Christian Wallraven

Alumni of the Department Human Perception, Cognition and Action

Main Focus

As of March 2010, I am a Professor at the Department of Brain and Cognitive Engineering at Korea University. Visit my homepage for more information!
Research statement

In my work, I am interested in bringing computer vision, computer graphics and psychophysics together in order to investigate fundamental perceptual and cognitive processes. This fusion of methods and approaches from these three research areas has the potential to greatly advance our understanding of the processes in the human brain.
In my research, I apply this approach to the investigation and modeling of face processing, multi-sensory object representation, object categorization, as well as to modeling of aesthetic perception.
  • Highly controllable, yet realistic computer-generated stimuli offer novel possibilities for advanced psychophysical experiments. The results from those experiments can be used to derive perceptual "shortcuts" to more efficient rendering approaches.
  • Algorithms from computer vision and machine learning can be used to model human performance. Conversely, the results from perceptual experiments can inform computer scientists about how the human brain solves "vision".
  • Generating virtual worlds with computer graphics also helps computer vision researchers, as "ground truth" is available for testing of recognition algorithms, for example. Such algorithms can on the other hand be used to generate and model highly complex scenes more quickly.

Conferences and Grants
- Local coordinator for the EU-sponsored project , which aims to synthesize sensorimotor representations and natural language in everyday human interaction
- Co-organizer for the (APGV07)
- Co-organizer for the (BMCV2002)
- Local coordinator for the EU-sponsored project , which investigated methods and techniques to build active vision systems for recognition and categorization of objects and events

Selected publications
(For all publications, follow this )

  • Dahl, C. D., C. Wallraven, H. H. Bülthoff and N. K. Logothetis: Humans and macaques employ similar face processing strategies. Current Biology 19(6), 509-513 (03 2009)
  • Wallraven, C., R. Fleming, D. W. Cunningham, J. Rigau, M. Feixas and M. Sbert: Categorizing art: comparing humans and computers. Computers and Graphics 33(4), 484-495 (08 2009)
  • Nusseck, M., D. W. Cunningham, C. Wallraven and H. H. Bülthoff: The contribution of different facial regions to the recognition of conversational expressions. Journal of Vision 8(8:1), 1-23 (06 2008)
  • Wallraven, C., M. Breidt, D. W. Cunningham and H. H. Bülthoff: Evaluating the Perceptual Realism of Animated Facial Expressions. ACM Transactions on Applied Perception 4(4:4), 1-20 (01 2008)
  • Cooke, T., F. Jäkel, C. Wallraven and H. H. Bülthoff: Multimodal Similarity and Categorization of Novel, Three-Dimensional Objects. Neuropsychologia 45(3), 484-495 (02 2007)
  • Wallraven, C., A. Schwaninger and H. H. Bülthoff: Learning from Humans: Computational Modeling of Face Recognition. Network: Computation in Neural Systems 16(4), 401-418 (12 2005)

Current projects
- A computational recognition system grounded in perceptual research. The system exploits the temporal information inherent in natural visual input for object learning and recognition and includes the first framework for interfacing local feature approaches with Support Vector Machines.
- Cross-species comparison of processing of faces (with )
- Perception of face expressions using computer animations and real videos (with , and )
- How do we perceive art? (with and )
- Multimodal categorization of novel objects (with )
- Visuohaptic processing of faces (with )
- Computational modeling of scene gist (with )
- Recognition and categorization of objects from 3D data (with and from Fraunhofer IPA)
- Development of recording setups and processing pipelines for video sequences, 3D and 4D scanning (with , , )

Conferences and Grants
- Local coordinator for the EU-sponsored project , which aims to synthesize sensorimotor representations and natural language in everyday human interaction
- Co-organizer for the (APGV07)
- Co-organizer for the (BMCV2002)
- Local coordinator for the EU-sponsored project , which investigated methods and techniques to build active vision systems for recognition and categorization of objects and events

Curriculum Vitae

1993 Abitur at Friedrich-List-Gymnasium in Reutlingen
1993-1999 studied Physics at the Eberhard-Karls-Universität in Tübingen
Oct 1997 - Mar 1998 DAAD - Stipend for studies at the University of Edinburgh
July 1998 - July 1999 Diploma thesis at Max Planck Institut for Biological Cybernetics on Stereo Reconstruction of Faces using Class-Based Knowledge
July 1999 Diploma of Physics (with distinction)
Sept 1999 - Oct 2006 PhD thesis at Max Planck Institut for Biological Cybernetics onA computational recognition system grounded in perceptual research
November 2002 co-organizer for the 
May 2001-June 2004 local co-ordinator for EU-funded  research grant
July 2007 co-organizer for the 
Sep 2009-Dec 2009 visiting researcher at Korea University
since Mar 2010 Professor at Korea University, head of http://cogsys.korea.ac.kr Cognitive Systems Lab
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