Hi, I am Hidde!
I studied Psychology at the University of Amsterdam, and now I hold the Brain and Cognition specialization Master’s degree. Currently I am a PhD student in the HEAR-ECO project at the VUmc and Eriksholm Research Centre.
My master thesis was about visual illusions and consciousness. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging and machine learning, I tried to find where in the visual cortex subjective experience is represented, rather than the ‘raw’ visual signal.
Currently I am working on the HEAR-ECO project, which focuses on creating hearing tests that are representative of real-life situations. Existing hearing tests use lab environments which provide unnatural situations. This means that the tests are not representative of hearing aid functionality or listening in real-life situations. Together with five other PhD students I will try to create a test that captures more life-like situations so that hearing-aid technology can be tested using ecologically valid standards.
Specifically, I will be looking at the role of social influences during listening. Is there, for example, a change in listening effort - or maybe even speech intelligibility - when a social component is introduced?
HEAR-ECO is a collaboration between VUmc (the Netherlands), Oticon A/S (Denmark) and the University of Nottingham (United Kingdom). The project is primarily funded by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 programme.
Outside of my career I love to sail and play the bass guitar when I have the time for it. Seeing the beautiful surroundings of Eriksholm, I hope I will be able to pick up sailing some more as well as spending time hiking or cycling through Denmark.