Michael Bach (born 10 April 1950) is a German scientist who researches

ophthalmology Ophthalmology ( ) is a surgical subspecialty within medicine that deals with the diagnosis and treatment of eye disorders. An ophthalmologist is a physician who undergoes subspecialty training in medical and surgical eye care. Following a medic ...

, clinical

electroencephalography Electroencephalography (EEG) is a method to record an electrogram of the spontaneous electrical activity of the brain. The biosignals detected by EEG have been shown to represent the postsynaptic potentials of pyramidal neurons in the neocortex ...

, clinical

electroretinography Electroretinography measures the electrical responses of various cell types in the retina, including the photoreceptors ( rods and cones), inner retinal cells ( bipolar and amacrine cells), and the ganglion cells. Electrodes are placed on the ...

visual acuity Visual acuity (VA) commonly refers to the clarity of vision, but technically rates an examinee's ability to recognize small details with precision. Visual acuity is dependent on optical and neural factors, i.e. (1) the sharpness of the retinal ...

testing, and

visual perception Visual perception is the ability to interpret the surrounding environment through photopic vision (daytime vision), color vision, scotopic vision (night vision), and mesopic vision (twilight vision), using light in the visible spectrum reflec ...

. Bach is the creator of website ''Optical Illusions & Visual Phenomena'', which received over two million hits a day in 2005.

Life and work

Bach was born in Berlin on 10 April 1950. In 1956 he moved with his family to

Dortmund Dortmund (; Westphalian nds, Düörpm ; la, Tremonia) is the third-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne and Düsseldorf, and the eighth-largest city of Germany, with a population of 588,250 inhabitants as of 2021. It is the l ...

, where he attended school. From 1970 to 1972, Bach completed an undergraduate degree in

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which relat ...

Ruhr University Bochum The Ruhr University Bochum (, ) is a public research university located in the southern hills of the central Ruhr area, Bochum, Germany. It was founded in 1962 as the first new public university in Germany after World War II. Instruction began in ...

, then moved to the

University of Freiburg The University of Freiburg (colloquially german: Uni Freiburg), officially the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg (german: Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg), is a public research university located in Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württem ...

, where he studied for a Master's degree in physics. In 1975, he began a part-time position running an electronics workshop in the Department of Psychology, then began as a full-time research assistant in the Department of Neurology in 1978. Bach was awarded his Master's in physics in 1977 and his PhD, also in physics, in 1981, on the

visual system The visual system comprises the sensory organ (the eye) and parts of the central nervous system (the retina containing photoreceptor cells, the optic nerve, the optic tract and the visual cortex) which gives organisms the sense of sight (the ...

. In 1981 he moved into a full-time position in the Department of Ophthalmology, rising to Professor in 1998, and being appointed as Head of Section Visual Function/Electrophysiology at the University Eye Hospital in 1999. After Bach's retirement in 2015 he became an Emeritus Scientist, continuing his research. In 1996, Bach began his service to the

International Society for Clinical Electrophysiology of Vision The International Society for Clinical Electrophysiology of Vision (ISCEV) is an association that promotes research and applications of electrophysiological methods (e.g. electroretinogram, electrooculogram, and visual evoked potential An evoked ...

, establishing, with others, standards for clinical

and

electrooculography Electrooculography (EOG) is a technique for measuring the corneo-retinal standing potential that exists between the front and the back of the human eye. The resulting signal is called the electrooculogram. Primary applications are in ophthalmo ...

, and becoming the society's president from 2004 to 2011.https://iscev.wildapricot.org/resources/Documents/news/ISCEV-Newsletter-2005.pdf In 1975, Bach married Ulrike Röhling. They have three adult children and one grandchild.

Research

Bach has conducted research in

, and

. One strand of his research has been to develop tests of

, using verbal responding or using brain activity. As of April 2021, Bach has published 356 scientific papers that have been cited 16602 times, giving him an

h-index The ''h''-index is an author-level metric that measures both the productivity and citation impact of the publications, initially used for an individual scientist or scholar. The ''h''-index correlates with obvious success indicators such as w ...

of 61. According to Neurotree, Bach has 16 academic children and 44 academic grandchildren.

Illusions

Bach began his illusions web site as a hobby some time before 2005.Bach, M. (2008, July 1). Are we perceiving ‘true’ reality? Recreational neuroscience of vision ecture Leipzig University. He did not appreciate how popular the site was until he discovered that his internet service provider had suspended his account after it received more than one million hits per day. Bach upgraded his account and continued developing the site. As of April, 2021, Bach's site contained 143 illusions, most interactive, and all with Bach's clear explanations. The site and Bach have won plaudits on the internet, in the news media, and in science journals. The site has also been used in scientific research into illusions.Li, X., Huang, A. E., Altschuler, E. L., & Tyler, C. W. (2013). Depth spreading through empty space induced by sparse disparity cues. Journal of Vision, 13(10, 7). https://doi.org/10.1167/13.10.7

Selected works

* M. F. Marmor, A. B. Fulton, G. E. Holder, Y. Miyake, M. Brigell, M. Bach: ''ISCEV Standard for full-field clinical electroretinography (2008 update)''. In: ''Documenta Ophthalmologica''. Band 118, Nr. 1, 2009. S. 69–77. * M. Bach: ''The Freiburg Visual Acuity test – automatic measurement of visual acuity''. In: ''Optometry and vision science''. Band 73, Nr. 1, 1996. S. 49–53 * J.V. Odom, M. Bach, M. Brigell, G.E. Holder, D.L. McCulloch, A.P. Tormene: ''ISCEV standard for clinical visual evoked potentials (2009 update)''. In: ''Documenta ophthalmologica''. Band 120, Nr. 1, 2010. S. 111–119. * D. L. McCulloch, M. F. Marmor, M. G. Brigell, R. Hamilton, G. E. Holder, R. Tzekov, M. Bach: ''ISCEV Standard for full-field clinical electroretinography (2015 update)''. In: ''Documenta ophthalmologica''. Band 130, Nr. 1, 2015. S. 1–12. * J. V. Odom, M. Bach, C. Barber, M. Brigell, M. F. Marmor, A. P. Tormene, G. E. Holder: ''Visual evoked potentials standard (2004)''. In: ''Documenta ophthalmologica''. Band 108, Nr. 2, 2004. S. 115–123. * K. Schulze-Bonsel, N. Feltgen, H. Burau, L. Hansen, M. Bach: ''Visual acuities “hand motion” and “counting fingers” can be quantified with the Freiburg visual acuity test''. In: ''Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science''. Band 47, Nr. 3, 2006. S. 1236–1240. * D. C. Hood, M. Bach, M. Brigell, D. Keating, M. Kondo, J. S. Lyons, M. F. Marmor, D. L. McCulloch, A. M. Palmowski-Wolfe: ''ISCEV standard for clinical multifocal electroretinography (mfERG) (2011 edition)''. In: ''Documenta Ophthalmologica''. Band 124, Nr. 1, 2012. S. 1–13. * R. Heckenlively, G.B. Arden, (Hrsg.), S. Nusinowitz, G. Holder, M. Bach (Mitherausg.): ''Principles and practice of clinical electrophysiology of vision''. MIT press 2006. * M. Bach, M. G. Brigell, M. Hawlina, G. E. Holder, M. A. Johnson, D. L. McCulloch, T. Meigen, S. Viswanathan: ''ISCEV standard for clinical pattern electroretinography (PERG)'': 2012 update. In: ''Documenta Ophthalmologica''. Band 126, Nr. 1, 2013. S. 1–7.

References

External links

Homepage of Michael Bach

* ttps://www.gwup.org/who-is-who/1845-michael-bach Profile from the Homepage of GWUP the German equivalent of The

Skeptics Society The Skeptics Society is a nonprofit, member-supported organization devoted to promoting scientific skepticism and resisting the spread of pseudoscience, superstition, and irrational beliefs. The Skeptics Society was co-founded by Michael Sh ...

and the

Committee for Skeptical Inquiry The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), formerly known as the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), is a program within the US non-profit organization Center for Inquiry (CFI), which seeks to "prom ...

Homepage of Bach's Visual Phenomena & Optical Illusions

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bach, Michael 1950 births 20th-century scientists 21st-century scientists German biophysicists German ophthalmologists University of Freiburg faculty Scientists from Berlin Vision scientists Optical illusions Living people