Research interests
My research areas of interest are social neuroscience and psychiatry. More specifically, I am interested in how human beings understand and make sense of each other. Here, my research is based on the assumption that social cognition is fundamentally different when we are directly engaged with someone as compared to being a mere observer.
Adopting this second-person approach to other minds and exploring it empirically by using functional neuroimaging and interactive eyetracking holds promise to allow new insights into the neurobiological correlates of online social interaction which may also be relevant for our understanding of psychiatric disorders.
social neuroscience social brain disorders
second-person perspective autism
joint attention schizophrenia
self-awareness social phobia
reward processing borderline personality disorder
interactive eyetracking temporal lobe epilepsy
social influence/presence
Current project(s)
Sozialer Blick: Phänomenologie und Neurobiologie seiner Störungen beim hochfunktionalen Autismus. Interdisziplinäre Forschungskooperation (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung); Sprecher: Kai Vogeley; Teilprojektleiter: Katrin Amunts, Gary Bente, Marc Tittgemeyer, Kai Vogeley.
Verhaltens- und Augenbewegungsuntersuchungen der interaktiven Blickkoordination sowie der „gemeinsamen Aufmerksamkeit“ bei Autismus und Schizophrenie. Supported by the Koeln Fortune Program, Medical Faculty / University of Cologne.
Being Addressed As You: Conceptual and Empirical Investigations of a Second-Person Approach to Other Minds. Interdisciplinary research project funded by the Volkswagen Foundation (Leonhard Schilbach, Tobias Schlicht, Bert Timmermans, Nikolaus Steinbeis).
Collaborators (past & present)
Nicole Krämer, Duisburg, Germany
Sebastian Pannasch, Jens Helmert, Sven-Thomas Graupner, Boris Velichkovsky, Dresden, Germany
Eva K. Ritzl, Baltimore & Bethesda, Maryland, USA & Mohamad Z. Koubeissi, Cleveland, Ohio, USA
Anne-Marie Schuller, Luxembourg
Anna Rotarska-Jagiela, Frankfurt
Simon Eickhoff, Jülich & Aachen, Germany
Andreas Mojzisch, Thomas Schultze, Göttingen, Germany
Kliment Yanev, Gary Bente, Cologne, Germany
Ruth Lanius & Judith Daniels, London/Ontario, Canada
Tobias Schlicht, Tübingen, Germany
Bert Timmermans, Brussels, Belgium
Andreas Mayer, Heidelberg, Germany
Gayannée Kedia & Thomas Mussweiler, Cologne, Germany
Poster presentations
Pfeiffer, UJ, Schilbach, L, TImmermans, B, Bente, G, Vogeley, K. A Social Turing Test: Ascription of Humanness to A Virtual Character is Based on Contingeny and Valence of Gaze Behavior. KogWis 2010, October 3-6, Potsdam, Germany.
Pfeiffer, UJ, Schilbach, L, TImmermans, B, Bente, G, Vogeley, K. A Social Turing Test: Ascription of Humanness to A Virtual Character is Based on Contingeny and Valence of Gaze Behavior. ESCON12, August 25-29, 2010, Gothenburg, Sweden.
Kuzmanovic, B, Schilbach, L, Lehnhardt, FG, Bente, G, Vogeley, K. Relative contributions of verbal and nonverbal information to impression formation in high-functioning autism. CogSci 2010, Tomsk, Russia.
Schilbach, L, Eickhoff, SB, Cieslik, E, Shah, NJ, Vogeley, K. Can eye help you? An fMRI study into the effects of ‘social gaze‘ on action control. OHBM 2010, Barcelona, Spain.
Pfeiffer, UJ, Schilbach, L, TImmermans, B, Bente, G, Vogeley, K. Natural Born Cooperators? Ascription of ‘human-ness‘ to virtual others depends on similarities of gaze behavior. INCORE Cooperation Conference, April 18-20, 2010, Budapest, Hungary.
Schilbach, L, Eickhoff, SB, Cieslik, E, Shah, NJ, Vogeley, K. Can eye help you? An fMRI study into the effects of ‘social gaze‘ on action control. CNS 2010, Montreal, Canada.
Kuzmanovic, B, Schilbach, L, Georgescu, A, Santos, N, Shah, NJ, Bente, G, Fink, GR, Vogeley, K. Implicit and Explicit Levels of Animacy Perception in Adults with High-Functioning Autism. CNS 2010, Montreal, Canada.
Schilbach, L, Wilms, M, Eickhoff, SB, Tepest, R, Romanzetti, S, Bente, G, Shah, NJ, Fink, GR & Vogeley, K. Minds made for sharing. The neural correlates of joint attention. CEU CDC Opening Conference, Budapest, January 15-17, 2010.
Schilbach, L, Wilms, M, Eickhoff, SB, Tepest, R, Romanzetti, S, Bente, G, Shah, NJ, Fink, GR & Vogeley, K. Minds made for sharing. The neural correlates of joint attention. Neurovisionen 5, Bochum, September 3, 2009.
Schilbach, L, Wilms, M, Eickhoff, SB, Tepest, R, Romanzetti, S, Bente, G, Shah, NJ, Fink, GR & Vogeley, K. Minds made for sharing. An fMRI investigation of the neural correlates of joint attention. Wellcome Trust School on Biology of Social Cognition, Hinxton/Cambridge, UK, August 9-16, 2009.
Schilbach, L, Wilms, M, Eickhoff, SB, Tepest, R, Romanzetti, S, Bente, G, Shah, NJ, Fink, GR & Vogeley, K. Minds made for sharing. An fMRI investigation of the neural correlates of joint attention. Human Brain Mapping (HBM), San Francisco, USA, June 18-23, 2009.
Schilbach, L. et al. Minds made for sharing: Initiating joint attention recruits reward-related neurocircuitry. Slide presentation, Slide Session 7: Reasoning and decision making. Tuesday, March 24, 2009 (Chair: Kalina Christoff), CNS 2009, San Francisco, USA.
Pfeiffer, U, Schilbach, L, Bente, G, Vogeley, K. What exactly is social in social cognition? International Conference „Self-Concept, Self-Image, Self-Deception. The Role Perception, Thinking and Memory in Self-Understanding and its Disorders“ at Hanse-Wissenschaftskoleg (HWK), Delmenhorst, June 2-4, 2009.
Schilbach, L, Wilms, M, Eickhoff, SB, Tepest, R, Romanzetti, S, Bente, G, Shah, NJ, Fink, GR & Vogeley, K. Minds made for sharing. The neural correlates of joint attention. ESF-JSPS Social cognitive neuroscience conference, Acquafredda di Maratea, Italy, February 27-March 4, 2009.
Dammé, M, Schuller, A, Schilbach, L, Pull, C (2009). The perception of social interactions by subjects with social phobia: A study with virtual characters. Frontiers in Neuroengineering. Annual CyberTherapy and CyberPsychology conference. doi: 10.3389/conf.neuro.14.2009.06.026.
Schilbach, L, Eickhoff, SB, Wilms, M, Mojzisch, A, Bente, GB, Fink, GR, Vogeley, K. The neurobiological correlates of situated, social cognition. DISCOS: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Disorders and Coherence of the Embodied Self. International Conference, Heidelberg, Germany, 13-15 November 2008.
Schwartz, C, Schilbach, L, Vogeley, K, Bente, G. Truly mind blind? Using animated characters to study the perception of social gaze in high-functioning autism. Third International Conference for Cognitive Science, Moscow, Russia, June 20-26, 2008.
Santos, N, Schilbach, L, David, N, Tepest, R, Vogeley, K. From spheres to virtual faces: Studying the development of social perception in autism. 37th Annual Meeting of The Jean Piaget Society Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 31 May – 2 June, 2007.
Schilbach, L, Koubeissi, MZ, Vogeley, K, Ritzl, EK. Being With Virtual Others: Studying Social Cognition in Temporal Lobe Epilepsy. AES Meeting, Dezember 2006, San Diego, CA, USA.
Pannasch, S, Schilbach, L, Helmert, JR, Graupner, ST, Mojzisch, A, Velichkovsky, BM. Eye movements and EMG activity during social interaction with virtual anthropomorphic characters. ECEM 2005, Bern, Switzerland.
Schilbach, L, Helmert, JR, Mojzisch, A, Pannasch, S, Velichkovsky, BM, Vogeley, K. Visual Attention and Brain Processing while Meeting an Avatar. CogSci Meeting 2005, Stresa, Italy.
Schilbach, L, Wohlschlaeger, A, Newen, A, Krämer, N, Fink, GR, Zilles, K, Vogeley, K. On being with virtual others: Neural Correlates of Social Interaction, IK Günne 2005, 04.-11. März, 2005, Günne, Germany.
Helmert, JR, Schilbach, L, Graupner, S-T, Mojzisch, A, Pannasch, S, Vogeley, K, Velichkovsky, BM. Augenbewegungen bei sozialer Interaktion mit virtuellen anthropomorphen Agenten, TEAP 2005, Regensburg, Germany.
Schilbach, L, Ritzl, A, Newen, A, Krämer, N, Fink, GR, Zilles, K, Vogeley, K. On being with others: Neural Correlates of Social Interaction, annual meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society (CNS), April 17-20, 2004, San Francisco, CA, USA.
Schilbach, L, Ritzl, A, Newen, A, Krämer, N, Fink, GR, Zilles, K, Vogeley, K. On being with others: Neural Correlates of Social Interaction, HBM 2004, 14.-17. Juni, 2004, Budapest, Hungary.
Vogeley, K, Podell, K, Kukolja, J, Schilbach, L, Goldberg, E, Zilles, K, Fink, GR. Recruitment of the left prefrontal cortex in preference-based decisions in males: an fMRI study, HBM 2003, New York, NY, USA.
Wohlschläger, A, Vogeley, K, Ritzl, A, Schilbach, L, Zilles, K, Fink, GR. Neural correlates of top-down influences on apparent motion perception, HBM 2003, New York, NY, USA.
Reviewer
Journals
Cortex, Elsevier
Cerebral Cortex, Oxford Journals
Neuropsychologia, Elsevier
Cognitive Neuroscience, Psychology Press
Social Neuroscience, Psychology Press
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, Oxford University Press
Behavior Research Methods, Psychonomic Society
Fortschritte der Neurologie und Psychiatrie, Thieme Verlag
Current Directions in Psychological Science, Blackwell Publishing
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, Frontiers Media
Journal of Psychophysiology, Hogrefe
Biology Letters, Royal Society Publishing
Presence, MIT Press
Institutions
ICREA
Dr. Leonhard Schilbach
Functional Imaging Laboratory
Department of Psychiatry
University of Cologne
Kerpener Str. 62, 50924 Cologne, Germany
leonhard.schilbach[at]uk-koeln.de