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Christoph Teufel

Dr Christoph Teufel

Reader, Lead for Cognitive Neuroscience (jointly with A. Bompas)

School of Psychology

Overview

Research summary

Perceptual organisation
Neurons in the eye and early visual system respond to small, local patches of images. My research focuses on how our brain organises this patchwork of local neural activity to turn it into global and coherent percepts. I am particularly interested in the role of top-down influences from higher onto lower levels of visual processing in perceptual organisation. I work with healthy observers and clinical populations, integrating techniques from psychophysics, neuroimaging, and computational modelling.

Perception and learning
In order to guide successful and adaptive behaviour, an organism needs appropriate information about the states of the world. This information is typically learned and organised in the form of internal models. I am interested in how humans and animals learn to acquire internal models of their environment in the face of perceptual uncertainty. This work combines psychophysics and techniques from machine learning.

Face perception and social neuroscience
Facial information is important in guiding successful social behaviour. Face perception can therefore provide a useful model for how the brain processes biologically meaningful information. My work in this area focuses on the integration of information from multiple social cues and top-down effects. To address these questions, I work with healthy observers and clinical populations, using psychophysics and neuroimaging.

Teaching summary

I teach early vision on the Year 2 course Perception, Attention, and Action (PS2021), and the relationship of early and high-level vision on the Final Year course Social Perception (PS3215).

Publication

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2013

2011

  • Silk, B. J. et al. 2011. Social knowledge. In: Menzel, R. and Fischer, J. eds. Animal Thinking: Contemporary Issues in Comparative Cognition. MIT Press, pp. 267-291.

2010

2009

2007

Adrannau llyfrau

Erthyglau

Gwefannau

Research

Research topics

Perceptual organisation
Neurons in the eye and early visual system respond to small, local patches of images. My research focuses on how our brain organises this patchwork of local neural activity to turn it into global and coherent percepts. I am particularly interested in the role of top-down influences from higher onto lower levels of visual processing in perceptual organisation. I work with healthy observers and clinical populations, integrating techniques from psychophysics, neuroimaging, and computational modelling.

Perception and learning
In order to guide successful and adaptive behaviour, an organism needs appropriate information about the states of the world. This information is typically learned and organised in the form of internal models. I am interested in how humans and animals learn to acquire internal models of their environment in the face of perceptual uncertainty. This work combines psychophysics and techniques from machine learning.

Face perception and social neuroscience
Facial information is important in guiding successful social behaviour. Face perception can therefore provide a useful model for how the brain processes biologically meaningful information. My work in this area focuses on the integration of information from multiple social cues and  top-down effects. To address these questions, I work with healthy observers and clinical populations, using psychophysics and neuroimaging.

Funding

MRC funding for the PhD project 'Exploring the emergence of psychotic experiences using multimodal neuroimaging and mathematical modelling', £95,477

Award from the KU Leuven/Cardiff University Staff Mobility scheme (2016) (covers international travel and accommodation in Leuven, Belgium)

Wellcome Trust Institutional Strategic Support Fund (2015), Mobility Scheme, £650

VW Foundation Research grant, 'The Interplay of Pre-reflective and Reflective Processes', (2010-2014), £82,600

Travel Fellowship from the Centre for Visual Science (2012), Rochester, USA ($1200)

Isaac Newton Trust Research grant, 'Neural Correlates of Social Perception: An  fMRI Study', (2009-2010), £17,890

Research collaborators

Internal
Matt Dunn (School of Optometry, Cardiff, UK)
Krish Singh (School of Psychology, Cardiff, UK)
Elisabeth von dem Hagen (School of Psychology, Cardiff, UK)
Stanley Zammit (MRC Centre for Neuropsychiatric Genetics, Cardiff, UK)

External
Bruce Christensen (School of Psychology, Australian National University, AU)
Steven Dakin (Optometry & Vision Science, University of Auckland, NZ)
Paul Fletcher (Brain Mapping Unit, University of Cambridge, UK)
Peter Scarfe (Vision and Haptics Lab, University of Reading, UK)
Johan Wagemans (Laboratory of Experimental Psychology, KU Leuven, Belgium)

Biography

Undergraduate education

2005 German equivalent of BSc and MPhil in Biology, Free University of Berlin and Max-Planck-Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology, Germany

Postgraduate education

2006 MPhil Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge, UK

2009 PhD Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge, UK

Other duties

Grant reviewing: BBSRC, UK; MRC, UK; ESRC, UK; Leverhulme Trust, UK; Israel Science Foundation; Swiss National Science Foundation, Switzerland; FWO,  Belgium

Journal reviewing for 21 different journals (including  Current Biology, Journal of Vision, American Journal of Psychiatry)

Invited talks (e.g., Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception, Paris, France; University of Bochum, Germany; Goldsmiths University of London, UK; University of Bergen, Norway)

Employment

2015-present Lecturer, School of Psychology, Cardiff  University, UK

2009-2014 Posdoctoral research associate, Brain Mapping Unit, University of Cambridge, UK

Honours and awards

Awards/external committees

College Research Associate (elected), Clare College, University of Cambridge, UK (2009-2014)

Member of the European Platform for Life Sciences, Mind Sciences, and the Humanities (elected) at the VW Foundation (2010-2014)

Katharina-Heinroth-Award (2005)

Supervisions

Postgraduate research interests

If you are interested in applying for a PhD, or for further information regarding my postgraduate research, please contact me directly (contact details available on the 'Overview' page).

Current PhD students and Postdocs

Stefan Brugger (PhD student, jointly supervised with Krish Singh)
Hellen Jing Yuan (PhD student, jointly supervised with Krish Singh)
Abigail Finn (PhD student, jointly supervised with Elisabeth von dem Hagen)
Laura Dixon (PhD student, jointly supervised with Elisabeth von dem Hagen
Tyler Bridgewater (PhD student, jointly supervised with Tom Freeman)
Adelina Halchin (PhD student; main supervisor: Aline Bompas)

Alumni

Isobel Ward - PhD in 2021, Postdoc from 2021-2022; now a Senior Analyst at the Office for National Statistics (ONS), UK
Juan Mayor Torres - Postdoc 2020-2021; now Postdoc at the University College Dublin, Ireland
Marek Pedziwiatr - PhD in 2020; now a Postdoc at Queen Mary University of London, UK
Jazz Croft - PhD in 2020 (co-supervision); now a Senior Workplace Scientist at Flo Health, Inc., UK
Johanna Finneman - PhD in 2020 (co-supervision); now a Postdoc at the University of Cambridge, UK

Contact Details

Email TeufelC@cardiff.ac.uk
Telephone +44 29208 75372
Campuses Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre, Maindy Road, Cardiff, CF24 4HQ