Mariska Kret’s Inauguration ceremony

On September 9th 2022, Prof. dr. Mariska Kret had her official inauguration ceremony. You can read or watch it back. In her inauguration, titled “Emotional expressions in humans and animals”, she highlighted the importance of studying the similarities and differences in emotional characteristics in human and non-human animals. She emphasizes that although many humans still believe that we’re a unique species, we actually only have few unique characteristics: “The arrogance of thinking we’re better than animals is downright stupid”.

In her research Prof. dr. Mariska Kret aims to understand the emotions and feelings of human and non-human animals, by using and developing novel methods and investigating physiological signals, we can investigate emotions in a more implicit way.

Although we may never fully be able to understand what others are feeling – of human and non-human animals – Prof. dr. Mariska Kret aims to get as close as possible.

Click here to listen to the song of the humpback whale, which was used as the introduction to the inauguration.