In this episode, we talk with Mariska Kret about the expressions of emotions in humans and animals. Mariska explores the similarities and differences in emotion expression in humans and primates. Want to learn more about Mariska's research and discover why it's important that we learn more about animal…

The KHMW (Koninklijke Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen) has decided to grant the Keetje Hodshon Prijs voor Taalwetenschappen to LUCL’s Jurriaan Witteman for his 2014 dissertation titled Towards a Cognitive Neuroscience of Prosody Perception and its Modulation by Alexithymia.

Hunter-gatherers acquire their food through complex gender-specific foraging techniques for a relatively stable and diverse supply of energy. New research indicates that this specialisation by boys and girls starts at a very young age. Most likely, this enabled the human species to evolve much larger…

Sandy Overgaauw has been awarded a 25,000 euro grant from the LUF for her research into PTSD in Syrian refugee children in the Netherlands. The research should lead to a screening method that can be used to determine which children are at higher risk of developing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD…

Researchers from the Institute of Psychology have secured NWO Open Competition XS grants, each worth up to €50,000. One of the projects explores how making music together can enhance cooperation. Discover more about all five research projects.

Medicines can work even if they have no active ingredient. The first international scientific conference on placebos will take place in Leiden from 2 to 4 April. Placebo researcher Andrea Evers, who is also chairing the conference, answers some pressing questions.

Hanneke Hulst has held the new Leiden chair in Neuropsychology in Health and Disease since 1 September. From 1 January she will also be chair of the Health, Medical and Neuropsychology (HMN) unit. ‘HMN is my new base. I’m curious to find out about the people who work here, what they do and what motivates…

Put two single people in one place and what do you get? Science! Psychologists at Leiden University will be conducting research on human attraction at the Lowlands festival on the 19th of August.

Come to the Night of Arts and Science in Leiden 's historic city centre on 17 September. You can enjoy music, interactive experiments, theatrical plays, lectures, modern dance, comedy and much, much more. Many of the activities are in English.

An international research team consisting of Katharina Riebel as leading PI and two international collaborators were awarded a Human Frontier Science Program grant for their proposal ‘Seeing voices’: the role of multimodal cues in vocal learning.

Since November 2019 Stephan Raaijmakers is Professor by special appointment of Communicative AI (Artificial Intelligence) at LUCL. Raaijmakers investigates how linguistics can help make Artificial Intelligence smarter.

Is this the master's specialisation of your choice? Please read here about the admissibility for this programme.

The research group Organizational & Entrepreneurial Behavior investigates the behavior of individuals and groups who start, work in, or lead organizations, in order to inform organizational practice. By focusing on the behavior of (groups of) employees, entrepreneurs and leaders, the main levels of…

Here you can find the recordings of previous Florence Nightingale Colloquia.

De decentralisaties van de zorg aan langdurig zieken en ouderen, jeugdzorg, en werk en inkomen die vanaf 2015 zijn doorgevoerd in Nederland hebben geleid tot een transitie van een centraal naar een lokaal stelsel van zorg en welzijn. Deze transitie beoogt zorg en ondersteuning dichter bij de inwoners…

Is this the master's specialisation of your choice? Please read here about the admissibility for this programme.

Is this the master's specialisation of your choice? Please read here about the admissibility for this programme.

Is this the master's specialisation of your choice? Please read here about the admissibility for this programme.

Is this the master's specialisation of your choice? Please read here about the admissibility for this programme.

Some people are more sensitive to depression than others. But why is that the case? Clinical psychologist Niki Antypa studied how vulnerability to depression is influenced by cognition. She also found a first careful indication that a treatment with omega-3 fatty acids might provide a solution.

How do you measure over-protective parenting? Why are girls more likely to develop anxiety disorders? And do the social skills of therapists really make a difference in treatment outcomes?

How unique is the human capacity for learning and adapting to an environment? In field research – in the rainforest and Artis Zoo – primatologist Karline Janmaat is studying how humans and other primates adapt to their environment in their search for food. She will give her inaugural lecture as Professor…

Our vision of stress is starting to change fundamentally. We can suffer stress without even being aware of it, while sleeping as wall as during the day. Professor of Psychology Jos Brosschot will discuss this phenomenon in his inaugural lecture on 2 December.

Developmental psychologist Anne Miers of Leiden University is involved in a large-scale research project investigating the efficacy of interventions regarding social skills, resilience and insecurity. The project is funded by a grant from The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research - Health…

Michelle Spierings has been awarded the ‘Glushko Dissertation Prize’ for her thesis work on: ‘The Music of Language: Exploring grammar, prosody and rhythm perception in zebra finches and budgerigars’. The award recognises and honours young researchers conducting ground-breaking research in cognitive…

For the first time, contagious yawning has now also been found in a species that roams its territory mostly in solitude and is less frequently engaged in social interactions: the orangutan. Publication in Nature Scientific Reports by an international group of scientists with lead-author Evy van Berlo,…

Visual art played an important role in the development of cooperative human behaviour. This is the finding of Larissa Mendoza Straffon, a PhD candidate in archaeology, whose dissertation explores the biological and psychological foundations of visual art.

Young children exhibit more aggressive behaviour if their nervous system fails to respond adequately to stress situations and if they are exposed to risk factors such as smoking or psychological problems experienced by the mother during the pregnancy. This is the conclusion of PhD candidate Jill Suurland.…

On July 28, 2022, our dear colleague Daniëlle Hamstra passed away after a short sickbed. Daniëlle had been associated with the Clinical Psychology Section since 2010, initially as a student in the research master's program and subsequently as a lecturer and PhD candidate.

If male budgerigars can successfully open a puzzle box with food, they become more attractive to females. Biologist Carel ten Cate and Chinese colleagues publish experimental evidence for this in a paper in Science on 11 January .

In a new piece for The Conversation UK, Michiel van Elk examines whether mystical experiences are essential to psychedelic therapy. 'If the field is to mature, it may need to move beyond the assumption that transcendence is the secret ingredient.'

A tried and tested medication for treating ADHD works differently than expected in the brains of healthy individuals during rest: rather than stimulating brain activity, it suppresses it.

LUCL is pleased to announce that Bobby Ruijgrok has been awarded a PhD-position within the NWO PhDs in the Humanities Programme. His project is entitled 'Tapping into semantic recovery: an event-related potential study on the processing of gapping'. LUCL congratulates Bobby on this beautiful result.

Subtle changes in eye appearance can influence how people perceive others and affect their generosity. Articles from PsyPost and The Washington Post highlighted two experimental studies in which psychology researchers from Leiden University, including Mariska Kret, explored this phenomenon.

The Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition (LIBC) is concentrating increasingly on research into the role of the brain in language development. The institute has now set up the LIBC Language website that brings together all the information on this research.

Mariska Kret, Professor in Cognitive psychology has been awarded the European Research Council (ERC) Public Engagement with Research Awards 2022. Kret convinces the jury with 'RecognizeYourself - Bringing science to the zoo. Involving the public into the study of great apes emotions'.

If someone around you yawns, the chances are that you too will soon yawn. In orangutans it has now been found that scratching is very contagious. This is what cognitive psychologists from Leiden discovered at Apenheul Primate Park. Publication in American Journal of Primatology.

The Dutch Association for the Study of Religion (NGG) has decided to award the Cornelis Tiele MA Thesis Award 2018 to LUCSoR alumnus Bas van Rijn for his thesis “The Mind Behind the Cards: Searching for the Source of Tarot Divination’s Popularity through a Cognitive Analysis” (supervised by dr. Markus…

Cognitive psychologists Eliska Prochazkova and Mariska Kret from Leiden University have won an Ig Nobel Prize for their research into the romantic click between people. They discovered that attraction between people can be predicted by synchrony in heart rate and skin conductance.

By copying each other’s non-verbal behaviour, we gain access to what others think and feel. In psychology, this is known as mimicry. As part of her PhD research, cognitive psychologist Fabiola Diana investigated this phenomenon in social interactions between humans and robots.

Lecture, CHiLL series

Adults and children view art in completely different ways, Cognitive psychologist Francesco Walker discovered at Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum. 'In a recent study at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, I used eye-tracking technology.' Walker talks about his research on media platform ‘The Conversation’.

Uncovering ageing processes in the brain and research on the use of the word ‘that’. Thanks to a Rubicon Grant, two Leiden researchers who were recently awarded their PhDs will be able to conduct research at a research institute abroad.

Just like every other organism on Earth, plants’ ultimate goal is to survive and reproduce. In order to achieve this, they must make trade-offs between where and how to allocate their finite set of resources. Whether they put their resources and energy into their growth, reproduction or maintenance,…

Alumna Fleur van Elk graduated cum laude for the research master's program Cognitive Neuroscience and started her PhD trajectory at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam. For Humans of Psychology, Fleur talks about studying, working and has advice for current psychology students.

The better you mirror each other's behavior, the better you appear to work together. In her PhD research at the unit Cognitive Psychology in Leiden, Friederike Behrens has developed a measure to capture the dynamic process of mirroring in numbers. PhD defense on 28 October.

‘What a relief,’ was psychologist Mariska Kret’s reaction to the news of her Vidi grant from the national science financier NWO. The grant makes it possible for her to carry out new research into emotions and trust in patients with a social anxiety disorder and patients with autism.