methods for tracking and analyzing continuous behavioral data. 

Curriculum Vitae

2024 - PresentSenior research Scientist at Center for Cognitive Science, RPTU in Kaiserslautern - Landau
2018 - 2024Research scientist at RPTU in Kaiserslautern - Landau  (formerly TU Kaiserslautern), Developmental Psychology & Cognitive Science
2015-2018Study of Cognitive Sciences at the University of Kaiserslautern (Master of Science)
2009-2015Study of Bio-medical Engineering at the German Jordanian University - Amman, Jordan (Bachelor of Science)

Areas of Interest

Research Interests:

  • Developing novel analytic tools for continuous trajectory data (Spatiotemporal Survival Analysis- StSA).
  • Validating VR head-mounted displays as platforms for classic cognitive tasks (Flanker, Priming, Lexical decision, N-back, memory, prediction).
  • Creating immersive paradigms to study real-time decision making and action coupling.
  • Test the replicability of established cognitive effects in VR and refine best practices for cross-platform studies. 


In addition to research, I teach courses that help students with technical and methodological skills for research, including:

  • Basics of programming in MATLAB, focused on experimental design.
  • Research Methods in VR, covering use of motion tracking in psychological experiments.
  • Mentoring graduate students through lab rotations and Master theses, collaborating with colleagues across cognitive science, engineering, and HCI.

Featured Publications

 

Huettig, F., Jubran, O., & Lachmann, T. (2025). The virtual hand Paradigm: A new method for studying prediction and language-vision interactions. Brain Research, 149592. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brainres.2025.149592
 

Rocabado, F., Muntini, L., Jubran, O. F., Duñabeitia, J. A., & Lachmann, T. (2025). Transforming language research from classic desktops to virtual environments. Scientific Reports, 15, 23118. Download  here

Jubran, O. F., Wolkersdorfer, M. P., Eymann, V., Burkard, N., Czernochowski, D., Herrlich, M., Van Leeuwen, C., & Lachmann, T. (2025). Spatiotemporal survival analysis for movement trajectory tracking in virtual reality. Scientific Reports, 15(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-91471-5
 

Jubran, O., Monaco, E., Muntini, L., & Lachmann, T. (2024, October). The “bizarre” object effect in Virtual Reality: A comparative serial recall study. In Proceedings of the European Conference on Cognitive Ergonomics (ECCE 2024) (pp. 1–7). Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3673805.3673806
 

Jubran, O. F., Wolkersdorfer, M. P., Eymann, V., Burkard, N., Czernochowski, D., Herrlich, M., … Lachmann, T. (2024, June 27). Spatiotemporal Survival Analysis: Elucidating the Benefits of Virtual Reality Trajectory Tracking. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/6spkw
 

Jubran, O. F., Rocabado, F., Muntini, L., Duñabeitia, J. A., & Lachmann, T. (2022). Reproducing Classical Priming, Flanker, and Lexical Decision Tasks in VR. ECCE '22: Proceedings of the 33rd European Conference on Cognitive Ergonomics. https://doi.org/10.1145/3552327.3552362