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Contact
Stephan de la Rosa, Ph.D. |
| Address: | Spemannstr. 38 72076 Tübingen |
| Room number: | 113 |
| Phone: | +49 7071 601 606 |
| Fax: | +49 7071 601 616 |
| E-Mail: |  delarosa |
I am a Post-Doctoral fellow with training experience in psychology, statistics, and computer science. My research interest is to investigate human perception and cognition and to develop technologies that aid the investigation of psychological processes. My interst further span statistics, research methods, and research ethics.
I have taught several courses (e.g. statistics, perception, human computer interaction) at the University of Toronto (Toronto/Canada) and at the
General overview about (please find a detailed research plan in the section 'Projects'):
Research on human perception and cognition
Human Perception and Cognition
Social Interaction Recognition
Humans are social beings. Interacting with another person (social interaction) is an integral part of human life. I investigate the perceptual and cognitive processes in the recognition of social interactions and the perceptual and cognitive mechanisms involved during the execution of social interactions.
For example, we use 3D models of social interactions to examine the viewpoint dependency of social interaction recognition (see right video for a example stimulus).
Current research questions concern the role of visual information in social interactions; the contribution of motor control during social interactions; the visual recognition of social interactions; and the role of emotions during social interactions.
Emotional Face Recognition/Facial Expression Recognition
I am interested in the underlying representations of facial expression recognition. Among other things we are using adaptation paradigms and 3D facial models to examine the processes involved in emotional facial expression recognition.
I use various methods to address the research questions including
- behavioral experiments,
- virtual reality,
- motion capture
- fMRI.
I supervise(d) the following students:
Stephan Streuber (Ph.D. Candidate)
Frieder Schillinger (Diploma Student)
Sarah Mieskes (Master Student)
I am a co-supervisor of the following students:
Kathrin Kaulard (Ph.D. Candidate)
Ekaterina Volkova (Ph.D. Candidate)
I have developed experiment database (web interface) for the recruitment of participants at the University of Toronto (using html, php, mysql) and the participant database for the Max Planck Insitute Department Human Perception, Cognition, and Action.
I am currently developing another subject database for which can be seen at http://www.experimentdatabase.com
We are further developing a processing pipline to display motion capture information as recorded by moven suits (XSENS) witihn the psychophysics toolbox (standard software in psychological research).
My research projects examine how people process, represent, and understand of visual information pertaining to social interactions. I am working on several projects:
- Social interaction categorization
- The use of visual information on social interaction performance
- Dynamic Face Adaptation
- Action respresentation
- Motor-visual cross-talk
- Dissociating different levels of object recognition
- Displaying motion capture data within Psychtoolbox 3
Social interaction categorization
Physical social interacitons (e.g. kissing or shaking hands) are abundant in our daily life. How do we represent the manifold of social interactions? In this project we examine the cognitive representation of social interaction recognition. We are using an free categorization tasks to examine, whether and which social interaction humans perceive as more similar. Furthermore we try to determine the factors underlying this categorization.
de la Rosa S 
, Choudhery R and
The use of visual information on social interaction performance
Humans usually do not passively observe social interactions but they actively participate in physical social interactions? Active participation in physical social interaction requires the interaction partners to coordinate their actions (e.g. when carrying a stretcher). There are many cues that persons can use from the environment for action coordination. For example, they can use visual information about the object that they carry together or than can use visual information of the interaction partner's body. In this project we examine which visual information people use if they interact with others. We furthermore look at to what degree the social context influences the use of visual information in action coordination tasks. This project is mainly carried out by Stephan Streuber.
Streuber S , , , Bülthoff HH and de la Rosa S (2011).
Faces provide rich information about the cognitive and emotional states of the interaction partner through facial expressions (e.g. a happy face). Previous research examined the cognitive representation of facial expression mainly using static images of facial expressions. In this project we are interested whether dynamic facial information (e.g. facial movement) is also part of the representation.
de la Rosa S , Giese MA and Curio C
In this project we are examining how individual actions that are directed towards another person are cognitively represented.
In this project we examine the influence of the motor system on the perception of actions. We use behavioural as well as fMRI to examine the motor-visual linkage and its importance for action understanding.
Schillinger F , de la Rosa S , Schultz J and (2010)
Dissociating different levels of object recognition
Objects can be recognized on several semantic levels. For example, it has been suggested that one can merely detecting the presence of an object without recognizing its identity. However more recent evidence suggests that detection and the explicit recognition are the same. Here we examined whether the differences in technical experimental setup (specifically the refresh rate and consequently the minimum possible presentation time) can accont for the lack of dissociating detection from explicit recognition. For very high monitor refresh rates (i.e. very short minimum presentation times) we could dissociate detection from explicit recognition. In contrast we were unable to find behavioural differences between detection and explicit recognition tasks for lower refresh rates (i.e. longer minimum presentation times). The results suggest that detection and explicit recognition are dissociable and that high refresh rates are required (i.e. very short minimum presentation times) to dissociate detection from explicit recognition.
de la Rosa S , Choudhery RN and Chatziastros A (2011)
Displaying motion capture data within Psychtoolbox 3
We are developing a pipeline to display motion capture (e.g. from MVN studio) data within the Psychtoolbox 3.
My research contributes to the EU funded research project TANGO.
Education
2008: Ph.D. Psychology
2003: Master of Arts in Psychology
2002: Diploma Geography with Computer Science and Sociology as minors
Articles (4): | |
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Streuber S , , , Bülthoff HH and de la Rosa S (October-2011) The effect of social context on the use of visual information
Experimental Brain Research 214(2) 273-284. 
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de la Rosa S , Choudhery RN and Chatziastros A (February-2011) Visual object detection, categorization, and identification tasks are associated with different time courses and sensitivities
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 37(1) 38-47.
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de la Rosa S , and (April-2009) Knowledge alters visual contrast sensitivity
Attention, Perception and Psychophysics 71(3) 451-462.
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de la Rosa S , and (September-2008) The Magnitude of Binocular Disparity Modulates Search Time for Targets Defined by a Conjunction of Depth and Colour
Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology 62(3) 150-155.
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Conference papers (4): | |
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, , Streuber S , de la Rosa S , Bülthoff HH and Mohler BJ (August-2011) The influence of avatar (self and character) animations on distance estimation, object interaction and locomotion in immersive virtual environments
8th Symposium on Applied Perception in Graphics and Visualization (APGV 2011), ACM Press, New York, NY, USA, 37-44.
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Dodds TJ , Mohler BJ , de la Rosa S , Streuber S and Bülthoff HH (May-2011) Embodied Interaction in Immersive Virtual Environments with Real Time Self-animated Avatars
Workshop Embodied Interaction: Theory and Practice in HCI (CHI 2011), ACM Press, New York, NY, USA, 132-135.
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Alexandrova IV , Teneva PT , de la Rosa S , , Bülthoff HH and Mohler BJ (July-2010) Egocentric distance judgments in a large screen display immersive virtual environment
7th Symposium on Applied Perception in Graphics and Visualization (APGV 2010), ACM Press, New York, NY, USA, 57-60.
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Streuber S , de la Rosa S , Trutoiu LC , Bülthoff HH and Mohler B (April-2009) Does Brief Exposure to a Self-avatar Affect Common Human Behaviors in Immersive Virtual Environments?
In: Eurographics 2009, 30th Annual Conference of the European Association for Computer Graphics, European Association for Computer Graphics, Geneve, Switzerland, 33-36.
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Posters (10): | |
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Streuber S and de la Rosa S (September-2011): The effect of visual information on motor control in social interaction tasks, 34th European Conference on Visual Perception, Toulouse, France, Perception, 40(ECVP Abstract Supplement) 226.
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de la Rosa S , Giese MA and Curio C (September-2011): The influence of dynamic and static adaptors on the magnitude of high-level aftereffects for dynamic facial expression, 34th European Conference on Visual Perception, Toulouse, France, Perception, 40(ECVP Abstract Supplement) 154.
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Kaulard K , de la Rosa S , Schultz J , Fernandez Cruz AL , Bülthoff HH and Wallraven C (September-2011): What are the properties underlying similarity judgments of facial expressions?, 34th European Conference on Visual Perception, Toulouse, France, Perception, 40(ECVP Abstract Supplement) 115.
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de la Rosa S , Choudhery R and Bülthoff HH (August-2010): Social interaction recognition and object recognition have different entry levels, 33rd European Conference on Visual Perception, Lausanne, Switzerland, Perception, 39(ECVP Abstract Supplement) 12.
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Schillinger F , de la Rosa S , Schultz J and (August-2010): Whole-brain fMRI using repetition suppression between action and perception reveals cortical areas with mirror neuron properties, 33rd European Conference on Visual Perception, Lausanne, Switzerland, Perception, 39(ECVP Abstract Supplement) 54.
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de la Rosa S , Choudhery R and Chatziastros A (August-2009): Detection, categorization, and identification are separable component processes of object recognition, 32nd European Conference on Visual Perception, Regensburg, Germany, Perception, 38(ECVP Abstract Supplement) 26.
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de la Rosa S and Chatziastros A (August-2008): Recognising the actions of others is as fast as recognising objects, 31st European Conference on Visual Perception, Utrecht, Netherlands, Perception, 37(ECVP Abstract Supplement) 31.
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de la Rosa S , and (July-2008): Binocular unmasking is important for the detection, categorization and identification of noise-masked real-life objects, XXIX International Congress of Psychology (ICP 2008), 29(FP-384) 1.
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de la Rosa S , and (August-2007): Top-down control over visual-contrast sensitivity, 30th European Conference on Visual Perception, Arezzo, Italy, Perception, 36(ECVP Abstract Supplement) 61.
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de la Rosa SI , and (August-2005): Search behaviour in conjunctive visual searches with stereoscopic depth and colour, 28th European Conference on Visual Perception, A Coruña, Spain, Perception, 34(ECVP Abstract Supplement) 151.
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Talks (2): | |
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Kaulard K , Wallraven C , de la Rosa S and Bülthoff HH (October-2010): Cognitive categories of emotional and conversational facial expressions are influenced by dynamic information, 11th Conference of Junior Neuroscientists of Tübingen (NeNa 2010), Heiligkreuztal, Germany(10) 16.
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Kaulard K , Wallraven C , de la Rosa S and Bülthoff HH (August-2010) Abstract Talk: Cognitive categories of emotional and conversational facial expressions are influenced by dynamic information, 33rd European Conference on Visual Perception, Lausanne, Switzerland, Perception, 39(ECVP Abstract Supplement) 157.
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