Ernst Niebur

Who they are: Ernst Niebur is a professor of neuroscience, computer science, and biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins University, known for his research on computational models of visual attention and how the brain filters and prioritizes information.

The concept HaELM draws from: Niebur worked closely with Christof Koch and Laurent Itti on the foundational computational model of visual saliency, and separately researches how attention acts as a filter that selects which sensory information reaches conscious awareness. Decode draws on this filtering idea to explain why some elements of an ad are processed by the viewer while others are effectively screened out.

Decode articles where their thinking appears: Spider-Man Took Over Times Square. It Didn’t Need to Say Anything Else.

Source: Johns Hopkins University Whiting School of Engineering faculty profile, “Ernst Niebur.”