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Mariska Kret

Professor Cognitive Psychology

Name
Prof.dr. M.E. Kret
Telephone
+31 71 527 6359
E-mail
m.e.kret@fsw.leidenuniv.nl
ORCID iD
0000-0002-3197-5084

Mariska Kret works as a full professor at Leiden University (Netherlands), Cognitive Psychology Unit and leads the Comparative Psychology and Affective Neuroscience lab (CoPAN).

More information about Mariska Kret

News

Leiden Psychology Blog

Short CV

Mariska Kret works as a full professor at Leiden University (Netherlands), Cognitive Psychology Unit and leads the Comparative Psychology and Affective Neuroscience lab (CoPAN). She obtained a PhD in cognitive neuroscience in 2011 from Tilburg University. During her postdoc at Kyoto University she compared humans and chimpanzees on the perception of body language. With aid of a VENI grant from the Dutch National Science Foundation (NWO), she studied emotional mimicry on different levels (e.g. facial mimicry, pupil mimicry) and its implications for the establishment of trust.

Currently, she is working on her ERC Starting project where she focuses on the role of emotions in cooperation, and she challenges the common assumption that humans excel in cooperation, by making direct comparisons with bonobos. In a second main project funded by NWO (VIDI), she pushes this research line further and investigates implications for patients with autism and social anxiety disorder. Her research is characterised by a multi-method approach, ranging from fMRI, psychophysiology, virtual reality and eye-tracking to behavioral observations of humans or apes playing economic games during dyadic interactions.

More information

Prizes 

2022
  • ERC Public Engagement Prize – Involve. For involving the general public in science.
  • Ig-Nobel Prize for our article Prochazkova et al., 2022 Nature Hum Behavour

Fellowships

2022

ERC- Proof of Concept E-VIRT. For the development of a VR-emotion training tool.

2018
  • ERC Starting. From Mimicry to Trust: A Tinbergian Approach.
  • NWO ORA. Production and perception of emotional expressions in humans and great apes.
  • NWO VIDI. Trust and distrust through emotional mimicry. Implications for autism spectrum disorder and social anxiety disorder.
2017

Templeton World Charity Foundation. Social intelligence in humans, chimpanzees and bonobos.

2015             

NWO talent grant. The role of pupil synchronization in real life interactions: Implications for trust and deception.

2014    

NWO VENI Role of Pupil-synchronization in Trust. Score: 1.7 (excellent). Awarded €250.000

2010             

Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Postdoctoral fellowship. Primate Research Institute of Kyoto University, Japan.

Supervision

  • 2022 - present   Principal supervisor/promotor of PhD student Ruya Akdag. Mind the Body: Investigating and targeting cognitive and affective mechanisms in youth social anxiety. Expected date of defense October 2026 (4 years). 
  • 2022 - present   Principal supervisor of postdoc Marcello Gómez Maureira.
  • 2022 - present   Principal supervisor of postdoc Juan Olvido Perea Garcia.
  • 2021 - present   Principal supervisor/promotor of PhD student Anouschka van Dijk. The perception of bodily expressions of emotion in autism and social anxiety disorder. Expected date of defense November 2025 (4 years).
  • 2022 - present   Co-promotor of PhD student Diana Kim. Conformation. Promotor: Bernhard Hommel.
  • 2020 - present    Principal supervisor/promotor of PhD student Tonko Zijlstra. Mimicry of emotional expressions in humans and great apes. Expected date of defense May 2024 (4 years).
  • 2020 - present    Principal supervisor/promotor of PhD student Chris Riddell. Mimicry of emotional expressions in adults and children. Expected date of defense May 2024 (4 years).
  • 2020 - present    Co-supervising research assistant Brenda de Groot (till 2021) and Roman Akyüz (from 2021) together with postdoc Dr. L. Mendoza Straffon, funded by the Templeton Foundation. Perception of “art” produced by modern humans and apes (adults and children), early Homo Sapiens, Homo Erectus and Neanderthal.
  • 2020 - present    Promotor of PhD student Evania Fasya. Collaborative project with Twente University.
  • 2019 - present    Principal supervisor/promotor of PhD student Fabiola Diana. The function of emotional mimicry and physiological synchrony. 3d place in Famelab. Expected date of defense October 2023 (4 years).
  • 2019 - present    Principal supervisor/promotor of PhD student Iliana Samara. The expression of romantic interest. Expected date of defense August 2023 (4 years).
    Principal supervisor/promotor of PhD student Tom Roth. Tinder for orangutans. Expected date of defense January 2023 (4 years).
  • 2018 - 2022        Postdoc Yena Kim. Emotion perception in great apes. (4 years)
  • 2018 - 2020        Principal supervisor of postdoc Jingzhi Tan.
  • 2020 - 2021        Postdoc Milica Nicolic. Perception of emotions in autism and social anxiety disorder.
  • 2019 - 2022        Postdoc Wouter Boekel. Physiological synchrony during dyadic interactions.
  • 2016 - 2022        Principal supervisor of PhD student Evy van Berlo. The evolutionary roots of discrimination”. Date of defense May 19th 2022 (5 years).
  • 2018 - 2020        Postdoc Amandine Lassalle. Trust and distrust through emotional mimicry. Implications for autism spectrum disorder and social anxiety disorder.
    Principal supervisor/promotor of PhD student Julia Folz. Trust and distrust through emotional mimicry. Implications for autism spectrum disorder and social anxiety disorder. Expected date of defense December 2022 (4 years).
    Programmers Evania Fasya and Maarten Struijk. Virtual reality. (4 years).
  • 2018 - 2019        Assistant professor Jorg Massen on Templeton project.
  • 2017 - 2019        Principal supervisor of PhD student Xuejing Du. Evolutionary insights into beauty and aestetics. Quitted PhD to become a biology teacher in China.
  • 2016 - 2020        Principal supervisor of PhD student Katharina Wehebrink. The perception of subtle emotion signals in anxious and depressed patients. Quitted PhD for clinical work.
  • 2016 - present    Co-supervisor of PhD student Yung-Ting Tsou. Emotion understanding in children with cochlear implants. Date of defense November 2020 (4 years).
  • 2015 - 2017        Visiting postdoc Francois Quesque. With IBRO grant.
  • 2015 - present    Principal supervisor of PhD student Eliska Prochazkova. The role of pupil synchronization in real life interactions: Implications for trust and deception. NWO PhD talent grant. Expected date of defense Dec 2020 (4.5 years).
  • 2015 - 2020        Principal supervisor of PhD student Friederike Behrens. Physiological synchrony and cooperation. Date of defense 28 10 2020.

Professor Cognitive Psychology

  • Faculteit der Sociale Wetenschappen
  • Instituut Psychologie
  • Cognitieve Psychologie

Work address

Pieter de la Court
Wassenaarseweg 52
2333 AK Leiden
Room number 2B11a

Contact

Activities

  • Cognition Behavior Evolution Network Chair
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