Prof. Loes van Dam, Ph.D.

Head of the Sensorimotor Control and Learning Group at the Center for Cognitive Science.

I’m interested in multisensory perception and goal-oriented behaviour in virtual reality (VR) as well as the real world. When we interact with our direct surroundings, e.g. picking up a cup of coffee, we appear to do so seemingly effortlessly. Yet, even such simple every-day tasks involve sensing the 3D position and orientation of the cup (sensory processing), making an educated guess whether it is currently full or empty to estimate its weight (cognitive processing), and having an idea of our own limb position and where it needs to go next (movement planning).

My research focuses on how our sensory system selects and combines relevant pieces of information, both for perception of our environment, as well as for performing such goal-oriented tasks. As part of this I also investigate how our senses combine to form a sense of avatar/tool ownership and agency in Virtual Reality.

To address these topics, I use straightforward perceptual tasks as well as game-like target-pointing or tracking tasks to investigate goal-oriented behaviour. Below is a list of examples for possible projects on these topics. If you would like to know more or to discuss the possibilities, feel free to contact me.