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.

Selected Publications

Scherff, M. & Lappe, M. (2025) Flow parsing as causal source separation allows fast and parallel object and self-motion estimation. Communications Biology, 2025, 8. Jg., Nr. 1, S. 1-16.

Koerfer, K., Watson, T. and Lappe, M. (2024) Inability to pursue nonrigid motion produces instability of spatial perception. Science Advances; DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adp6204, 1-9

Masselink, J., Cheviet, A., Froment-Tilikete, C., Pélisson, D., Lappe, M. (2023) A triple distinction of cerebellar function for oculomotor learning and fatigue compensation. PLoS Computational Biology  19.8 (2023): e1011322, 1-37

Masselink, J. and Lappe, M. (2021) Visuomotor learning from postdictive motor error. eLife 2021, 10:e64278, 1-45

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

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 Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster

 

Honours and Special Recognitions

1999 BioFuture Prize of the German Minister for Science and Technology