Current Projects

How do we experience the visual world around us? The traditional view holds that the retinal input is analyzed to reconstruct an internal image that generates our perceptual experience. However, a general theory of how visual features are experienced in space and time is lacking. The fundamental claim of this grant proposal is that only motor knowledge - i.e. the way we interact with the world - establishes the underlying metric of space and time perception. In this model view, the spatial and temporal structure of perception is embedded in the processing of neural motor maps.

The project moreSense has four major objectives: First, it will unravel how neural motor maps provide the metric for the experience of visual space. It will be hypothesised that there is no central neural map of space or time but a weighted contribution of all maps. Novel experimental techniques are required to uncover the motor basis of perception, which are available by recent developments in head-mounted displays and online motion tracking. Second, it will provide a general understanding of time perception being implicitly coded in movement plans to objects in space. Third, results from the first two objectives will be applied to the long-standing mystery of visual stability and continuity across movements. A bayesian model, supported by quantitative measurements, will demonstrate how information combination from the various motor maps leads naturally to stable and continuous perception. Fourth, this new theory of space and time perception will be investigated in patients suffering from a breakdown of space perception.

The results will establish causal evidence that space and time perception are generated by processing in motor maps. New rehabilitation procedures will be developed to re-establish spatial perception in these patients. The experiments in this grant proposal will unravel the fundamental spatiotemporal structure of perception which organizes our sensory experience.

Bayer M, Zimmermann E (2024). Active head movements contribute to spatial updating across gaze shifts. Royal Society Open Science, in print.

Pomè A, Schlichting, N, Fritz, C, Zimmermann E (2024). Predictions of sensorimotor contingencies generate saccade omission. Currently Biology, in print. 

Pomè A, Zimmermann E (2024). Visuo-motor updating in individuals with heightened autistic traits eLife13:RP94946. doi: 10.7554/eLife.94946.2.

Zimmermann E. (2024). Compression of time in double-step saccades. Journal of Neurophysiology, 29. doi: 10.1152/jn.00117.2024.

Wiesing M, Zimmermann E. (2024). Intentional binding - Is it just causal binding? A replication study of Suzuki et al. (2019). Conscious & Cognition, 119:103665. doi: 10.1016/j.concog.2024.103665.

Langenberg M, Bayer M, Zimmermann E. (2023). Active production and passive observation of hand movements shift visual hand location. Scientific Reports, 24;13(1):20645. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-47557-z.

Zimmermann E. (2023). Repulsive Aftereffects of Visual Space. Vision (Basel), 15;7(4):73. doi: 10.3390/vision7040073.

Fritz C, Zimmermann E. (2023). Temporal adaptation of sensory attenuation for self- touch. Experimental Brain Research, 241(9):2333-2344. doi: 10.1007/ s00221-023-06688-5

Pomè A, Tyralla S, Zimmermann E. (2023). Altered oculomotor flexibility is linked to high autistic traits. (2023). Scientific Reports, 13(1):13032. doi: 10.1038/ s41598-023-40044-5.

Bayer M, Zimmermann E. (2023). Serial dependencies in visual stability during self- motion. (2023). Journal of Neurophysiology, 130(2):447-457. doi: 10.1152/ jn.00157.2023.

Bayer, M., Betka, S., Herbelin, B., Blanke, O., Zimmermann, E. (2023). The full-body illusion changes visual depth perception. Scientific Reports, 13(1):10569. doi: 10.1038/ s41598-023-37715-8.

Schlichting, N., Fritz, C., Zimmermann, E. (2023). Motor variability modulates calibration of precisely timed movements. iScience, 26(7):107204. doi: 10.1016/ j.isci.2023.107204

Tyralla, S., Pomè, A., Zimmermann, E. (2023) Motor recalibration of visual and saccadic maps. Proc. R. Soc. B. 290(1994). http://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2022.2566  

Knoppe, K., Schlichting, N., Zimmermann, E. (2022). Increased scene complexity during free visual exploration reveals residual unilateral neglect in recovered stroke patients. Neuropsychologia. (in press)

Storch, D. & Zimmermann, E. (2022). Temporal context modulates the magnitude of sensory attenuation for external events. Acta Psychologica (in press)

Zimmermann, E. & Lange, J. (2022). Saccade suppression of displacements, but not of contrast, depends on context. Journal of vision (in press)

Fritz, C., Flick, M. & Zimmermann, E. (2022). Tactile motor attention induces sensory attenuation for sounds. Consciousness & Cognition (in press)

Zimmermann, E. (2022). Mislocalization in saccadic suppression of displacement. Vision Research, 196. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.visres.2022.108023

Schlichting, N., Kartashova, T., Wiesing, M., & Zimmermann, E. (2022). Temporal perturbations cause movement-context independent but modality specific sensorimotor adaptation. Journal of Vision, 22(2). https://doi.org/10.1167/jov.22.2.18

Zimmermann, E. (2021). Sensorimotor serial dependencies in head movements. Journal of Neurophysiology,126(3), 913-923. https://doi.org/10.1152/jn.00231.2021

Wiesing, M., Kartashova, T., & Zimmermann, E. (2021). Adaptation of pointing and visual localization in depth around the natural grasping distance. Journal of Neurophysiology, 125(6). https://doi.org/10.1152/jn.00012.2021

Knoetsch, F., & Zimmermann, E. (2021). The spatial specificity of sensory attenuation for self-touch. Consciousness and Cognition, 92. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2021.103135

Cont, C., & Zimmermann, E. (2020). The motor representation of sensory experience. Current Biology, 31(5). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2020.11.032

Zimmermann, E., Ghio, M., Pergola, G., Koch, B., Schwarz, M., & Bellebaum, C. (2020). Separate and overlapping functional roles for efference copies in the human thalamus. Neuropsychologia,147. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2020.107558

Zimmermann, E., & Cicchini, G. M. (2020). Temporal context affects interval timing at the perceptual level. Scientific Reports, 10(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-65609-6

Chota, S., McLelland, D., Lavergne, L., Zimmermann, E., Cavanagh, P., & Van Rullen, R. (2020). Full field masking causes reversals in perceived event order. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 14(217). https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2020.00217

Zimmermann E. (2020). Saccade suppression depends on context. eLife, 9, e49700.https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.49700

Storch, D., Zimmermann, E. (2019). The effect of space on subjective time is mediated by apparent velocity. Journal of Vision, 19(14). https://doi.org/10.1167/19.14.19.