Markus Huff

Research

Research agenda

A central strand of my work is narrative cognition: how people build coherent mental models of events that unfold over time, and how those models shape what they understand, remember, and believe. In recent work we reframe misinformation as an event-model problem — false information persists because it is woven into narrative event representations, so that merely negating it leaves an incoherent model. Effective corrections, on this view, must restore the coherence of the underlying event model.

My focus is on comprehending in dynamic environments that are increasingly co-shaped by AI agents and saturated with noisy information — precisely the conditions under which many learners actually operate today: a continuous stream of uncertain, competing, and increasingly machine-generated information.

Through the Perception and Action Lab at the Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien, my research examines how the human mind selects, weighs, and remembers such information, drawing on processes of visual attention, working memory, and long-term memory representations.

Grants

Funding & research projects

Selected third-party funded projects as applicant / principal investigator.

Since 2026PI, DFG Priority Programme “Rethinking Disinformation”; project “Per:DIS — Perception of Disinformation.”
Since 2024PI and Steering Board member, Leibniz-Lab “Systemic Sustainability” (Leibniz Association).
Since 2024PI, Leibniz-Lab “Pandemic Preparedness” (Leibniz Association).
Since 2023Head of the DFG project “From event models to event schemata,” within the DFG Research Unit “Modal and Amodal Cognition.”
Since 2023Industry project “Cognitive ergonomics in the vehicle” (Mercedes-Benz AG).
2023-2026Co-applicant, “Assisting the remote video learner with self-regulation support (Video-SRS),” Leibniz Collaborative Excellence.
2019–2022Applicant and head, “Product database for literacy and basic education 2 (PAG 2)” (BMBF).
2019–2022Co-applicant, “Domain Data Protocols for empirical educational research” (BMBF).
2015–2018Applicant and head, “The interaction of visual and verbal information during memory formation” (Baden-Württemberg Foundation).
2014–2019Industry project “Cognitive functions in automated driving” (Daimler AG).
2013–2018Applicant and head, DFG project “Flexible resource allocation and prediction in attention-based tracking of multiple moving objects.”
2012–2015Applicant and head, “The influence of verbal processes in the acquisition of action knowledge” (Baden-Württemberg Foundation).
2011–2014Co-applicant, “Digital atlas of political spatial imagery in East-Central Europe in the 20th century” (Leibniz Association).
2010–2015Applicant and head, DFG project “Perspective changes when tracking multiple moving objects simultaneously.”
2008–2010Applicant and head, “Multiple Dynamic Visualizations” (Baden-Württemberg Foundation).
2004–2008Collaboration on “Learning in the Museum” (Leibniz Association) and the DFG project “Canonical perspectives in dynamic sequences of events.”

Curriculum Vitae

CV

Academic career

Since 2025Board member and Deputy Director, Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien (IWM), Tübingen.
Since 2020W3-Professor of Applied Cognitive Psychology, University of Tübingen, and Head of the Perception and Action Lab, IWM Tübingen.
2024Visiting Professor, University of Colorado Boulder, USA (host: Prof. Sidney D’Mello).
2017–2019Head of the Research Infrastructures Department, German Institute for Adult Education — Leibniz Centre for Lifelong Learning (DIE), Bonn.
2010–2017Junior Professor (W1) of General Psychology, University of Tübingen.
2008Visiting Scholar, Washington University in St. Louis, USA (host: Prof. Jeffrey M. Zacks).
2004–2010Research associate, Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien (group of Prof. Stephan Schwan), Tübingen.
2004–2007Freelance IT consultant and programmer (alongside academic work).

Education

2014Habilitation (Psychology), University of Tübingen.
2007Doctorate (Dr. rer. nat.), University of Tübingen — “Verbalization processes in dynamic scenes” (summa cum laude).
2003Diploma in Psychology (Dipl.-Psych.), University of Tübingen.
2002Vordiplom (pre-diploma) in Computer Science, University of Tübingen.
1998–2003Studies in Psychology, Mathematics, and Computer Science, University of Tübingen.

Awards & scholarships

2018Top Paper Award, Information Systems Division, International Communication Association (ICA).
2008–2010Fellow, “Eliteprogramm für Postdoktoranden,” Baden-Württemberg Foundation.
2007Leibniz Award for Young Scientists, Leibniz Association.

Memberships

German Psychological Society (DGPs), full member · Psychonomic Society (Fellow) · Association of German Librarians (VDB).

Selected

Invited talks

2025Invited speaker, COP30 Blue Zone, Belém, Brazil — “Communication Readiness Levels” in climate science communication.
2024Digital video learning: Lessons from event cognition. University of Colorado Boulder, USA.
2022Dynamic perception in digital environments. University of Trier.
2021What Hollywood cinema teaches us about human perception. TIB AV Analytics Workshop, Hannover.
2021Cross-codal integration when reading comics. University of Tübingen.
2019Events as a basis for structuring dynamic perception. Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien, Tübingen.
2018Fostering media literacy in adult education. Leopoldina, Berlin.
2018The missing link: Perceiving and remembering dynamic events. Tilburg University, Netherlands.
2017Is narrative processing media specific? University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK.

Open Science & Code

Profiles & resources

Scientific profiles

ORCID Google Scholar Zotero ResearchGate GitHub

Academic writing

Book: The Focused Introduction: Writing the Theoretical Framing.

Materials & experiments

My projects on the Open Science Framework.
Media Psychology Research Materials Repository — free and open research materials for media psychology and related fields.

Statistics & code

R package PsychHelperFunctions — a collection of helpful functions.
Calculating sensitivity d_a from signal detection theory — a step-by-step example (Macmillan & Creelman).
My implementation of the Concentration Game on GitHub.
Go board — play Go against an AI in the browser.
All programming projects on GitHub.