This dissertation would not have been possible without the help and support of the people around me. First of all, I would like to sincerely thank my supervisor Prof. Dr. Sakari Lemola, for giving me the possibility to be a part of his ambitious and very interesting research projects, his guidance, encouragement, patience, and understanding. I would also like to thank Prof. Dr. Alexander Grob for serving as my supervisor in the first part of my doctorate. I would like to thank Prof. Dr. Jutta

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... ta for acting as co-referee of my work and Prof. Dr. Rainer Greifeneder for serving in the dissertation committee. Throughout my doctorate, a number of junior research assistants, interns, and master students put a lot of time and effort into our research projects and made them a success. I would like to thank all of them sincerely! A special thank you goes to Nathalie Schenk and Natalie Maurer, who made sure that our project ran smoothly while I was on maternity leave and who continued to do so when I came back to work, and freed my time to focus on the completion of my dissertation. I owe my gratitude to all my co-authors and colleagues for all their support, helpful comments, and the pleasant work environment. Last but not least, I would like to thank my family and friends. I especially thank my parents for their unconditional support and endless hours of babysitting and my brother for challenging me with his critical thinking and for looking after Evan even when he was sick. Most importantly though, I thank my husband, Shaun, for always believing in me, encouraging me to keep going and for always and again and again assuring that everything will be ok.