Mission
Understanding how people think and behave, and understanding the mental representations and brain structures that drive our actions are essential for a thorough insight into how individuals operate within society. Our team focuses on complex cognitive processes and applies fundamental knowledge to understand and tackle current societal problems, such as the rise of conspiracy theories, the lack of resilience in specific populations, the formation of stereotypes, and issues related to the digital age. We achieve this through behavioural, computational, and brain imaging methods, according to the principles of open science in interdisciplinary and international collaborations.
Research
We see ourselves as a pioneering team when it comes to formulating and investigating fundamental research questions related to cognitive and brain-related processes and open science. At the same time, we have developed a more applied societal perspective, focusing on urgent issues, such as misinformation, stereotypes, resilience, and conspiracy thinking, which have clear cognitive underpinnings. Our research results are always obtained through high quality research practices (such as openness, rigor, reproducibility, replicability, and integrity). Additionally, we investigate new areas in the domain of artificial intelligence and large language models, focusing on their effects on human cognition.
Click on a research topic to learn more about our research:
- Effective and Efficient Learning Environments
- Digital education opportunities and implications
- Cognitive processes of conspiracy theories
- Motivation, stress and engagement
- Applied Research Methods and Statistics
- Human cognition and our flexible knowledge
Education
Our education goals are to provide future-proof, attractive courses with a balance in brain and cognition content. We focus on developing strong methodological skills that are essential for conducting ethical and transparent cognition and brain research. Moreover, we teach fundamental courses on cognition. Topics include perception, memory, language, and decision making. They are explored from theoretical, behavioural, and neurological perspectives. In our courses, we emphasize open science and responsible research practices. Our aim is to make the Brain and Cognition curriculum sustainable and appealing. We do this by applying fundamental knowledge and skills to contemporary social issues, and by taking new technologies into account.
Impact
The strength of the team is its focus on both fundamental and applied research. With our solid theoretical foundations in memory, language, attention, and perception, and our expertise in brain-imaging and simulation methods, we conduct fundamental research in these domains. Additionally, we address societal issues, such as cognitive resilience, numerical cognition, dyscalculia, conspiracy thinking, fake news and misinformation, stereotypes, spatial navigation, bilingualism, and language learning. This aligns closely with the EUR and ESSB strategy to have societal impact with our research.