Bärbel Garsoffky

Dr. Bärbel Garsoffky is a Researcher and Deputy Head of the Realistic Depictions Lab at the Leibniz Institute for Science Education (IWM) in Tübingen, where she has been a scientific employee since 2001. She additionally serves as Library and Open Access Officer, managing scholarly resources and institutional repositories. Her career centers on cognitive processes within informal information environments, with significant contributions to understanding learning in digital and immersive contexts.

Garsoffky earned her Diploma in Psychology from the University of Tübingen in 1994, followed by a PhD from the Deutsches Institut für Fernstudienforschung in 2000 with her dissertation on "Viewpoint dependency of event recognition such as soccer scenes". This foundational research established her expertise in visual perception and cognitive processing of dynamic events.

Her research integrates cognitive psychology, educational technology, and museum studies to investigate how spatial and temporal factors in digital environments shape learning. Key interests include virtual room geometry effects on memory, temporal gaps in event perception, and authenticity-digitality interplay in informal learning sites. She examines how these elements influence cognitive load, knowledge acquisition, and user experience in museums and virtual settings.

Analysis of her recent publications reveals a clear trajectory toward immersive virtual environments as learning spaces, with seminal work on corner effects in memory retention. She pioneers methodologies for studying digital materialities, comparing virtual and physical museum artifacts, and leads the BILAD international research network to advance cross-cultural understanding of digital authenticity in education.

Within the Realistic Depictions Lab, Garsoffky co-organizes workshops including BILAD Network Meetings and the International Workshop on Perceptual and Cognitive Processes of Learning from 3D. Her leadership extends to project management for "Digital Materialities" (2021-2024) and "Cognitive processes in digital immersive environments" (ongoing since 2018), driving innovation in educational technology and cognitive science.