External Funding
ERC Advanced Grant, Color3.0, Karl R. Gegenfurtner Duration 2020-2025 Many aspects of human color perception are well studied, but are based on narrowly defined laboratory studies. Color3.0 investigates how the perception of color works in real life, and how the brain processes it. What happens when we look at a field full of flowers or search for a specific product at the supermarket? Color3.0 focuses on the most important function of color - namely to provide information about natural objects that are three-dimensional and embedded in their natural environments. |
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ERC Starting Grant, INDIVISUAL, Ben de Haas Duration 2020-2025 INDIVISUAL investigates whether two people see the same thing when they look at the same picture? How do their eye movements differ? And where do such differences come from? Can they provide insight into how the brain controls attention, or even facilitate diagnoses of developmental disorders? These questions are at the intersection of general, differential and clinical psychology.
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ERC Consolidator Grant, SHAPE, Roland W. Fleming Duration 2016-2021 SHAPE aims to clarify how the brain can draw conclusions about the nature of objects via visual perception. For example, humans can judge whether an object is flexible or fragile, whether it is stable or not or what has happened to it in the past (like a crushed can or a bitten apple). The project aims to identify the psychological and computational processes that enable the brain to grasp and interpret shapes in this way. |
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DFG-SFB/TRR 135 „DFG-SFB/TRR 135 „Cardinal mechanisms of perception“
The Special Research Area aims to understand how the human brain extracts meaning from these basic sensory signals. Here we propose to understand perception in terms of a set of three underlying principles: prediction, valuation, and categorization. The brain is the organ that continuously optimizes these internal models, enabling us to predict the future state of the environment and the consequences of actions, evaluate the potential risks and benefits of different stimuli and responses, and categorize a complex continuous world into discrete mental concepts and behaviors.[More...]
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International Research Training Group (DFG-IRTG 1901) The key goal of the International Research Training Group (IRTG) The Brain in Action – BrainAct is to deepen our understanding of the neural systems and processes that underlie perception and action in everyday living. German and Canadian partners with longstanding and internationally renowned expertise in systems neuroscience will join forces to combine top-level interdisciplinary research with state-of-the-art training of doctoral candidates. |
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German - USA Collaboration in Computational Neuroscience The German - USA Collaboration in Computational Neuroscience is a transnational initiative for supporting collaborative research between Germany and the United States of America. It is jointly funded by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) within the CRCNS program. Currently two projects from our department are funded.[More...]
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The PRISM networkresearches how the brain represents the richly detailed visual ‘look and feel’ of surfaces and objects in our everyday surroundings. The aim is to shed light on how we perceive the 3D shapes, material properties and illumination in the scenes we encounter as we move through the world. In order to do this, a combination of behavioural techniques, neurophysiology, brain imaging and computational modelling is used.
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The project "Mesopic Vision" is being supported by the German Research Foundation from November 2010 until October 2011 with € 200.000. The project is a sub-project of "New Mesopic Image-resolving Photometrics with Analysis Software and Measuring Camera" in Cooperation with Darmstadt Technical University (Prof. Khanh) and Tübingen University (Prof. Kurtenbach). To date the characterization of visual signal processing under mesopic illumination circumstances has not satisfactorily succeeded. The project deals with mesopic movement perception, as previous research has already shown that under low illumination, subjects systematically underestimate their own speed. With a view to the relevance of those findings for road traffic, we investigate the effects of different central and peripheral illumination conditions on the perception of motion. |
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The research group "Perception and Action" is being supported by the German Research Foundation. The first funding period was 2004-2007. The current second funding period began in January of 2008. The research group aims to understand the relation between visual and motor processing. Further projects and descriptions can be found on the website of the research group.
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The research training network "NeuroAct" is being supported by the German Research Foundation. The network was started in 2003 and renewed in 2007. It takes place in the universities of Marburg and Giessen, laboratories from the fields of Psychology, Neurophysics, Human Movement Science and Linguistics are integrated.
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DThe Marie-Curie Network "Coordination for optimal decisions in dynamic environments" (CODDE) brings together leading scientist from all of Europe to understand the cerebral processes that allow us to perceive and act in a dynamic environment. Das CODDE Network does research on the link between sensory input, brain activities and motor output. In doing so, behavioral techniques, brain imaging, movement measuring and computational modelling are being combined. The network is composed of 8 university partners and 4 industrial partners. The network trains young scientists and does innovative research. This happens through collaboration and cooperation between the partners. We periodically meet, offer student exchanges and organize advanced training classes.
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The project "Gaze-based Communication" (GazeCom) is supported by the European Commission within the Information Society Technologies (IST) priority of the 6th Framework Programme. Our objectives are to (i) show that gaze guidance has a high impact on what is perceived and communicated effectively; (ii) advance the level of understanding of the human visual system to the point where gaze guidance becomes feasible, and (iii) build prototype systems that exploit these insights and demonstrate the potential for applications. If these objectives can be reached, we believe the resulting technology will fundamentally change the way in which information can be communicated in the future information society.
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The DFG project "Cortical mechanisms of color vision" (2001-2009): The objective of the work presented here is to investigate the cortical processing of color information. Which color-specific mechanisms process the signals coming from the retina in order to get to a precise and stable representation of color in the visual cortex? Research is done on to what extent this information is then provided for the processing of other perceptional tasks, like the computation of shape and movement. Thus, color is not to be looked at as detached from other image attributes here. We rather try to explain how those attributes are being integrated in order to get to a consistent representation of our natural environvent. |
DFG project "Perception of natural scenes" (2002-2006): The objective of the work presented here is to investigate the visual processing of natural scene pictures. Almost anything we know about cerebral processing of visual stimuli in humans has its source in psychophysical and neurophysiological research that only used very simple stimuli, such as sinus grids, points of light, or line segments. But ultimately it has become apparent that even under those reduced stimulus conditions, non-linear processing mechanisms often dominate the behavior of the visual system as a whole. Thus, we aim to find out to what extent our knowledge about the early stages of visual processing is of use when it comes to the perception of natural images. Specifically, using a number of experimental variations of a categorization task (animal/non-animal images), we will try to find out which image attributes are used by the human visual system to solve this task. These image attributes are then being compared to those attributes which arestatistically optimal for solving the task. |
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Perception for Recognition and Action (PRA) is a research training network that was funded by the European Commission from 2003 to 2006. The network is composed of 8 research groups and it contains more than 20 scientists, 10 of which were specifically appointed for the network. Our aim is to achieve a better understanding of the cerebral mechanisms underlying perception and action and the link between them.
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ModKog was funded by the german Federal Ministry of Education and Research from 2002 to 2005. The project is based on interdisciplinary research in the field of visual attention and it has possible applications in the areas of medical diagnostics and visual communication. Within ModKog, we closely collaborate with the Institut für Neuro- und Bioinformatik der Universität Lübeck and SensoMotorik Instruments in Berlin. ModKog´s objectives are summarized at Itap.
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