Tim Kietzmann

@timkietzmann.bsky.social

ML meets Neuroscience #NeuroAI, Full Professor at the Institute of Cognitive Science (Uni Osnabrück), prev. @ Donders Inst., Cambridge University

Excited to share that our paper has been accepted for a talk at #CogSci2026: Path Integration and Object-Location Binding Emerge in an Action-Conditioned Predictive Sequence Network Linda Ariel Ventura, Victoria Bosch, Tim C. Kietzmann, and Sushrut Thorat. Preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2602.03490. ⛓️

Path Integration and Object-Location Binding Emerge in an Action-Conditioned Predictive Sequence Network

Adaptive cognition requires structured internal models of objects and their relations. Predictive neural networks are often proposed to learn such world models, but how these are instantiated and how ...

arxiv.org

Ever wondered why we fixate some locations longer than others? We initially thought that it had to do with recognition complexity, and were quite wrong. In Nature Neuroscience we present an alternative take: the need to memorise governs fixation durations.

Philip Sulewski@psulewski.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Now out in Nature Neuroscience: "Fixation duration on natural scenes is explained by memory encoding not processing demand". www.nature.com/articles/s41... Our eyes don't linger because recognition is hard; they linger to remember. Let me take you on a quick tour. 🧵

This paper changed my mind on how visual processing works in the brain. We knew it was dynamic given all the recurrent connections. But I thought it would converge to a fixpoint during a fixation. Not so, it seems ... The dynamic captures different aspects of the stimulus at different times. Nice.

Tim Kietzmann @timkietzmann.bsky.social · 3mo ago

A huge effort and a new take on what constitutes the "feedforward pass" across the visual system. Make sure to check out our new preprint:

A huge effort and a new take on what constitutes the "feedforward pass" across the visual system. Make sure to check out our new preprint:

Daniel Anthes@anthesdaniel.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Excited about our new preprint: “The illusory simplicity of the feedforward pass: evidence for the dynamical nature of stimulus encoding along the primate ventral stream” arxiv.org/abs/2604.12825 Work with Sushrut Thorat, Anna Mitola, Paolo Papale, Peter König & Tim Kietzmann 🧵 thread below

A huge effort and a new take on what constitutes the "feedforward pass" across the visual system. Make sure to check out our new preprint:

Daniel Anthes@anthesdaniel.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Excited about our new preprint: “The illusory simplicity of the feedforward pass: evidence for the dynamical nature of stimulus encoding along the primate ventral stream” arxiv.org/abs/2604.12825 Work with Sushrut Thorat, Anna Mitola, Paolo Papale, Peter König & Tim Kietzmann 🧵 thread below

Our work reveals a sharp trade-off between predictive accuracy and model identifiability. Flexible mappings maximize predictivity, but blur the distinction between competing computational hypotheses.

🚨 Out in Patterns! We asked ourselves, if complex neural dynamics like predictive remapping and allocentric coding can emerge from simple physical principles, in this case Energy Efficiency. Turns out they can! More information in the 🧵 below. I am super excited to see this one out in the wild.

A screenshot of the article "Predictive remapping and allocentric coding as consequences of energy efficiency in recurrent neural network models of active vision". The authors are Thomas Nortmann, Philip Sulewski and Tim C. Kietzmann. Under the article heading is a section titled "The bigger picture". The section reads as follows: "We show how some of the brain’s amazing abilities, such as keeping our view of the world stable even when our eyes move, might come from simple ideas such as saving energy. Instead of assuming that the brain is wired with complex instructions for predicting what we will see next, we explored whether these skills could develop naturally from basic physical principles. We apply a computer model that mimics how our eyes move and how the brain processes visual information. This model was trained to perform eye movements while trying to use as little energy as possible by reducing unnecessary neural activity. Surprisingly, as the model learned to be more energy efficient, it started to develop a process called predictive remapping. This process is how the brain predicts what will appear in our vision after an eye movement, so our perception stays smooth and stable. Moreover, the model learned to create an internal representation that translates the position of the eyes into a more stable, environment-centered frame of reference. This internal map helps the system predict future visual input and decide when to inhibit or reduce certain signals, making the whole process more efficient. Altogether, we show that complex visual functions such as predictive remapping and creating an environment-centered reference frame can emerge naturally when a system is optimized for energy efficiency."
Tim Kietzmann @timkietzmann.bsky.social · last yr.

Can seemingly complex multi-area computations in the brain emerge from the need for energy efficient computation? In our new preprint on predictive remapping in active vision, we report on such a case. Let us take you for a spin. 1/6 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

We went back to the drawing board to think about what information is available to the visual system upon which it could build scene representations. The outcome: a self-supervised training objective based on active vision that beats the SOTA on NSD representational alignment. 👇

Sushrut Thorat@martisamuser.bsky.social · 9mo ago

🚨New Preprint! How can we model natural scene representations in visual cortex? A solution is in active vision: predict the features of the next glimpse! arxiv.org/abs/2511.12715 + @adriendoerig.bsky.social , @alexanderkroner.bsky.social , @carmenamme.bsky.social , @timkietzmann.bsky.social 🧵 1/14