Research Areas

I am interested in the interaction of vision with action. I study how our visual system controls spatial navigation and exploration, how eye movements and attention contribute to visual perception, and how we perceive actions of others. To approach these issues my lab combines behavioral and physiological experiments with computational modeling. I believe that a true understanding of a cognitive function is equivalent to being able to formulate a quantitative model.

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Selected Publications

Mayer, K.M., Riddell, H., Lappe, M. (2019) Concurrent processing of optic flow and biological motion. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

Li Li, Long Ni, Markus Lappe, Diederick C Niehorster, Qi Sun. (2018)  No special treatment of independent object motion for heading perception. Journal of Vision (2018) 18(4):19, 1–16

Riddell, H., Lappe, M. (2018) Heading through a crowd. Psychological Science 29(9):1504-1514

Bremmer, F., Churan, J., Lappe, M. (2017) Heading representations in primates are compressed by saccades. NATURE COMMUNICATIONS 2017 (8: 920)

Riddell, H., Lappe, M. (2017) Biological motion cues aid identification of self-motion from optic flow but not heading detection. Journal of Vision 2017 17(12):19,1-17

Havermann, K., Cherici, C., Rucci, M., & Lappe, M. (2014). Fine-scale plasticity of microscopic saccades. The Journal of Neuroscience, 34(35):11665-11672.

Theusner, S., de Lussanet, M., & Lappe, M. (2014). Action recognition by motion detection in posture space. The Journal of Neuroscience, 34(3):909-921.

Zimmermann, E., Lappe, M. (2010) Motor signals in visual localization. Journal of Vision 10(6):2, 1–11

Hamker, F. H., Zirnsak, M., Calow, D. & Lappe, M. (2008). The peri-saccadic perception of objects and space. PLoS Comp. Biol. 4(2):e31

Lappe, M., Jenkin, M., Harris, L. R. (2007). Travel distance estimation from visual motion by leaky path integration. Experimental Brain Research 180:35-48

Lange, J. & Lappe, M. (2006). A model of biological motion perception from configural form cues. Journal of Neuroscience, 26(11):2894-2906.

Awater, H., & Lappe, M. (2006). Mislocalization of perceived saccade target position induced by peri-saccadic visual stimulation. Journal of Neuroscience 26(1):12-20.

Beintema, J. A & Lappe, M. (2002). Perception of biological motion without local image motion. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 99: 5661-5663.

Lappe, M., Awater, H., & Krekelberg, B. (2000). Postsaccadic visual references generate presaccadic compression of space. Nature 403:892-985.

Lappe, M., Bremmer, F., & van den Berg, A. V. (1999). Perception of self-motion from visual flow. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 3:329-336.

Lappe, M., Bremmer, F., Pekel, M., Thiele, A., & Hoffmann, K.-P. (1996). Optic flow processing in monkey STS: a theoretical and experimental approach. Journal of Neuroscience 16:6265-6285.

Lappe, M., & Rauschecker, J. P. (1993). A neural network for the processing of optic flow from egomotion in man and higher mammals. Neural Computation 5:374-391.

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Academic CV

• 1989 Diploma in Physics, Eberhard-Karls-University Tübingen
• 1990-1992 Guest Researcher at the National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, USA / PhD stipend from the Max-Planck Society
• 1992 Dr. rer. nat. (PhD) in Physics, University of Tübingen
• 1993-2002 Researcher at the Department of Zoology & Neurobiology, Ruhr-University Bochum
• 1998 Habilitation in Neurobiology, Faculty of Biology, Ruhr-University Bochum
• since 2002 Professor of Psychology at the University Münster

Honours and Special Recognitions

• 1999 BioFuture Prize of the German Minister of Science and Technology