Curiosity and learning: From lab to classroom
prof. dr. H. Bekkering, dr. L.L.F. van Lieshout (DCC)
Curiosity plays a central role in how children engage with new information and learning experiences. This project investigates curiosity as a motivational process that drives exploration and supports learning over time. The focus lies on children aged 10–12, an important phase in their educational development. By combining controlled experiments with research in real classroom settings, we study how curiosity operates in the brain, in behaviour, and in everyday learning. By integrating these perspectives, the project contributes to a better understanding of how curiosity functions in different children and across different learning contexts.
Minds in the Making: A Model-Based Approach to Understanding Cognitive Development in Early Childhood
prof. dr. S. Hunnius, dr. M. Hinne (DCC)
We will study how babies look at and explore their environments to predict long-term learning and cognitive development. Using computer models, we will identify each infant’s unique “cognitive fingerprint” and examine how caregivers can adapt interactions accordingly. Our goal is optimal early support and improved developmental outcomes for all children.
Flourishing Lives: Rethinking Wellbeing through Time, Relationships, and Living with Nature (THRIVE)
prof. dr. E.B.P. de Jong (RSCR)
Why do communities appear stable while relationships weaken, environmental pressures intensify, and futures become uncertain? Most wellbeing research focuses on individual satisfaction, overlooking collective processes sustaining communities over time. THRIVE develops a new approach by examining how communities flourish through three interconnected dimensions: organizing time (balancing present and future needs), maintaining relationships (care networks, shared responsibilities), and living with their environment (human-nature relationships). Through fieldwork in Indonesian coastal cities facing climate change, THRIVE tests whether community-focused frameworks better explain resilience than individual models, generating practical tools for policymakers to strengthen collective wellbeing during climate disruption.
Visions of a hopeful future: a phenomenology of eco-emotions, imagination and artistic practices in times of climate paralysis
Prof. Dr M. Oele (RICH), Prof. Dr A. Dufourcq (FFTR)
This philosophical research project examines a paradoxical situation: eco-emotions are felt intensely, yet they scarcely translate into hopeful visions of the future that spur climate action and climate policy. By combining philosophical analysis with participatory eco-art projects, this research develops a phenomenology of eco-emotions and imagination and offers insight into how eco-emotions and imagination are actually felt, perceived and activated. Through phenomenological interviews with participants in eco-artistic activities and workshops, the project demonstrates how artistic experiences can help people to combat apathy and climate paralysis.
Seeing the world from an image in the mind
prof. dr. M.V. Peelen (DCC)
We can understand the scene in front of us not only by looking at it but also by listening to a description of it. By using large-scale neuroimaging methods and behavioral experiments, the researchers will reveal how the brains of blind and sighted individuals construct scenes from verbal descriptions, how this process overlaps with visual scene construction (in sighted), and how scene descriptions may augment residual vision to benefit scene understanding in the visually impaired.