I want to express my gratitude towards the persons and institutions who supported the genesis of this thesis.

Special thanks go to my supervisor Peter Frensch for all the helpful discussions, suggestions, revisions, and pep talks, the support regarding all kinds of strategic and organizational matters, as well as his patience and trust during the last years.

I also want to thank my colleagues and friends from the department for helpful data discussions, experimental ideas, and motivational support when the going got tough. In this regard, I am particularly grateful to Dieter Nattkemper, Birgit Stürmer, and Michael Ziessler who shaped my thinking about coding issues, and who provided helpful comments on earlier versions of this thesis.

I also want to express my gratitude towards Ina-Kristin Saure and Annekathrin Schacht for their help in programming the experiments and in collecting and coding of data.

Thanks to Ina-Kristin Saure, Michaela Schneider, Rico Fischer, and Klaus Fenchel for proof-reading (parts of) this thesis under high time pressure.

Furthermore I would like to express my gratitude towards the members of this committee, especially Bernhard Hommel, Iring Koch, and Werner Sommer for their willingness to invest their time.

Finally, I want to mention that part of this thesis was sponsored by the “Berliner Nachwuchsförderung” (NaFöG) of the state of Berlin, without which this thesis would not have been possible.