1. Overview of the TeDCog Lab

Our Mission

The TeDCog group is an interdisciplinary group hosted mainly in the School of Psychological Science at the University of Bristol that examines the pressure points between human cognition and online technologies, and the consequences for democracy that arise from those pressure points.

Meet the team

TeDCog is headed by Stephan Lewandowsky.

In 2024-2025, other key members of the group at Bristol are:

• Fabio Carrella

• Dawn Holford

• Alessandro Miani

• Matthew Edwards

• Awais Rashid

• Simon Clark

• Kiia Huttunen

• Ginny Gould

• Richard Westaway

The Bristol team is working closely with several other key members all around Europe who are also active participants in the TeDCog group and who are affiliated with one of the projects being hosted by TeDCog.

The TeDCog group has a homepage on the UoB School of Psychology website.

Current Projects

The following projects are currently being hosted by the TeDCog group (click on the links to each project’s homepage to find out more):

RAO

Reclaiming individual autonomy and democratic discourse online

We aim to develop cognitively and technologically sound solutions to restore people’s autonomy online.

Other nodes:

• Max-Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin

• Northeastern University, Boston

Funder: Volkswagen Foundation, Germany.

Project Manager: Louise Evans

JITSUVAX

Jiu-jitsu with misinformation in the age of Covid We develop tools to train and assist healthcare professionals to confront vaccine-related misinformation.

Other nodes:

• University of Cambridge

• University of Erfurt, Germany

• Åbo Akademi University, Finland

• University of Turku, Finland

• University of Coimbra, Portugal

• ORS-PACA, Marseille, France

• Sherbrooke University, Canada

• Center for Health Policies and Services, Romania

• IRSA, Slovenia

Funder: EU Horizon 2020.

Project Manager: Ginny Gould

PRODEMINFO

Protecting the Democratic Information Space in Europe

We examine how people’s differing conceptions of “truth” can be used to design interventions to protect democratic discourse.

Other nodes:

• University of Konstanz

Funder: European Research Council, Advanced Grant.

Project Administrator: Richard Westaway

JIGSAW

Inoculation science

We use inoculation theory to develop scalable interventions to protect online consumers against misleading and false information.

Other nodes:

• University of Cambridge

Funder: JIGSAW (Google incubator).

More information about the group, including a list of recent publications, can be found on our homepage.

The core meetings

The TeDCog group is organized around weekly meetings. All members are strongly encouraged to attend because the meetings allow for discussion of ideas and keep everyone informed about current developments. The weekly meetings also regularly feature external speakers from all around the world.

• The weekly meeting is being held on Wednesday 1-2pm UK time. This is a hybrid seminar style meeting (you can attend virtually or in-person).

• The schedule for the current academic year can be found here.

Please email a request to join the mailing list to get updates on the meeting schedule, agenda, and Zoom/meeting room links. You cannot be a member of the group without being on the mailing list.

We designed and will run the group meetings by considering the 10 rules published here.