NIEK van ULZEN

Researcher in Training

My research interests focus on how social-affective factors influence the action-perception interface. One line of research explores the role of affective stimuli in perceptual judgments and the control of movement. With the advent of the notion of embodied cognition, it has become evident that the human eye is not solely an organ for vision, but that visual perception is permeated by biological needs, emotional states, and action intentions, which in turn depend on the prevailing context. Given this, and given the importance of contextual effects in perceiving an object, a first series of experiments concerned possible interactions between affectively loaded objects, contextual stimuli and their influence on size judgments. A second set of studies examines whether goal-directed arm movements and postural control are susceptible to affective properties of stimuli.

Another line of research focuses on social coordination, or interpersonal coordination. For example, when two persons are walking side-by-side, their walking movements appear not to be independent of each other but coupled to a degree. We seek to understand the emergence of such entrainment against the background of the dynamical qualities of its generating components. Questions that come to the fore are: Does entrainment between walking participants depend on walking speed and the difference in preferred stride frequency? Are there preferred patterns of interpersonal coordination (e.g., in-phase or antiphase coordination)? What are relevant parameters for the coupling function between people? By addressing those questions, we expect to strengthen the empirical evidence for entrainment during walking side-by-side, to gain theoretical insight into its dynamical signatures and constituents, and to evaluate the potential of the Haken–Kelso–Bunz model as a possible theoretical account of the phenomena of interest.

van Ulzen, N. R., Lamoth, C. J., Daffertshofer, A., Semin, G. R. & Beek, P. J. (2008). Characteristics of instructed and uninstructed interpersonal coordination while walking in pairs. Neuroscience Letters, 432(2), 88-93.(pdf)

van Ulzen, N. R., Semin, G. R., Oudejans, R. R. D. & and. Beek, P. J. (2008). Affective and contextual stimulus properties influence size perception independently. Psychological Research, 72 (3) 304 - 310.(pdf)