Biography

Rolf Ulrich is a cognitive psychologist. As a Heisenberg scholar of the German Research Foundation, he conducted research at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). He then held professorships at the University of Konstanz, the University of Wuppertal, and the University of Tübingen. His research focuses on temporal cognition (i.e., time perception, representation of time, timing, temporal illusions, time and language, time-course of mental processes, and mental chronometry). The Wilhelm Wundt Society awarded him the Wilhelm-Wundt prize for basic research in psychology. He is a member of the Geman National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.

Project Abstract

Mental Representation of Past Events along the Mental Timeline. In Western culture, people represent deictic time as a mental timeline that runs from left to right. This project investigates the spatial representation of this timeline within the cognitive system. The research builds on current concepts and experimental designs in the research field of temporal cognition.

Curriculum vitae

Since 2021

Senior professor for cognitive psychology (University of Tübingen)

1999-2021

Full Professor of Cognitive Psychology (University of Tübingen)

1995-1999

Full Professor of Experimental Psychology (University of Wuppertal)

1991-1995

Full Professor of Cognitive Psychology (University of Konstanz)

1990-1991

Heisenberg scholarship, Cognitive Psychology,  University of California, San Diego (UCSD)

1985-1989

Assistant Lecturer, Department of Psychology, (University of Tübingen)

1979-1984

Lecturer, Department of Psychology (University of Tübingen)

1974-1978

Psychology and Statistics studies (University of Konstanz)

Selected Publications

2022 (with Karin Bausenhart and John H. Wearden). "Weber’s law for timing and time perception: Reconciling the Poisson clock with Scalar Expectancy Theory (SET)." Timing & Time Perception. https://doi.org/10.1163/22134468-bja10055

2019 (with Linda von Sobbe, Edith Scheifele and Claudia Maienborn). "The space–time congruency effect: A meta-analysis." Cognitive Science 43, 1-23.

https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.12709

2012 (with Verena Eikmeier, Irmgard de la Vega et al.). "With the past behind and the future ahead: Back-to-front representation of past and future sentences." Memory & Cognition 40, 483–495.

https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-011-0162-4 

2010 (with Claudia Maienborn). "Left-right coding of past and future in language: The mental timeline during sentence processing." Cognition 117 (2), 126-138. 

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2010.08.001

1987. "Threshold models of temporal-order judgments evaluated by a ternary response task." Perception & Psychophysics 42, 224–239.

https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03203074