Research

Key Area Dynamics

We are exploring the dynamics of transition and stability in sensory and cognitive systems, ranging from extremely rapid motion of the eyes, to very slow bodily changes during development and aging. Here, we focus on the most basic form of adaptation—dynamic gain regulation—through which sensitivity to signals is continuously adjusted. This simple mechanism provides a key building block for all other Key Areas.

New project-related publications

Aizenman, A. M., Gegenfurtner, K. R., & Goettker, A. (2024).
Oculomotor routines for perceptual judgments.
Journal of Vision, 24(5), 3-3.

Arikan, B. E., van Kemenade, B. M., Fiehler, K., Kircher, T., Drewing, K., & Straube, B. (2021).
Different contributions of efferent and reafferent feedback to sensorimotor temporal recalibration.
Scientific Reports, 11(1).

Bahmani, S., Hahn, O., Zamfir, E., Araslanov, N., Cremers, D., & Roth, S. (2022).
Semantic Self-adaptation: Enhancing Generalization with a Single Sample. Transactions on Machine Learning Research (TMLR).

Bellagente, M., Brack, M., Teufel, H., Friedrich, F., Deiseroth, B., Eichenberg, C., Kersting, K., ... & Weinbach, S. (2024).
Multifusion: Fusing pre-trained models for multi-lingual, multi-modal image generation.
Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems, 36.

Böhm, A., Schneider, T., Belousov, B., Kshirsagar, A., Lin, L., Doerschner, K., ... & Peters, J. (2024).
What matters for active texture recognition with vision-based tactile sensors.
arXiv preprint 2403, 13701.

Brack, M., Friedrich, F., Hintersdorf, D., Struppek, L., Schramowski, P., & Kersting, K. (2024).
SEGA: Instructing text-to-image models using semantic guidance.
Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems, 36.

Brack, M., Schramowski, P., Deiseroth, B., & Kersting, K. (2023).
Illume: Rationalizing vision-language models through human interactions.

Cheeseman, J. R., Fleming, R. W., & Schmidt, F. (2022).
Scale ambiguities in material recognition.
iScience, 25(3):103970.

Churan, J., Kaminiarz, A., Schwenk, J. C., & Bremmer, F. (2021).
Coding of interceptive saccades in parietal cortex of macaque monkeys.
Brain Structure and Function, 226(8), 2707-2723.

Churan, J., Kaminiarz, A., Schwenk, J. C., & Bremmer, F. (2021).
Action-dependent processing of self-motion in parietal cortex of macaque monkeys.
Journal of Neurophysiology, 125(6), 2432-2443.

Davidson, C., Shing, Y. L., McKay, C., Rafetseder, E., & Wijeakumar, S. (2023).
The first year in formal schooling improves working memory and academic abilities.
Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 60, 101205.

Davidson, Ch., Shing, Y. L., McKay, C. Rafetseder, E., & Wijeakumar, S. (2023).
The first year in formal schooling improves working memory and academic abilities.
Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 60, 101205.

Deiseroth, B., Deb, M., Weinbach, S., Brack, M., Schramowski, P., & Kersting, K. (2024).
Atman: Understanding transformer predictions through memory efficient attention manipulation.
Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems, 36.

Dillmann, J.*, Sensoy, Ö.*, & Schwarzer, G. (2022). *shared first authorship
Parental perceived stress and its consequences on early social-emotional child development during COVID-19 pandemic.
Journal of Early Childhood Research, 1476718X221083423.

Dowiasch, S., Blanke, M., Knöll, J., & Bremmer, F. (2023).
Spatial localization during open-loop smooth pursuit.
Frontiers in Neuroscience, 17, 1058340.

Dowiasch, S., Kaminiarz, A., & Bremmer, F. (2022).
The visual representation of space in the primate brain.
Neuroforum, 28(4), 199-209.

Eckert, A., Blume, J. S., Knopp, B., Schütz, A. C., & Endres, D. (2024).
Distinct Biases Shape Perceptual Inference Dynamics Along the Autism-Psychosis Spectra.

Engel, D., Greulich, R. S., Parola, A., Vinehout, K., Dowiasch, S., Waldthaler, J., ... & Bremmer, F. (2023).
Convolutional neural network reveals frequency content of medio-lateral COM body sway to be highly predictive of Parkinson's disease.
medRxiv, 2023-05.

Engel, D., Student, J., Schwenk, J. C., Morris, A. P., Waldthaler, J., Timmermann, L., & Bremmer, F. (2021).
Visual perturbation of balance suggests impaired motor control but intact visuomotor processing in Parkinson’s disease.
Journal of Neurophysiology, 126(4), 1076-1089.

Falck, J., Zhang, L., Raffington, L., Mohn, J. J., Triesch, J., Heim, C., & Shing, Y. L. (2023).
Longitudinal Changes in Value-based Learning in Middle Childhood: Distinct Contributions of Hippocampus and Striatum.
bioRxiv preprint

Flachot, A., Akbarinia, A., Schütt, H. H., Fleming, R. W., Wichmann, F. A., & Gegenfurtner, K. R. (2022).
Deep neural models for color classification and color constancy.
Journal of vision, 22(4), 17-17.

Friedrich, F., Stammer, W., Schramowski, P., & Kersting, K. (2023).
A typology for exploring the mitigation of shortcut behaviour.
Nature Machine Intelligence, 5(3), 319-330.

Friedrich, F., Stammer, W., Schramowski, P., Kersting, K. (2023).
Revision Transformers: Instructing Language Models to Change their Values. In
Proceedings of the 26th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI).

Gehb, G., Vesker, M., Jovanovic, B., Bahn, D., Kauschke, C., & Schwarzer, G. (2022).
The Relationship between Crawling and Emotion Discrimination in 9- to 10-Month-Old Infants.
Brain Sciences, 12(4), 479.

Goettker, A., & Gegenfurtner, K. R. (2024).
Individual differences link sensory processing and motor control.
Psychological Review.

Goktepe, N., & Schütz, A. C. (2023).
Familiar objects benefit more from transsaccadic feature predictions.
Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 1-13.

Goktepe, N., & Schütz, A. C. (2023).
Familiar objects benefit more from transsaccadic feature predictions.
Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 1-13.

Goktepe, N., & Schütz, A. C. (2024).
Frequency-specific and periodic masking of peripheral characters by delayed foveal input.
In Scientific Reports 14(1), 4642.

Hahn, O., Araslanov, N., Schaub-Meyer, S., & Roth, S. (2024).
Boosting Unsupervised Semantic Segmentation with Principal Mask Proposals.
arXiv preprint2404.16818.

Hermann, A., Benke, C., Blecker, C., de Haas, B., He, Y., Hofmann, S., Iffland, J., Jengert-Stahl, J., Kircher, T., Leinweber, k., Linka, M., Mulert, C., Neudert, M.K., Noll, A.K, Melzig, C., Rief, W., Rothkopf, C., Schäfer, A., Schmitter, C., Schuster, V., Stark, R., Straube, B., Zimmer, R. & Kirchner, L. (2024).
Study Protocol TransTAM: Transdiagnostic Research into Emotional Disorders and Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy of the Adaptive Mind.
OSF preprint

Hesse, R., Schaub-Meyer, S., & Roth, S. (2021).
Fast axiomatic attribution for neural networks.
Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems, 34(2), 19513-19524.

Hilbert, K., Böhnlein, J., Meinke, C., Chavanne, A., Langhammer, T., Stumpe, L., Winter, N., Kircher, T., Rief, W., Straube, B., Roesmann, K., Leehr, E.J., Dannlowski, U., & Lueken, U., (2024).
Lack of evidence for predictive utility from resting state fMRI data for individual exposure-based cognitive behavioral therapy outcomes: A machine learning study in two large multi-site samples in anxiety disorders.
NeuroImage, 295, 120639.

Kadner, F., Thomas, T., Hoppe, D., & Rothkopf, C. A. (2023).
Improving saliency models' predictions of the next fixation with humans' intrinsic cost of gaze shifts.
In Proceedings of the IEEE/CVF Winter Conference on Applications of Computer Vision (pp. 2104-2114).

Kaiser, D., Stecher, R., Dörschner-Boyaci, K. (2023).
EEG decoding reveals neural predictions for naturalistic material behaviors.
bioRxiv preprint

Kavroulakis, E., van Kemenade, B. M., Arikan, B. E., Kircher, T., & Straube, B. (2022).
The effect of self- vs. externally generated actions on timing, duration and amplitude of BOLD response for visual feedback processing.
Human Brain Mapping, in press.

Kessler, F., Frankenstein, J., & Rothkopf, C. A. (2022).
A Dynamic Bayesian Actor Model explains Endpoint Variability in Homing Tasks.
bioRxiv

Kessler, F., Frankenstein, J., & Rothkopf, C. A. (2024).
Human navigation strategies and their errors result from dynamic interactions of spatial uncertainties.
Nature Communications, 15(1), 5677.

König, A., Bremmer, F., Dowiasch, S. (2023).
Quantitative comparison of a mobile, tablet-based and two stationary, video-based eye-trackers.
bioRxiv, 2023-06.

Kufer, K., Schmitter, C. V., Kircher, T., & Straube, B. (2023).
Temporal recalibration in response to delayed visual feedback of active versus passive actions: An fMRI study.

Linka, M., Sensoy, Ö., Karimpur, H., Schwarzer, G., de Haas, B. (2022).
Attentional biases in free viewing of complex scenes in preschoolers and adults.
PsyArXiv Preprints

Linka, M., Sensoy, Ö., Karimpur, H., Schwarzer, G., de Haas, B. (2023).
Free viewing biases for complex scenes in preschoolers and adults.
Sci Rep, 13, 11803.

Lubinus, C., Einhäuser, W., Schiller, F., Kircher, T., Straube, B. & van Kemenade, B.M. (2022).
Action-based predictions affect visual perception, neural processing, and pupil size, regardless of temporal predictability.
NeuroImage, 263, 119601.

McKay, C., Wijeakumar, S., Rafetseder, E., & Shing, Y. L. (2021).
Disentangling Age and Schooling Effects on Inhibitory Control Development: An fNIRS Investigation.
bioRxiv

McKay, C., Wijeakumar, S., Rafetseder, E., & Shing, Y. L. (2021).
Disentangling age and schooling effects on inhibitory control development: An fNIRS investigation.
Developmental Science: e13205. 205, 102117.

Men, H., Altin, A., & Schütz, A. C. (2023).
Underestimation of the number of hidden objects.
Journal of Vision, 23(2):1, 1–20.

Ody, E., Kircher, T., Straube, B., & He, Y. (2023).
Pre-movement event-related potentials and multivariate pattern of EEG encode action outcome prediction. Human Brain Mapping.

Ody, E., Straube, B., He, Y., Kircher, T. (2023).
Perception of self-generated and externally-generated visual stimuli: Evidence from EEG and behavior.
Psychophysiology, e14295.

Ortiz-Tudela, J., Bergmann, J., Bennett, M., Ehrlich, I., Muckli, L., & Shing, Y. L. (2023).
Concurrent contextual and time-distant mnemonic information co-exist as feedback in the human visual cortex.
NeuroImage, 265, 119778.

O’Leary, A., Fernàndez-Castillo, N., Gan, G., Yang, Y., Yotova, A. Y., Kranz, T. M., ... Kircher, T. …, Straube, B., ... Reif, A. (2022).
Behavioural and functional evidence revealing the role of RBFOX1 variation in multiple psychiatric disorders and traits.
Molecular Psychiatry, 1–10.

Preißler, L., Jovanovic, B., Munzert, J., Schmidt, F., Fleming, R.W., & Schwarzer, G. (2021).
Effects of visual and visual-haptic perception of material rigidity on reaching and grasping in the course of development.
Acta Psychologica, 221, November, 103457.

Preißler, L., Keck, J., Krüger, B., Munzert, J., & Schwarzer, G. (2023).
Recognition of emotional body language from dyadic and monadic point-light displays in 5-year-old children and adults.
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 235, 105713.

Prokott, E., & Fleming, R. W. (2022).
Identifying specular highlights: Insights from deep learning.
Journal of vision, 22(7), 6-6.

Ridderbusch, I. C., Wroblewski, A., Yang, Y., Richter, J., Hollandt, M. Hamm, A. O., Wittchen, H.-U., Ströhle, A., Arolt, V., Margraf, J., Lueken, U., Hermann, M. J., Kircher, T. & Straube, B. (2021).
Neural adaptation of cingulate and insular activity during delayed fear extinction: A replicable pattern across assessment sites and repeated measurements.
NeuroImage, 237, 118157.

Rodríguez, R. G., Hedjar, L., Toscani, M., Guarnera, D. Y., Guarnera, G. C., & Gegenfurtner, K. R. (2024).
Color constancy mechanisms in virtual reality environments.
Journal of Vision, 24(5) ,6-6.

Rosenblum, L., Grewe, E., Churan, J., & Bremmer, F. (2022).
Influence of Tactile Flow on Visual Heading Perception.
Multisensory Research, 35(4), 291-308.

Rosenblum, L., Kreß, A., Ezgi Atikan, B., Straube, B., Bremmer, F. (2023).
Neural correlates of visual and tactile path integration and their task related modulation.
Scientific Reports, 13 (1), 9913.

Rosenblum, L., Kreß, A., Schwenk, J. C., & Bremmer, F. (2022).
Visuo-tactile heading perception.
Journal of Neurophysiology, 128(5), 1355-1364.

Rothkopf, C., Bremmer, F., Fiehler, K., Dobs, K., & Triesch, J. (2023).
Models of vision need some action.
Behavioral Brain Science, 46:e405.

Schmidt, F., Tiedemann, H., Fleming, R. W., & Morgenstern, Y. (2023).
Inferring shape transformations in a drawing task.
Memory & Cognition.

Schmitt, C., Krala, M., & Bremmer, F. (2022).
Neural signatures of actively controlled self-motion and the subjective encoding of distance.
Eneuro, 9(6).

Schmitt, C., Schwenk, J. C. B., Schütz, A., Churan, J., Kaminiarz, A., Bremmer, F. (2021).
Preattentive processing of visually guided self-motion in humans and monkeys.
Progress in Neurobiology, 205, 102117.

Schmitter, C. V., Pazen, M., Uhlmann, L., van Kemenade, B. M., Kircher, T., & Straube, B. (2024).
Predictive neural processing of self-generated hand and tool actions in patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders and healthy individuals.
OSFPreprints

Schmitter, C.V., Kufer, K., Steinsträter, O., Sommer, J., Kircher, T., Straube, B. (2023).
Neural correlates of temporal recalibration to delayed auditory feedback of active and passive movements.
Human Brain Mapping.

Schommartz, I., Kaindl, A. M., Buss, C., & Shing, Y. L. (2024).
Short- and long-delay consolidation of memory accessibility and precision across childhood and young adulthood.
Developmental psychology.

Schommartz, I., Lembcke, P. F., Ortiz-Tudela, J., Bauer, M., Kaindl, A. M., Buss, C., & Shing, Y. L. (2023).
Neural correlates and reinstatement of recent and remote memory: A comparison between children and young adults.
bioRxiv

Schommartz, I., Lembcke, P. F., Pupillo, F., Schuetz, H., de Chamorro, N. W., Bauer, M., ... & Shing, Y. L. (2023).
Distinct multivariate structural brain profiles are related to variations in short-and long-delay memory consolidation across children and young adults.
Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 59, 101192.

Schommartz, I., Lembcke, Ph. F., Pupillo, F., Schuetz, H., Wald de Chamorro, N., Bauer, M., Kaindl, A. M., Buss, C., & Shing, Y. L. (2023).
Distinct multivariate structural brain profiles are related to variations in short- and long-delay memory consolidation across children and young adults.
Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 59, 101192.

Schramowski, P., Brack, M., Deiseroth, B., & Kersting, K. (2023).
Safe latent diffusion: Mitigating inappropriate degeneration in diffusion models. In
Proceedings of the IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition(pp. 22522-22531).

Schramowski, P., Turan, C., Andersen, N., Rothkopf, C. A., & Kersting, K. (2022).
Large pre-trained language models contain human-like biases of what is right and wrong to do.
Nature Machine Intelligence, 4(3), 258-268.

Schultheis, M., Rothkopf. C. A., Koeppl, H. (2022).
Reinforcement learning with non-exponential discounting.
Neural Information Processing Systems.

Schultheis, M., Straub, D., & Rothkopf, C. A. (2021).
Inverse optimal control adapted to the noise characteristics of the human sensorimotor system.
Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems, 34, 9429-9442.

Schwarzer, G., Gehb, G., Kelch, A., Gerhard-Samunda, T., Jovanovic, B. (2022).
Locomotion training contributes to 6-month-old infants' mental rotation ability.
Human Movement Science, Volume 85, October 2022, 102979.

Shindo, H., Pfanschilling, V., Dhami, D. S., & Kersting, K. (2023).
α ILP: thinking visual scenes as differentiable logic programs.
Machine Learning, 112(5), 1465-1497.

Skryagin, A., Ochs, D., Dhami, D. S., & Kersting, K. (2023).
Scalable Neural-Probabilistic Answer Set Programming.
Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research (JAIR) 78:579–617.

Spartakov, R., Kshirsagar, A., Mühl, D., Schween, R., Endres, D. M., Bremmer, F., ... & Peters, J. (2024).
Balancing on the Edge: Review and Computational Framework on the Dynamics of Fear of Falling and Fear of Heights in Postural Control.
Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (46).

Stewart, E. E., Fleming, R. W., & Schütz, A. C. (2024).
A simple optical flow model explains why certain object viewpoints are special.
bioRxiv,2023-10.

Stewart, E. M. M., & Fleming, R. W. (2023).
The eyes anticipate where an object will move based on its shape.
Current Biology, 33(17), R894-R895.

Stewart, E. M., & Fleming R. W. (2023).
The eyes anticipate where an object will move based on its shape.
Current Biology, 33(17), R894-R895.

Stewart, E.E.M., Hartmann, F.T., Morgenstern, Y., Storrs, K.R., Maiello G., & Fleming R.W. (2022).
Mental object rotation based on two-dimensional visual representations.
Current Biology 32, R1201–R1225.

Storrs, K. R., Anderson, B. L., & Fleming, R. W. (2021).
Unsupervised learning predicts human perception and misperception of gloss.
Nature Human Behaviour, 1-16.

Straub, D., & Rothkopf, C. A (2022).
Straub, Dominik, and Constantin A. Rothkopf. "Putting perception into action with inverse optimal control for continuous psychophysics.
Elife 11,e76635.

Straub, D., Schultheis, M., Koeppl, H., & Rothkopf, C. A. (2024).
Probabilistic inverse optimal control for non-linear partially observable systems disentangles perceptual uncertainty and behavioral costs.
Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems, 36.

Straube, B., Kuehne, H., van Dam, L., Frey, K., van Kemenade, B.M., Kircher, T., & Ried, L. (2022).
Speech-gesture mismatch detection in individuals with high vs. low schizotypal traits.
International Consortium on Schizotypy Research, ICSR 2022.

Student J, Engel D, Timmermann L, Bremmer F, Waldthaler J (2022).
Visual Perturbation Suggests Increased Effort to Maintain Balance in Early Stages of Parkinson’s to be an Effect of Age Rather Than Disease.
Front. Hum. Neurosci. 16:762380.

Tamura, H., Prokott, K. E., & Fleming, R. W. (2022).
Distinguishing mirror from glass: A “big data” approach to material perception.
Journal of vision, 22(4), 4-4.

Tatai, F., Straub, D., & Rothkopf, C. (2023).
People use Newtonian physics in intuitive sensorimotor decisions under risk. In
Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (Vol. 45, No. 45).

Thoma, N., Yu, Z., Ventola, F., & Kersting, K. (2021).
RECOWNs: Probabilistic Circuits for Trustworthy Time Series Forecasting.
Proceedings of the 4th Workshop on Tractable Probabilistic Modeling (TPM 2021).

Thomas, T., Straub, D., Tatai, F., Shene, M., Tosik, T., Kersting, K., & Rothkopf, C. A. (2024).
Modelling dataset bias in machine-learned theories of economic decision-making.
Nature Human Behaviour, 1-13.

Tiedemann, H., Morgenstern, Y., Schmidt, F., & Fleming, R. W. (2022).
One-shot generalization in humans revealed through a drawing task.
eLife, 11.

Tiedemann, H., Schmidt, F., Fleming, R.W. (2022).
Superordinate Categorization Based on the Perceptual Organization of Parts.
Brain Sciences, 12, 667.

Trick, S., & Rothkopf, C. A. (2022).
Bayesian Classifier Fusion with an Explicit Model of Correlation.
In International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics (pp. 2282-2310). PMLR.

Ventola, F., Dhami, D. S., & Kersting, K. (2021).
Generative Clausal Networks: Relational Decision Trees as Probabilistic Circuits.
Proceedings of the 30th International Conference on Inductive Logic Programming (ILP).

Wagner, I., & Schütz, A. C. (2023).
Interaction of dynamic error signals in saccade adaptation.
Journal of Neurophysiology, 129, 717-723.

Wroblewski, A., Hollandt, M., Yang, Y., Ridderbusch, I. C., Pietzner, A., Szeska, C., ... & Richter, J. (2022).
Sometimes I feel the fear of uncertainty stinging clear: How Intolerance of Uncertainty and Trait Anxiety impact fear acquisition, extinction and the return of fear.

Wroblewski, A., Hollandt, M., Yang, Y., Ridderbusch, I.C., Pietzner, A., Szeska, C., Lotze, M., Wittchen, H.-U., Heinig, I., Pittig, A., Arolt, V., Koelkebeck, K., Rothkopf, C.A., Adolph, D., Margraf, J., Lueken, U., Pauli, P., Herrmann, M.J., Winkler, M.H., Ströhle, A., Dannlowski, U., Kircher, T., Hamm, A.O., Straube, B.* & Richter, J.* (2022). *contributed equally
Sometimes I feel the fear of uncertainty stinging clear: How Intolerance of Uncertainty and Trait Anxiety impact fear acquisition, extinction and the return of fear.
PsyArXiv Preprints

Yu, Z., Dhami, D. S., & Kersting, K. (2021).
Sum-Product-Attention Networks: Leveraging Self-Attention in Probabilistic Circuits.
arXiv preprint

Yu, Z., Trapp, M., & Kersting, K. (2024).
Characteristic Circuits.
Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems, 36.

Yu, Z., Ventola, F. G., & Kersting, K. (2021).
Whittle networks: A deep likelihood model for time series.
International Conference on Machine Learning (PMLR), 12177-12186.

Yu, Z., Zhu, M., Trapp, M., Skryagin, A., & Kersting, K. (2021).
Leveraging Probabilistic Circuits for Nonparametric Multi-Output Regression.
Proceedings of the 37th Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence (UAI 2021).