Is our musicality unique? That’s what the Bird Singalong project aims to find out. And for that, they need the help of feathered friends from all around the world. ‘By researching how parrots learn songs, we also learn more about the origin of our own musicality.’ Do you have a parrot that can sing…

Neuroscientist Simeen Tabassi Mofrad has been awarded a Rubicon grant to conduct research on cortical and allelic determinants of age-related cognitive decline at University of Oxford. She holds the first rank among all Rubicon applicants in NWO Domain Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH).

While tens of thousands of visitors dance to deafening music, a team of Leiden psychologists are trying to collect data for their research at Lowlands. How do festivalgoers experience a virtual trip? And what role do factors such as too little sleep and whether they have experience with psychedelics…

Rüya Akdağ is part of a research team with the aim of further studying social anxiety. The Leiden psychologist receives the grant for her doctoral research on the role of emotions and cognition in the emergence and occurrence of social anxiety in adolescents.

Many primary school children suffer from anxiety and their numbers are increasing. Psychologists from the Knowledge Center Anxiety & Stress (KAS) are developing and researching preventive training.

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…

During your studies you will develop transferable skills. Leiden University has selected 13 transferable skills that it finds important for students to develop during their studies. These skills are important not only during your studies but also in later life once you begin working.

In a recent mega-analysis, researchers from Leiden University aimed to clarify the contradictory findings of research into social anxiety disorder. They found that to obtain reliable research results having the largest possible sample size is important. Publication in NeuroImage:Clinical.

Exploring the minds of our primate cousins in the wild, using under-exploited observations of their travel paths. A large set of observations of the travel paths of wild primates provides new opportunities for in-depth insights in the evolution of the mental abilities that primates, including ourselves,…

During the event 'Fout?' by De Jonge Akademie, Ellen de Bruijn held a lecture about the social context of making mistakes and the psychological elements of learning from it.

Lecture

Hanneke Hulst explaines how she is trying to bridge the gap between science and health care. ‘For a neuroscientist to actually contribute to solutions for patients, you have to work across disciplines.’

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…

Three PhD candidates from Leiden University have been awarded a Mosaic 2.0 scholarship for their PhD research. The Dutch Research Council (NWO) Mosaic 2.0 programme is aimed at an underrepresented group of graduates with a migrant background.

Words originally intended to indicate space, such as ‘out’, are also regularly used to indicate cause and effect. Why does this happen? And how does it work in other languages? PhD candidate Camil Staps decided to find out.

Lecture

Meet the FLO committee 2024! To ensure that the FLO-days are tailored to students' needs, the FLO committee is made up of student representatives of each student association within the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences. With the collaboration of Emile, Itiwana, Spil and Labyrinth we plan to…

Eleven lecturers from Leiden University have been awarded Comenius grants that will allow them to work with their teams on an innovation project within their own teaching. They have been awarded three grants of 100,000 euros within the Senior Fellows programme and four grants of 50,000 euros within…

Young people influence one another to take greater risks, although it's not quite that cut and dried. This is what development psychologist Jorien van Hoorn discovered. Peers also have a positive influence on one another, an aspect that has so far been under-researched. PhD defence 12 January.

Suddenly getting lost, failing to recognise family members, or forgetting words and names are well-known symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. Psychologists have now discovered that the disease also manifests in more subtle ways: through the rhythm of finger tapping.

Researcher Max van Duijn and PhD student Bram van Dijk apply language models to stories told by children to investigate empathy. For this research, they received the Best Paper Award at the Computational Natural Language Learning Conference in Singapore.

Have you ever experienced the feeling of awkwardness when attending a party where you didn’t know anybody? Ever felt shy at a party within the first few minutes? While this feeling is labelled loosely as feeling socially anxious, social anxiety disorder goes to a much further extent.

It may seem as though adolescents do as they please, but they are more sensitive to their parents’ opinions than they would appear. The adolescent brain reacts strongly to parental criticism or praise. These are the results of a study by an interdisciplinary research group of psychologists and neuroscientists…

Neuroscientist Anne Urai has been awarded a Veni subsidy to further develop her ideas over the coming four years on how the brain makes choices. Why did she receive the award? Urai answers five questions about her Veni grant for young researchers.

Sara Petrollino, a university lecturer in linguistics, strongly believes that language influences the way we see the world. An NWO Open Competition (XS) grant will enable her to test this hypothesis among the Ethiopian Hamar people. ‘The idea that everyone thinks in geometric shapes is culturally de…

‘AI can’t do half as much as people think,’ says computer scientist and psychologist Roy de Kleijn. He tries to teach robots seemingly easy things, and keeps on discovering how smart human intelligence really is. Three things that computers are no way near doing.

On Saturday, February 11, 2023, at the Dies for Alumni event, archaeology alumni Everest Gromoll was awarded the LUF Thesis Prize. His thesis, titled ‘Neolithizers by Nurture’, explores parallels between the only two comparable climatic shifts in the history of modern humans: that of the one 12,000…

September 26 is the European Day of Languages. There are 24 official languages in Europe but some 200 languages in total are spoken on our continent. What good are all these different languages? And should we all learn Azerbaijani or Swedish? We asked Lisa Cheng, Professor of General Linguistics.

Lecture, LUCIS What's New?! Series

What can Robotics and AI bring to archaeological theory and practice? In return, how can archaeology contribute to the developments in robotics and AI research? Colleagues tackled these questions at an event organised by the Faculty of Archaeology and sponsored by SAILS.

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…

We talk with Michiel van Elk, about his research into mapping what effects psychedelics have on the human brain and what this means for the possible clinical application of these drugs. The cognitive psychologist shares his findings with a sober view, bringing critics and fanatics closer together for…

Psychology students usually only get to meet patients very late in their studies. Therefore, neuroscientists Ineke van der Ham and Judith Schomaker want to research whether students learn more effectively from a virtual experience with a patient with dementia than from a text. Schomaker: 'We have plans…

Every day, 5 people die by suicide in the Netherlands. Suicide is a complex phenomenon and consequently many questions remain about how to reduce the number of suicides. Renske Gilissen will strengthen both research and education on suicide prevention at Clinical Psychology in Leiden. From June 1,…

Halima Bouras leaves for the City University of New York with her Fulbright scholarship. 'I am very happy with the Fulbright grant and excited to continue my research project in New York next semester', reacts Bouras. The aim of her PhD research is to promote educational opportunities and educational…

People who are often stressed can feel calmer by making certain adjustments to their breathing. Possibly this also positively affects concentration and attention. Psychologist Roderik Gerritsen studied the effects of breathing differently for the first time, and explains them. Gerritsen receives his…

Psychedelic drugs like magic mushrooms and LSD are embraced by some and seen as lethal by others. Cognitive psychologist Michiel van Elk delved into the world of psychedelic drugs and wrote a surprisingly sober book about them. ‘Without first-hand experience my story wouldn’t be complete.’

Psychologist Bernou Melisse was shocked at the long waiting lists in the Netherlands for people with binge-eating disorders. The problem was not yet on the map in Saudi Arabia. She therefore decided to study how people suffering from binge eating can be helped better in their own region of the world.…

Leiden researchers Arko Ghosh and Enea Ceolini analysed the usage data of hundreds of mobile phones and discovered that our body has rhythms ranging between 7 and 52 days. These cycles influence how we behave. Their research resulted in an article in npj Digital Medicine journal, a Nature Portfolio…

What impact does growing up in a musical environment or during the COVID-19 pandemic have on the brain development of teenagers? This was the focus of psychologist Lina van Drunen’s PhD research, which studied hundreds of twins. Her findings reveal that practising music slows brain development, presenting…

Towards the end of the academic year, many students struggle with study stress. Does the pressure sometimes get too much for you, too? Student psychologist Martine Efting Dijkstra has some tips.

More severe droughts that will also last longer: this will primarily be a problem for irrigated croplands, as discovered by environmental scientist Qi Chen. Mixed forests with a variety of plant species will be the least vulnerable. Chen compared the effects of drought on different ecosystems across…

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'.

Nancy Kula has been Professor of African Linguistics since 1 February. Now is a good time to hear more about her field of expertise and academic interests.

Lecture, colloquium

During the panels, alumni from all 4 FSW study programmes (Cultural Anthropology, Education and Child Studies, Political Science and Psycology) will share their experiences in their field of work. Each panel will focus on one field of work and will host 4 alumni, one from each FSW study programme.

Lecture

How has evolution shaped our curiosity? And how does that curiosity ensure that we now have the technological ability to discover whether we are alone in the universe? This was all covered during the celebration of Leiden University’s 449th Dies Natalis.

Lecture