معرفی
Professor Karl R. Gegenfurtner is a distinguished researcher in visual perception at Justus-Liebig-University Giessen, where he has served as Professor for General Psychology since 2001. His work bridges the gap between sensory processing, visual cognition, and motor control, with a particular focus on color vision and eye movement research.
His educational background includes a Diploma in Psychology from the University of Regensburg (1986) and a Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from New York University (1990), followed by postdoctoral work at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and NYU's Center for Neural Science. Before joining Giessen, he was a research scientist at the MPI for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen (1993-2000) and Professor for Biological Psychology at Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg (2000-2001).
Professor Gegenfurtner's research centers on information processing in the visual system, particularly the relationship between low-level sensory processes, higher-level visual cognition, and sensorimotor integration. His work investigates how complex scenes and objects are perceived in natural environments, how they are represented in the brain, and how visual information drives motor systems. His specific interests include color vision, color constancy, eye movement control, visual processing during eye movements, and the neural mechanisms underlying visual perception.
His recent publications reveal a strong focus on color processing in both biological and artificial systems, saccadic suppression mechanisms, color categorization, and the interaction between visual perception and eye movements. His work combines psychophysical methods with computational modeling and increasingly incorporates deep learning approaches to understand visual processing.
- 2024: Russell Devalois Memorial lecture UC Berkeley
- 2024: ICVS Verriest medal
- 2024: Pineapple Science Award
- 2019: Palmer Lecture of the Colour Group (GB)
- 2019: Turrell Lecture Berlin
- 2016: Wilhelm Wundt medal of the German Society for Psychology
- 2014: Rank Prize Funds Lecture at the European Conference of Visual Perception
- Since 2015: Member, German National Academy of Science (Leopoldina)
Professor Gegenfurtner has served on numerous editorial boards including Journal of Vision (Associate editor since 2018), Vision Research, and Perception. He was President of the Vision Science Society (2012/2013) and serves on the fellowship selection committee for the Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation. His research has been supported by prestigious grants including an ERC Advanced Grant (2020-2025) for "Color 3.0: an object-oriented approach to color" and multiple DFG-funded collaborative research centers.
He leads research projects investigating predictive mechanisms in peripheral vision, the origins of color categories, and neurOscientific workflow assistance (NOWA). His laboratory continues to push the boundaries of visual neuroscience, with recent work exploring color processing using deep neural networks and investigating visual phenomena in virtual reality environments.
