Mitarbeiter

Research Interests

My research is about how the cerebral cortex mediates cognitive experiences. The main focus is on object recognition, face, shape and object processing of the central visual pathways in humans.
The major question I study is how our brain represents objects independently of their physical properties.
The other major question I investigate, is how the temporal context modifies the stimulus representation.
Finally, my work regards multisensory integration of visual, somatosensory and olfactory infos.

h-Index: 28                 Number of Citations: 2 174

View Curriculum VitaeExterner Link

Contact 

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Publications 

from 2014 see under: http://cogsci.uni-jena.de/publications/Externer Link

2013

Kaiser, D, Walther C, Schweinberger SR, Kovács G (2013) Dissociating the neural bases of repetition-priming and adaptation in the human brain for faces. J. Neurophysiology 110:2727-38.

Walther, C, Schweinberger SR, Kovács G (2013) Adaptor identity modulates adaptation effects in familiar face identification and their neural correlates PLOS ONE 8: e70525

Keresztes A, Kaiser D, Kovács G / Racsmány M (2013) Testing Promotes Long-Term Learning via Stabilizing Activation in a Large Network of Brain Areas. Cerebral Cortex Jun 24. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bht158

Kovács G, Kaiser D, Kaliukhovich D, Vidnyánszky Z and Vogels R (2013) Repetition probability does not affect fMRI repetition suppression for objects. J. Neuroscience. 33(23): 9805-9812.

Kovács G, Zimmer M, Volberg G, Lavric I and Rossion B (2013) Electrophysiological correlates of visual adaptation and sensory competition Neuropsychologia Epub May.2. 51(8): 1488-1496, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0028393213001413

2012

Vakli P, Németh K, Zimmer M, Schweinberger SR, Kovács G Face distortion aftereffects evoked by featureless first-order stimulus Frontiers in Psychology (2012) Dec.17.

Walther C, Schweinberger SR, Kaiser D, Kovács G (2012) Neural Correlates of Priming and Adaptation in Familiar Face Perception. Cortex, Epub Sep.3.

Nagy K, Zimmer M, Greenlee MW, Kovács G (2012) Neural correlates of after-effects caused by adaptation to multiple face displays. Experimental Brain Research, 220: 261-275

Nagy K, Greenlee, MW, Kovács G (2012) The lateral occipital cortex in the face perception network: an effective connectivity study. Front. Perc. Sci. 3: 1-12

Antal A, Kovács G, Chaieb L, Cziraki C, Paulus W and Greenlee MW (2012) Cathodal stimulation of human MT+ leads to elevated fMRI signal: a tDCS-fMRI study. Restor Neurol and Neurosci. 30:255-263.

Kovács G, Iffland L, Vidnyánszky Z, Greenlee MW (2012) Stimulus repetition probability effects on repetition suppression are positiion invariant for faces. Neuroimage, 60, 2128-2135.

2011

Nagy K, Greenlee MW, Kovács G (2011) Sensory competition in the face processing areas of the human brain PLOS ONE September 2.

Ambrus, G. Z. G., Zimmer, M., Kincses, Z. T., Harza, I., Kovács G., Paulus, W., & Antal, A. (2011). The enhancement of cortical excitability over the DLPFC before and during training impairs categorization in the prototype distortion task. Neuropsychologia, 1-7. Elsevier Ltd. doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2011.03.026

Schweinberger, SR, Walther, C, Zaske R, Kovács G (2011) Neural correlates of adaptation to voice identity British J. Psychol. 102: 748-764.

Nagy, K, Zimmer M, Wenrui L, Kovács G (2011) The sensitivity of face specific erp components to the nature of stimulus noise Learning and Perception 2, 183-197.

Banko EM, Gal, V, Kortvelyes, J, Kovács G, Vidnyánszky Z (2011) Dissociating the effect of noise on sensory processing and overall decision difficulty J. Neurosci. 31(7):2663-74

Theodoni, P, Kovács G Greenlee, MW, Deco, G (2011) Neural adaptation effects in decision making. J. Neuroscience, 31, 234-246

Zimmer M, Kovács G (2011) Position specificity of adaptation related aftereffects Phil Trans Roy Soc B. London 366,586-595

Zimmer M, Kovács G (2011) Electrophysiological correlates of face distortion aftereffects Q. J. Exp. Psychol,64:533-544

2010

Schweinberger, S, Zakse, R, Walther, C, Golle, J, Kovács G, Wiese H (2010) Young without plastic surgery: Perceptual adaptation to the age of male and female faces Vision Res. 50, 2570-2576

Kovács G, Cziraki, C, Greenlee, MW (2010): Neural correlates of stimulus-invariant decisions about motion in depth Neuroimage 51: 329-335.

Cziraki, C, Greenlee, MW, Kovács G (2010): Neural correlates of high-level adaptation related aftereffects J. Neurophys. 103:1413-1417.

Kloth N, Schweinberger SR, Kovács G (2010) Neural correlates of generic versus gender-specific face adaptation J. Cognitive Neurosci. 22: 2345-2346.

2009

Chaieb L, Kovács G, Cziraki C, Greenlee M, Paulus W, Antal A (2009) Short Duration Transcranial Random Noise Stimulation Induces BOLD Response Attenuation in the Human Motor Cortex Experimental Brain Res. 198: 439-444.

2008

Kovács G, Cziraki C, Vidnyánszky Z, Schweinberger SR, Greenlee MW. (2008) Position-specific and position invariant face aftereffects reflect the adaptation of different cortical areas Neuroimage 43:156-164

Kovács G (The electrophysiology of face perception and adaptation) Az arcpercepció és arcadaptáció elektrofiziológiája (2008) Hungarian Archives of Psychology- Magyar Pszichológiai Szemle 64: 9-17

Kovács G, Raabe M, Greenlee MW. (2008) Neural correlates of visually induced self-motion illusion in depth Cerebral Cortex 18: 1779-1787

A Fesche, K Werheid, G Kovacs, W Sommer (2008) Affective priming of emotional facial expressions independent of perceptual similarity INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY, 43:271

2007

Kovács G, Zimmer M, Harza I, Vidnyanszky Z. (2007) Adaptation duration affects the spatial selectivity of facial aftereffects. Vision Res. 47: 3141-3149

Varga E, Kaya E, Antal A, Zimmer M, Harza I, Paulus W, Kovács G (2007) Cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation over the parietal cortex modifies facial gender adaptation Clinical Neuroscience Ideggyogy Sz 60: 11-12.

Carbon CC, Strobach T, Langton S, Harsányi G, Leder H, Kovács G (2007). Adaptation effects of highly familiar faces: immediate and long lasting. Memory & Cognition, 35: 1966-1976

Sáry Z, Chadaide T, Tompa K, Köteles K, Kovács G, Benedek G (2007) Illusory shape representation in the monkey inferior temporal cortex Eur J Neurosci 25:2558-2564

Zsadányi-Nagy Z, Kovács G (2007) Férfi szex hormon-szerű anyag szaglása megváltoztatja az emberi arcok szexuális diszkriminációját (Hungarian Archives of Psychology- Magyar Pszichologiai Szemle; Magyar Pszichológiai Szemle 62: 181-191

Than M, Kocsis P, Tihanyi K, Fodor L, Farkas B, Kovács G, Kis-Varga A, Szombathelyi Z, Tarnawa I (2007) Concerted action of antiepileptic and antidepressant agents to depress spinal neurotransmission: possible use in the therapy of spasticity and chronic pain Neurochemistry International Neurochemistry International 50: 642-52.

2006

Kovács G (2006) (Adaptation and aftereffects in the visual system) Adaptacio es utohatasok a latorendszerben Magyar Pszichologiai Szemle 61: 251-264

Kóbor I, Füredi L, Kovács G, Spence C, Vidnyánszky Z (2006) Back-to-front: Improved tactile discrimination performance in the space you can’t see Neurosci Lett. 400:163-7.

Kovács G, Zimmer M, Banko E, Harza I, Antal A, Vidnyanszky Z. (2006) Electrophysiological Correlates of Visual Adaptation to Faces and Body Parts in Humans. Cereb Cortex. 16: 742-753.

2005

Kovács G, Zimmer M, Harza I, Antal A, Vidnyanszky Z. (2005) Position-specificity of facial adaptation. Neuroreport. 16: 1945-1949.

2004

Saxe R, Xiao DK, Kovacs G, Perrett DI, Kanwisher N (2004) AA region of right posterior superior temporal sulcus respons to observer intentional actions Neuropsychologia 42: 1435-1446

Tompa T, Sáry G, Chadaide Z, Köteles K, Kovács G, Benedek G (2004) Achromatic shape processing in the inferotemporal cortex of the macaque Neuroreport 16: 57-61

Antal A, Varga E, Nitsche M, Chadaide Z, Paulus W, Kovács G, Vidnyánszky Z (2004) Modulation of motion aftereffect by transcranial direct current stimulation over MT+/V5 in humans Neuroreport. 15:2491-2494.

Sary G, Chadaide Z, Tompa T, Kovács G, Koteles K, Boda K, Raduly L, Benedek G, (2004) Relationship between stimulus complexity and neuronal activity in the inferotemporal cortex of the macaque monkey Cognitive Brain Res 22: 1-12

Kocsis P, Kovács G, Farkas S, Horváth C, Szombathelyi Z, Tarnawa I (2004) NR2B receptors are involved in the mediation of segmental reflex potentials but not in the cumulative motoneuronal depolarization in vitro. Brain Research Bulletin 64:133-138

Kovács G, Gulyás B, Savic I, Perrett D, Cornwell E, Little A, Jones A, Burt D, Gál V, Vidnyánszky Z (2004) Smelling human sex hormone-like compounds affects face gender judgment of men Neuroreport 15: 1275-1277

2003

Kovács G, Kocsis P, Tarnawa I, Horváth C, Szombathelyi Z, Farkas S (2003) NR2B containing NMDA receptor dependent windup of single spinal neurons. Neuropharmacology 46: 23-30

Wade N, Kovács G, Vidnyánszky Z (2003) Inverted faces, Perception, 32:1-6

Kovács G, Sáry G, Köteles K, Chadaide Z, Tompa T, Vogels R, Benedek G (2003) Effects of surface cues on the macaque inferior temporal cortical responses Cerebral Cortex 13: 1047–3211

2001

Antal A, Keri S, Kovács G, Liszli P, Janka Z, Benedek G (2001) Event-related potentials from a visual categorization task Brain Research Protocols 7: 131–136

2000

Benedek G, Sztriha L, Kovács G (2000) Coding of spatial co-ordinates on neurones of the feline visual association cortex Neuroreport. 11: 1381-1384

Antal A, Kéri S, Kovács G, Janka Z, Benedek G (2000) Early and late components of visual categorisation: an event-related potential study Brain Res. Cogn. Brain Res. 9:117-119

1993 - 1999

Kovács G, Benedek G, Sáry G (1999) Response variability and stimulus discrimination capacity of neurons in monkey inferior temporal cortex, Neurobiology, 7:93-102
Körmendy-Rácz J, Szabó S, Lörincz A, Antal A, Kovács G, Lörincz A (1999) Winner-take-all network utilizing pseudoinverse reconstruction subnets demonstrates robustness on the handprinted character recognition problem Neural Computing and Applications 8:163-176,

Kovács G, Gulyás B, Roland P (1998) Processing of 2D and 3D shapes in the visual association cortex. Neuroimage 7: 335;

Benedek G, Perényi J, Kovács G, Fischer-Szatmári L, Katoh Y (1997) Visual, somatosensory, auditory and nociceptive modality properties in the feline suprageniculate nucleus. Neuroscience 78: 179-189,

Benedek G, Fischer-Szatmári L, Kovács G, Perényi J., Katoh Y (1996) Visual, somatosensory and auditory modality properties along the feline suprageniculate-anterior ectosylvian sulcus/ insular pathway Progress in Brain Research, 112: 326-334,

Kovács G, Vogels R, Orban GA (1995) Selectivity of macaque inferior temporal neurons for partially occluded shapes, J. Neurosci. 15: 1984-1997
Kovács G, Vogels R, Orban GA (1995) Cortical correlate of pattern backward masking Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 92: 5587-5591
Sáry G, Vogels R, Kovács G, Orban GA (1995) Responses of monkey inferior temporal neurons to luminance, motion and texture defined gratings. J Neurophysiol. 73: 1341-1354

Kovács G (1993) Fischer-Szatmári L and Benedek G: Spatial selectivity in the anterior ectosylvian visual area of the cat, Neurobiology 1: 33-45.

Contributions to books 

Kovács G. (Face perception) Arcpercepció in: Az ezerarcu elme, Pleh Csaba emlekkotet. (Racsmany, Lukacs, eds) Akademiai Kiado, 2006

Kovács G. (Novel methods to study the human nervous system) Az emberi agy es annak vizsgalait modszerei in: Latas nyelv emlékezet, Typotex, 2006

Kovács G. (Birds, beasts and fish: categories in the human brain) Halak vadak, madarak es egyeb kategoriak az emberi agyban in: Latas nyelv emlékezet, Typotex, 2006

Kovács G. Perceptual categorization in Cs. Pleh, B. Gulyás, G. Kovács (eds) Cognitive Neurosciences- a textbook, (2004) Osiris, Budapest (in Hungarian)

Gulyás, B. Kovács, G. Vidnyánszky Z Visual consciousness in Cs. Pleh, B. Gulyás, G. Kovács (eds) Cognitive Neurosciences- a textbook, (2004) Osiris, Budapest (in Hungarian)

Kovács G Vidnyánszky Vision and brain. In Peternák, Erőss, Szekeres (eds) Vision Image and perception C3 Budapest 2002

Contributions to books 

Kovács G. (Face perception) Arcpercepció in: Az ezerarcu elme, Pleh Csaba emlekkotet. (Racsmany, Lukacs, eds) Akademiai Kiado, 2006

Kovács G. (Novel methods to study the human nervous system) Az emberi agy es annak vizsgalait modszerei in: Latas nyelv emlékezet, Typotex, 2006

Kovács G. (Birds, beasts and fish: categories in the human brain) Halak vadak, madarak es egyeb kategoriak az emberi agyban in: Latas nyelv emlékezet, Typotex, 2006

Kovács G. Perceptual categorization in Cs. Pleh, B. Gulyás, G. Kovács (eds) Cognitive Neurosciences- a textbook, (2004) Osiris, Budapest (in Hungarian)

Gulyás, B. Kovács, G. Vidnyánszky Z Visual consciousness in Cs. Pleh, B. Gulyás, G. Kovács (eds) Cognitive Neurosciences- a textbook, (2004) Osiris, Budapest (in Hungarian)

Kovács G Vidnyánszky Vision and brain. In Peternák, Erőss, Szekeres (eds) Vision Image and perception C3 Budapest 2002

 

Name: Gyula Zoltán Kovacs

Date of Birth: 11th July 1965

Education

Dipl.-Biol., 1990, University of Szeged

Doctor Univ, 1992, Univ. Szeged, Medical School

Ph.D. in Medical Biology, 1996, Univ. Szeged, Medical School

Habilitation from Psychology, 2003, Univ. Pécs, Hungary

Doctor of Sciences, 2009, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest

 

Honors and awards

1999-2001 „Bolyai” Scholarship of the Hungarian National Academy of Sciences

2000 Award of the Soros foundation

 

Professional Societes

Federation of European Neuroscience Societies

Society for Neuroscience, USA

Vision Sciences Society, USA

Regular reviewer for: Vision Res., Neuroreport, J. Vision, Int J Psychophysiol., Neuropsychologia,

Q.J.Exp. Psychol., Psychol. Sci.,Hung. Psychol. Rev.

 

Major techniques

Single cell recordings in anesthetised rats, cats, guinea pigs and in awake cats and rhesus monkeys.

Visual event related potential recordings in human subjects

Standard human psychophysical methods

rCBF measurements for Human Brain Imaging studies with Positron Emission Tomography.

BOLD measurements with fMRI

Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation

 

Teaching Experience

Undergraduate Level:

2009: Experimental and Clinical Neuroscience (ECN) MSc internship project leader, Univ. Regensburg

2009: Practices from fMRI, ECN MSc, Univ. Regensburg

2009: Internships, Psychology MSc, Univ. Regensburg, Inst. Psychology

2007:  Psychophysiology (PPKE, Psychology MSc, BUTE, Budapest, Hungary)

2005:  Vision, language, memory: introduction to cognitive sciences BUTE, Budapest, Hungary

2002: Sensation and perception, BUTE, Budapest, Hungary; Introduction to the functions of the central nervous system, BUTE, Budapest, Hungary

(All previous are accomplished when at the Dept. of Physiology, Univ Szeged Medical School)

1996-2000: Human Physiology for students of Psychology, Lecture Course, 20-30 students

The Human Central Nervous System for students of Psychology, Lecture Course, 20-30 students

Human Physiology for students of Psychology, Laboratory class and teaching seminar, 20-30 students

The Human Central Nervous System for students of Psychology, Laboratory Course and teaching seminar, 20-30 students

1994-2000: Medical Physiology for Students of Medicine, Lecture Course contributor to both Part I and Part II, (also in English, cca 100 students, annually)

Medical Physiology for Students of Pharmacy, Lecture Course contributor to both Part I and Part II, (also in English, cca 50 students annually)

1992-1994: Medical Physiology for Students of Pharmacy, Laboratory Class part I and part II, (both in Hungarian and in English 30 students annually)

Medical Physiology for Students of Pharmacy, small group teaching seminars part I and part II, (both in Hungarian and in English 30 students annually)

1990-2000: Medical Physiology for Students of Medicine, Laboratory Class part I and part II, (both in Hungarian and in English; 30 students annually)

Medical Physiology for Students of Medicine, small group teaching seminars part I and part II, (both in Hungarian and in English, 15 students annually)

Graduate level:

2004-2007 Head of Phd Program „Cognitive Neurosciences” in the School „Cognitive Sciences”, BUTE; Departmental organizer of educational activity at the BUTE

2004: Introduction to fMRI and its analysis methods, BUTE; Psychophysical methods, BUTE; Basic neurosciences - Neural bases of cognitive neurosciences BUTE; Neural bases of visual perception BUTE; Object and shape perception BUTE

2003: Face perception

2002: Studying the cognitive capacities of the newborn, University Budapest, Medical School; Fundamentals of visual perception, Univ. Fine Arts, Budapest;  Introduction to the human visual system Center for Culture & Communication Foundation

Brain and consciousness 2000, Univ of Szeged Medical School

2000 - 2001 The human visual system 2000-2001 Univ Budapest Medical School

1999 - 2001 Neurobiological and computational bases of cognitive sciences, Univ. Szeged

2000 Brain and consciousness , Univ. of Szeged Medical School

1999 The human visual system,  Univ. of Szeged Medical School

 

Activies in Course Development

2004-2007 Head of Phd Program „Cognitive Neurosciences” in the School „Cognitive Sciences”, BUTE

2004-2007 Departmental organizer of educational activity at the BUTE

1996-2000 Departmental organizer of the written exams of medical physiology (Szeged)

1994-2000 Departmental organizer of the courses Human physiology and The human central nervous system for students of Psychology (Szeged)

 

Supervisions

Approximately 12 graduate diplomas, 3 PhD dissertations