Master student
(2015 – present)
Received a BSc degree in 2011 from Aberdeen University, Faculty of Life Sciences and a MSc in Psychology, with honours, in 2012. At the University of Amsterdam she is currently enrolled in the Master Program Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences.
I am predominantly interested in understanding the neural and psychological mechanisms of motivation and emotion within a social context. In particular, I am fascinated by the quesion how social psychological, somatic and neural processes contribute to the development of compulsive behaviours, addictions and eating disorders. I am further intrigued by topics connected to affective processing, meta-cognition and decision making from a developmental and evolutionary perspective. Understanding these processes can help us to point out possibilities for treatment development. In my internship project entitled “The role of Pupil Synchronization in Trust-an fMRI study’’, we investigate the physiological and neural mechanisms underlying pupil behaviour and mimicry and its effect on trust. Here we propose that the perception of a partner’s pupil-size and pupil mimicry are a potential mechanism that contributes to the establishment of trust, via the recruitment of brain areas known for their role in social cognition and theory of mind.