People and Results

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Manfred Fahle studied Biology and Medicine and worked as an ophthalmologist but became a full-time researcher around 1989 when he spent a year with Tomaso Poggio at MIT. He tries to organize and coordinate the work of the group and is directly involved in most of the projects.

Spatio-temporal Aspects of Vision:
Perceptual Learning, Temporal Binding and Development

We use hyperacuity paradigms such as vernier, orientation and curvature discriminations, as well as spatio-temporal interpolation as sensitive probes to study perceptual learning, i.e. improvement of performance over time through training (in adults) or development (in children). Another aspect of temporal factors is temporal hyperacuity, the detection of time differences of a few milliseconds and psychophysical tests of temporal binding.

Marcus Dill(internet-link: "http://www.ai.mit.edu/people/marcus/cv.html") is a biologist interested in perceptual learning, especially position specificity. At present, he spends a year at MIT with Tommaso Poggio.

Michael Herzog got his degree in biology and mathematics. He is especially interested in the role of feedback in human perceptual learning and performs both psychophysical experiments and modelling.

Both Anne Holland-Moritz and Astrid Broos , two medical students, join in Michaels efforts to understand perceptual learning.

Spatio-temporal interpolation and its improvement through training is the speciality of Emanuela De Luca , and Anke Biester investigates the differences between real and apparent motion, i.e., short range apparent motion.

Annette Schierig , for her MD thesis, chose to investigate the decline of M- and P-resolution towards the visual field periphery.

Almut-J. Wegner investigates the influence of acute and chronic alcohol consumption on different capacities of the visual system like visual memory, perceptual learning, stereopsis, attention, and fast eye movements (saccades).

Manfred Fahle recently performed a number of studies on temporal hyperacuity.

Parallel Processing of Visual Information

It appears to us that parallel processing of visual information gives important hints on the organisation and function of the visual perception: stimuli which are detected in parallel in the visual field require a rather large number of neurons and seem to be rather important for visual perception. From a different perspective, these are the functions most likely to be disturbed by cortical damage.

Barbara Zenger came back to Germany to study grouping processes in parallel processing and to apply signal detection theory to different processes of visual perception.

Tanja Quenzer uses EEG recordings to search for 'objective' correlates of parallel processing and figure-ground discrimination.

Michael Abele , who is about to become a neurologist, discovered sub-threshold summation of different cues in figure-ground discrimination.

Alexander Semmler performs an in-depth investigation of parallel processing of stereoscopic perception and interpolation in depth.

Volker Rupp found that trained observers can detect changes of curvature simultaneously at many positions of the visual field.

Alexandra Grodon examinates parallel detection of luminance and gradients of luminance in the visual field, together with Levente Galli who performs a complementary study of parallel color processing.

Stephanie Plaz investigated the role of central versus peripheral vision during night-walking.

Defects of (Parallel) Information Processing in Patients

It is an explicit goal of our group to bridge the gap between basic and applied research, by using results obtained in basic science to improve diagnostic and possibly therapeutic tools. Insights obtained from investigations in patients in turn do foster our knowledge on how the brain works.

Doris Braun , after several years in Stanford now investigates motion and color perception in patients suffering from cerebral lesions.

Valentine(Val) Marcar , followed by Gernot Skiera

studies visual perception by means of functional Nuclear Magnetic Resonance.

Gudrun Bachmann develops new methods of simultaneous perimetry for a fast and selective screening test in patients with visual disturbances.

Jutta Budde takes a closer look at the early visual processing of features such as movement, colour or stereopsis in normals and in patients with an acquired brain damage of vascular origin.

A recent therapy of dyslexia was tested on a large number of children by Janina Luberichs .


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Marcus Dill(http://www.ai.mit.edu/people/marcus/cv.html)