معرفی
Prof. Mariska Kret is a full professor of Cognitive Psychology at Leiden University's Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences. She leads the Comparative Psychology and Affective Neuroscience (CoPAN) lab, focusing on emotions in humans and great apes. Her research integrates methods like fMRI, eye-tracking, and virtual reality to study mimicry, trust, and cooperation. Key projects include ERC-funded work on emotional mimicry's role in trust and a VIDI grant examining implications for autism/social anxiety. She supervises numerous PhD students and postdocs, with over 30 active researchers in her lab. Awards include the Ig-Nobel Prize (2022) and ERC grants. Her lab also explores artistic perception in apes and 'Tinder for orangutans' to study mate selection.
Education: PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience (Tilburg University, 2011), postdoc at Kyoto University (Japan), and extensive grant-funded projects since 2014. Research spans emotions in clinical populations (e.g., social anxiety, autism) and evolutionary comparisons with primates. CoPAN collaborates globally, including with Apenheul Zoo and Twente University. Open science initiatives include preregistered studies and data sharing on Dataverse.nl.
- Lab Members: 20+ PhD students/postdocs (e.g., Ruya Akdag, Anouschka van Dijk)
- Key Grants: ERC Starting (2018), NWO VIDI (2022), Templeton Foundation (2017)
- Media Engagement: Featured in New York Post, NRC Handelsblad, and science podcasts
Her work bridges psychology, neuroscience, and evolutionary biology, emphasizing cross-species comparisons and clinical applications. Ongoing projects include VR-based emotion training tools (ERC Proof of Concept) and investigations into physiological synchrony in social interactions.
