What are the causes for human decisions both from the proximate perspective -how do human beings make decisions? - and from the ultimate perspective - why do human beings decide in the way they do and not differently? 

To investigate these issues, I combine methods from experimental psychology, neuroscience, and mathematics. A core underlying idea  is to understand various cognitive processes of human beings as decision processes and model them as such. 

My research is focused in three topics in experimental psychology : Attention, metacognition, and optimality in decision making.

• since 2015: Professor for General Psychology II at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, Eichstätt, Germany

• 2008-2015: Akademischer Rat auf Zeit at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Chair of General and Experimental Psychology

• 2011: Habilitation (completed postdoctoral thesis to qualify as professor) in Psychology

• 2007: Dr. phil. in Psychology

• 2006: M.Sc. Neuro-cognitive Psychology 

• 2001: Intermediate diploma in Mathematics

Rausch, M., Hellmann, S., & Zehetleitner, M. (2021). Modelling visibility judgments using models of decision confidence. Attention, Perception & Psychophysics, 83, 3311–3336. Full text Full material

Rausch, M., Zehetleitner, M., Steinhauser, M., & Maier, M. E. (2020). Cognitive modelling reveals distinct electrophysiological markers of decision confidence and error monitoring. NeuroImage, 218, 116963. Full text Full material

Rausch, M., & Zehetleitner, M. (2019). The folded X-pattern is not necessarily a statistical signature of decision confidence. PLoS Computational Biology, 15(10), e1007456. Full text Full material

Rausch, M., Hellmann, S., & Zehetleitner, M. (2018). Confidence in masked orientation judgments is informed by both evidence and visibility. Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics, 80(1), 134–154. Full text Full material

Schlagbauer, B., Rausch, M., Zehetleitner, M., Müller, H. J., & Geyer, T. (2018). Contextual cueing of visual search is associated with greater subjective experience of the search display configuration. Neuroscience of Consciousness, 4(1), niy001. Full text

Sauter, M., Liesefeld, H. R., Zehetleitner, M., & Müller, H. J. (2018). Region-based shielding of visual search from salient distractors: Target detection is impaired with same- but not different-dimension distractors. Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics, 80(3), 622–642. Full text

Ramírez-Amaro, K., Minhas, H. N., Beetz, M., Zehetleitner, M., & Cheng, G. (2017). Added Value of Gaze-Exploiting Semantic Representation to Allow Robots Inferring Human Behaviors. ACM Transactions on Interactive Intelligent Systems, 1(1), 1–30.

 Rangelov, D., Müller, H. J., & Zehetleitner, M. (2017). Failure to pop Out: Feature singletons do not capture attention under low signal-to-noise ratio conditions. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 146(5), 651–671.

Rausch, M., & Zehetleitner, M. (2017). Should metacognition be measured by logistic regression? Consciousness and Cognition, 49, 291–312.

Schönbrodt, F. D., Wagenmakers, E.-J., Zehetleitner, M., & Perugini, M. (2017). Sequential Hypothesis Testing With Bayes Factors: Efficiently Testing Mean Difference. Psychological Methods, 22(2), 322–339.

Rausch, M., & Zehetleitner, M. (2016). Visibility is not equivalent to confidence in a low contrast orientation discrimination task. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 591. Full text Full material

Rausch, M., Müller, H. J., & Zehetleitner, M. (2015). Metacognitive sensitivity of subjective reports of decisional confidence and visual experience. Consciousness and Cognition, 35, 192–205.

Zehetleitner, M., Ratko-Dehnert, E., & Müller, H. J. (2015). Modeling violations of the race model inequality in bimodal paradigms : co-activation from decision and non-decision components. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 9, 119. Full text

Goschy, H., Bakos, S., Mueller, H. J., & Zehetleitner, M. (2014). Probability cueing of distractor locations: Both intertrial facilitation and statistical learning mediate interference reduction. Frontiers in Psychology, 5(1195), 1–11.

Goschy, H., Koch, A. I., & Müller, H. J. & Zehetleitner, M. (2014). Early top-down control over saccadic target selection : Evidence from a systematic salience difference manipulation. Attention, Perception & Psychophysics, 76, 367–382.

Rausch, M., & Zehetleitner, M. (2014). A comparison between a visual analogue scale and a four point scale as measures of conscious experience of motion. Consciousness and Cognition, 28(1), 126–140.

Schlagbauer, B., Geyer, T., Müller, H. J., & Zehetleitner, M. (2014). Rewarding distractor context versus rewarding target location: A commentary on Tseng and Lleras (2013). Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics, 76(3), 669–674.

Rangelov, D., Töllner, T., Müller, H. J., & Zehetleitner, M. (2013). What are task-sets: A single, integrated representation or a collection of multiple control representations? Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 7(524), 1–11.

Koch, A. I., Müller, H. J., & Zehetleitner, M. (2013). Distractors less salient than targets capture attention rather than producing non-spatial filtering costs. Acta Psychologica, 144, 61–72.

Zehetleitner, M., Koch, A. I., Goschy, H., & Müller, H. J. (2013). Salience-Based Selection: Attentional Capture by Distractors Less Salient Than the Target. PLoS ONE, 8(1), e52595.

Zehetleitner, M., & Rausch, M. (2013). Being confident without seeing: What subjective measures of visual consciousness are about. Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics, 75(7), 1406–1426.

Töllner, T., Zehetleitner, M., Gramann, K., & Müller, H. J. (2011). Stimulus Saliency Modulates Pre-Attentive Processing Speed in Human Visual Cortex. PloS One, 6(1), e16376.

Schnabel, U. H., Hegenloh, M., Müller, H. J., & Zehetleitner, M. (2013). Electromagnetic tracking of motion in the proximity of computer generated graphical stimuli: A tutorial. Behavior Research, 45, 696–701.

Moran, R., Zehetleitner, M., Müller, H. J., & Usher, M. (2013). Competitive guided search: Meeting the challenge of benchmark RT distributions. Journal of Vision, 13(8), 24.

Rangelov, D., Töllner, T., Müller, H. J., & Zehetleitner, M. (2013). What are task-sets: A single, integrated representation or a collection of multiple control representations? Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 7(524), 1–11.

Rangelov, D., Müller, H. J., & Zehetleitner, M. (2013). Visual search for feature singletons: multiple mechanisms produce sequence effects in visual search. Journal of Vision, 13(3), 1–16.

Zehetleitner, M., Koch, A. I., Goschy, H., & Müller, H. J. (2013). Salience-Based Selection: Attentional Capture by Distractors Less Salient Than the Target. PLoS ONE, 8(1), e52595.

Rangelov, D., Müller, H. J., & Zehetleitner, M. (2017). Failure to pop Out: Feature singletons do not capture attention under low signal-to-noise ratio conditions. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 146(5), 651–671.

Rangelov, D., Müller, H. J., & Zehetleitner, M. (2012). The multiple-weighting-systems hypothesis: Theory and empirical support. Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics, 74(3), 540–552.

Zehetleitner, M., Rangelov, D., & Müller, H. J. (2012). Partial repetition costs persist in nonsearch compound tasks: Evidence for multiple-weighting-systems hypothesis. Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics, 74(5), 879–890.

Töllner, T., Müller, H. J., & Zehetleitner, M. (2012). Top-down dimensional weight set determines the capture of visual attention: Evidence from the PCN component. Cerebral Cortex, 22(7), 1554–1563.

Zehetleitner, M., Goschy, H., & Müller, H. J. (2012). Top-down control of attention: It’s gradual, practice-dependent, and hierarchically organized. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 38(4), 941–957.

Schlagbauer, B., Hermann, J. M., Zehetleitner, M., & Geyer, T. (2012). Awareness in contextual cueing of visual search as measured with concurrent access- and phenomenal- consciousness tasks. Journal of Vision, 12(11), 15, 1–12.

Kuhbandner, C., & Zehetleitner, M. (2011). Dissociable effects of valence and arousal in adaptive executive control. PLoS ONE, 6(12), e29287. 

Töllner, T., Zehetleitner, M., Gramann, K., & Müller, H. J. (2011). Stimulus Saliency Modulates Pre-Attentive Processing Speed in Human Visual Cortex. PloS One, 6(1), e16376.

Zehetleitner, M., Hegenloh, M., & Müller, H. J. (2011). Visually guided pointing movements are driven by the salience map. Journal of Vision, 11(1), 24.

Töllner, T., Zehetleitner, M., Krummenacher, J., & Müller, H. J. (2011). Perceptual Basis of Redundancy Gains in Visual Pop-out Search. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 23(1), 137–150.

Zehetleitner, M., Krummenacher, J., Geyer, T., Hegenloh, M., & Müller, H. J. (2011). Dimension intertrial and cueing effects in localization: support for pre-attentively weighted one-route models of saliency. Attention, Perception & Psychophysics, 73, 349–363.

Töllner, T., Zehetleitner, M., Krummenacher, J., & Müller, H. J. (2011). Perceptual Basis of Redundancy Gains in Visual Pop-out Search. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 23(1), 137–150.