NIEK van ULZEN
Researcher
in Training
Research
Interest:
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.
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Publications:
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)
Vita:
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