Active Sensing AG

The Active Sensing research group is part of the Cluster of Excellence in Cognitive Interaction Technology CITEC (EXC 277) and Bielefeld University's Faculty of Biology.

We are seeking to understand how fishes navigate their environment using either electrical or hydrodynamical cues. In our effort to unravel how perception of the aquatic environment is achived and how sensory-motor interaction influence each other, we employ various techniques ranging from quantitative behavior to neurophysiological approaches, theoretical modeling and evolutionary biology.

The main focus of our research is basic neuroethological research, but we seek to exchange our data with engineering scientists in order to endow artificial systems with biologically inspired capabilities and incorporate theoretical approaches in our efforts to understand the unique capabilities of aquatic vertebrates.

"There is no more important quest in the whole of science probably than the attempt to understand those very particular events in evolution by which brains worked out that special trick that enabled them to add to the scheme of things: color, sound, pain, pleasure, and all the facets of mental experience."

Roger Sperry (1976)