{"id":12038,"date":"2026-08-19T13:51:51","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T13:51:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cyber-valley.de\/?post_type=researchfund-project&#038;p=12038"},"modified":"2026-09-01T12:06:33","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T12:06:33","slug":"x_mechanisms-of-representation-transfer","status":"publish","type":"researchfund-project","link":"https:\/\/cyber-valley.de\/de\/researchfund-project\/x_mechanisms-of-representation-transfer\/","title":{"rendered":"Mechanisms of representation transfer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Overview<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Computer-vision systems can classify objects and segment images well, but they often fail when images are distorted or unfamiliar. Humans, by contrast, can interpret a wide range of visual input, from familiar landscapes to abstract paintings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Led by Fabian Sinz at the University of T\u00fcbingen, this project investigated whether brain-activity data could help AI models process images more like humans. The project ran from 2019 to 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Key results<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Developed a method that uses data from how the brain responds to images to guide an AI model\u2019s behaviour, rather than trying to copy the brain\u2019s internal mechanisms directly.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Trained models on brain-activity data alongside standard computer-vision tasks.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Found that these models showed an improved ability to process visual distortions, even though they had not been explicitly trained for that task.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Observed that the models tended to focus on the parts of images that humans find important, indicating more human-like visual processing.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Produced peer-reviewed publications at AISTATS and NeurIPS, including work on multi-task learning using monkey visual-cortex data and on generating images that excite neural responses.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Why it matters<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The project addresses a central challenge in computer vision: making AI models more robust when images are distorted, degraded, or unfamiliar. By using brain responses as a guide rather than as a direct template, it offers a way to build systems that interpret visual information more like people. The findings could support applications in autonomous driving, robotics, and medical imaging, where reliable perception under varied and imperfect conditions is essential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">This project produced the following peer-reviewed publications:&nbsp;<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Nix, A., Shrinivasan, S., Walker, E. Y., and Sinz, F. H. (2022).&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/proceedings.mlr.press\/v151\/nix22a.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Can Functional Transfer Methods Capture Simple Inductive Biases?<\/a>&nbsp;In International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics (AISTATS).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Pierzchlewicz, P. A., Willeke, K. F., Nix, A. F., Elumalai, P., Restivo, K., Shinn, T., Nealley, C., Rodriguez, G., Patel, S., Franke, K., Tolias, A. S., and Sinz, F. H. (2023).&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/neurips.cc\/virtual\/2023\/poster\/72996\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Energy Guided Diffusion for Generating Neurally Exciting Images.<\/a>&nbsp;In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Safarani, S., Nix, A., Willeke, K., Cadena, S. A., Restivo, K., Denfield, G., Tolias, A. S., and Sinz, F. H. (2021).&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/papers.neurips.cc\/paper_files\/paper\/2021\/file\/06a9d51e04213572ef0720dd27a84792-Paper.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Towards robust vision by multi-task learning on monkey visual cortex.<\/a>&nbsp;In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Nix, A., Burg, M., Sinz F.,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/openreview.net\/forum?id=S90Q6b1kzcf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Leading by example: Guiding knowledge transfer with adversarial data augmentation.<\/a>\u00a0NeurIPS 2022 Workshop SyntheticData4ML.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"cv-tag":[],"user-group":[],"class_list":["post-12038","researchfund-project","type-researchfund-project","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Mechanisms of representation transfer - Cyber Valley<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cyber-valley.de\/de\/researchfund-project\/x_mechanisms-of-representation-transfer\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"de_DE\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mechanisms of representation transfer - Cyber Valley\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Overview Computer-vision systems can classify objects and segment images well, but they often fail when images are distorted or unfamiliar. Humans, by contrast, can interpret a wide range of visual input, from familiar landscapes to abstract paintings. Led by Fabian Sinz at the University of T\u00fcbingen, this project investigated whether brain-activity data could help AI [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/cyber-valley.de\/de\/researchfund-project\/x_mechanisms-of-representation-transfer\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Cyber Valley\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-09-01T12:06:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Gesch\u00e4tzte Lesezeit\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"2\u00a0Minuten\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cyber-valley.de\\\/de\\\/researchfund-project\\\/x_mechanisms-of-representation-transfer\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cyber-valley.de\\\/de\\\/researchfund-project\\\/x_mechanisms-of-representation-transfer\\\/\",\"name\":\"Mechanisms of representation transfer - Cyber Valley\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cyber-valley.de\\\/de\\\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2026-08-19T13:51:51+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-09-01T12:06:33+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cyber-valley.de\\\/de\\\/researchfund-project\\\/x_mechanisms-of-representation-transfer\\\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"de\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/cyber-valley.de\\\/de\\\/researchfund-project\\\/x_mechanisms-of-representation-transfer\\\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cyber-valley.de\\\/de\\\/researchfund-project\\\/x_mechanisms-of-representation-transfer\\\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cyber-valley.de\\\/de\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Mechanisms of representation transfer\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cyber-valley.de\\\/de\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cyber-valley.de\\\/de\\\/\",\"name\":\"Cyber Valley\",\"description\":\"From lab to market\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cyber-valley.de\\\/de\\\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cyber-valley.de\\\/de\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"de\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cyber-valley.de\\\/de\\\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Cyber Valley GmbH\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cyber-valley.de\\\/de\\\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"de\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cyber-valley.de\\\/de\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/logo\\\/image\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cyber-valley.de\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/05\\\/CV_Logo-Lockup_RGB_20210412.svg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cyber-valley.de\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/05\\\/CV_Logo-Lockup_RGB_20210412.svg\",\"width\":1112,\"height\":317,\"caption\":\"Cyber Valley GmbH\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cyber-valley.de\\\/de\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/logo\\\/image\\\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.linkedin.com\\\/company\\\/cybervalley\\\/\",\"https:\\\/\\\/www.instagram.com\\\/cybervalley_bw\\\/\",\"https:\\\/\\\/www.youtube.com\\\/channel\\\/UCPi8donVDkcOeM4C0CfP5fg\",\"https:\\\/\\\/bsky.app\\\/profile\\\/cyber-valley.bsky.social\"]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Mechanisms of representation transfer - Cyber Valley","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/cyber-valley.de\/de\/researchfund-project\/x_mechanisms-of-representation-transfer\/","og_locale":"de_DE","og_type":"article","og_title":"Mechanisms of representation transfer - Cyber Valley","og_description":"Overview Computer-vision systems can classify objects and segment images well, but they often fail when images are distorted or unfamiliar. 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