EXPLORA Gent

We are opening a self-funded trainee/intern position of 3-6 months (starting at September 2025). For more information see internship #2 here: bardilab.com/join-us/ (and please reshare!)

May was EXPLORA conference month! 🙋🙋@mauranevejans.bsky.social and @joskerijmen.bsky.social presented at BAPS (Brussels) in a panel on Autism and Neurodiversity, where @annabelnijhof.bsky.social discussed with others on Uncertainty in Academia. Annabel also presented results of an fMRI study at VSS!

Are you passionate about #scicomm & psychology in the context of #Sustainability? We are looking for a PhD-candidate (75%; 4 yrs) for the Hub Science project "Psychology of Transformation" at Leuphana University Lüneburg! www.leuphana.de/universitaet...

This link should work: shengjiexu.ugent.be/CoCoFlex_Sem...

We're organizing a symposium in Ghent on "Flexible Definitions of Cognitive Flexibility" on Wednesday, September 10th, with six exciting speakers: shengjiexu.ugent.be/CoCoFlex_Sem.... Registration is free, but seats are limited. You can also submit poster or talk abstracts by July 31st!

As I had to cancel last year, SO thrilled to be traveling today for the VSS meeting (16-20 May) - for those joining, come find me on the final day of the conference with a poster on face- and name-processing in autistic adults (www.visionsciences.org/presentation...)!

Excited to be presenting my poster this Friday at #INSAR25!
It dives into the theory of the double empathy problem, with a focus on how well people with and without autism can understand each other’s thoughts when they share (or don’t share) the same neurotype. Come say hi!

🧠 Gezocht: nieuwe bloggers voor InMind! ✍️

Ben jij een psychologie-onderzoeker met interesse in wetenschapscommunicatie en schrijven? Dan is dit wellicht iets voor jou!

Meer informatie? Zie onze LinkedIn-post hier: www.linkedin.com/feed/update/... of stuur een mailtje naar evelyne.fraats@ugent.be

Vorige week was ik samen met Arnoud Wokke te gast bij de podcast 'Met Nerds Om Tafel' om te praten over autisme. Wat was dit leuk! 😍 Dank lieve Randal Peelen en Jur Ubachs, voor de uitnodiging.

Audio: open.spotify.com/episode/5EvW...
Video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7w-...

During the Inclusive Autism Research Day, people with autism shared with researchers what needs to change in research! The day started with presentations and continued with engaging round table discussions. Immensely proud of what we organized! @mauranevejans.bsky.social
@explora-gent.bsky.social

🚨 Call for Abstracts for a Special Issue on the Negative Psychological Consequences of Social Media 🚨

We are currently seeking abstracts for the special issue “The Dark Side of Social Media — Unpacking its Psychological Impact”.

🗓️ Abstracts submission deadline: May 2, 2025

Last week I was invited to present on 'Autism and the Predictive Brain', alongside Prof Floris De Lange, at the Science Cafe Nijmegen. Thanks to Floris, the organizers, the amazing audience that made for a lively discussion afterwards, the live musicians... I had a great time!

Voor een online experiment zoeken we 20 volwassenen MET AUTISME die:
- Tussen 18 en 50 jaar oud zijn
- Broer(s) en/of zus(sen) hebben
- Student zijn en/of een job hebben

Duur: +/- 1,5 uur, vergoeding: 15 euro! 💰
Sluit tussendoor uw scherm/PC niet af!

Interesse? research.sc/participant/...

Was happy to present on Autism and the Brain (and Neurodiversity!) for a full house at @breinwijzervzw.bsky.social yesterday! Thanks to the organisers and enthusiastic audience :)

𝐌𝐞𝐞𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐍𝐞𝐮𝐫𝐨𝐍𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐦
Meet Kalliopi, Yulong and Paloma, the researchers behind the NeuroNarratives residency! Learn more about them on our webiste: neuro-narratives.com/team/

𝐖𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐥𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐍𝐞𝐮𝐫𝐨𝐍𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐬?
You can apply via the link in bio!

New paper out (the first one from my PhD! 😊): "The impact of model eyesight and social reward on automatic imitation in virtual reality"

doi.org/10.1037/xhp0...

(With Roeljan Wiersema, Jan de Houwer & @craccoemiel.bsky.social)

Meeting of Minds for Youth festival voor SCHOLEN - Breinwijzer Ons jaarlijks MOM4Y brein festival gaat door op donderdagvoormiddag 13 maart 2025 in de Centrale te Gent. Wetenschappelijke presentaties & workshops, exclusief voor leerlingen van de 2e & 3e graad + begeleidende leerkrachten. Meer info volgt.

More (Dutch) #scicomm fun! 🥳
On March 13, I will present on Autism & The Brain for school children:
www.breinwijzer.be/evenementen/...

On March 19, I will be back in Nijmegen (yay!) for the Science Cafe, also on Autism & The Brain (& Predictive Processing). www.sciencecafenijmegen.nl

𝐎𝐏𝐄𝐍 𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐋
We are excited to launch NeuroNarratives, an art-science residency bringing neuroscientists and artists together to create meaningful art based on science!

Sign up via de link in bio!

#opencall #artandscience #art #science #artscienceresidency #neuroscience

🌟Autistic people wanted!🌟
I would love to hear from autistic people who would like to contribute to a new book on growing up autistic. Please email h.axbey@outlook.com for more information. #Autistic #Autism #ActuallyAutistic

Self-Bias and Self-Related Mentalizing are Unaltered in Adolescents with Autism - Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders Purpose The self is a multidimensional concept that can be represented at a pre-reflective (first-order) level, at a deeper, reflective level (second-order), or even at a meta-level (representing one’...

Aaaand another paper where the title is a good description of our findings: 'Self-Bias and Self-Related Mentalizing are Unaltered in Adolescents with Autism' link.springer.com/article/10.1... - by Letizia Amodeo, with myself, David Williams, and Roeljan Wiersema @explora-gent.bsky.social

Allemaal anders: wat we (niet) weten over autisme en het brein - Breinwijzer De laatste jaren is ons beeld van autisme veranderd. Zo is er meer bekend over autisme bij meisjes en vrouwen, waardoor ook zij vaker de diagnose krijgen. Daarnaast won de term ‘neurodiversiteit’ aan ...

Inmiddels met link naar het evenement: www.breinwijzer.be/evenementen/...

Intact Neural Responding to Hearing One’s Own Name in Children with Autism - Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders Diminished responding to one’s own name is one of the strongest and earliest predictors of autism. However, research on the neural correlates of this response in autism is scarce. Here we investigate ...

New paper out! The title says what we found 🙃: "Intact Neural Responding to Hearing One’s Own Name in Children with Autism" (ages 7-13, ERP analysis).
Read it here: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

(by Rachida El Kaddouri, myself, Roeljan Wiersema and Marcel Brass)

Why Communication Between Individuals With Autism Runs More Smoothly Do individuals with autism have social interaction problems, or do individuals without autism simply misunderstand them? Giving individuals with autism a voice, their message is clear: communicating w...

Lastly, an English translation of the blog can be found here: www.ugent.be/pp/en/resear...

The preprint of our questionnaire study is out now! The title already gives away our main finding: “Adults with autism prefer to communicate with others who also have autism: a mixed-method study”. You can find it here: doi.org/10.31234/osf...
w/ @annabelnijhof.bsky.social and Roeljan Wiersema

Save the date: op 13 februari om 20u presenteer ik voor Breinwijzer in de Zebrastraat te Gent. Working title: 'Allemaal Anders: Wat we (niet) weten over autisme en het brein'!

Pre-holiday lab drinks - EXPLORA is ready for a small break. Enjoy the holidays and see you in 2025! 💫

Vooruitblik 2025 - Interessante periode voor autisme-onderzoek Mensen met autisme vinden communicatie met andere mensen met autisme veel gemakkelijker. Hoe komt dat? Psycholoog Annabel Nijhof verwacht de komende jaren ve...

I wrote a (Dutch) piece on 'looking forward to 2025' in my research field. Thanks to the #doubleempathy theory, I predict it will be an interesting year for autism research!

www.eoswetenschap.eu/psyche-brein...

Really love this initiative "Growing up in Science" where professors share their (academic) life story, "with a focus on struggles, failures, doubts, detours, and weaknesses". Thanks to host @sebraem.bsky.social, and Louisa Bogaerts for her openness!

Happy to present my Dutch validation of the MASC (social cognition measure), in autistic and neurotypical adults, at the "From self-knowledge to knowing others" workshop in Brussels!

Very grateful for the opportunity to present our research at the Social Cognition Workshop as a blitz talk (and a poster)! Thank you for the interesting questions and discussions. I’m already looking forward to next year’s edition! 😄