Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (Stichting VU), Netherlands is an open and engaged university that educates free thinkers: critical minds who take responsibility for people, society, and the planet. Through high-quality research, inspiring education, and active engagement in societal dialogue, VU contributes to sustainable solutions for the major challenges of our time. The META-MUSEUM project is perfectly aligned with our values, as it fosters multidisciplinary research aimed at addressing societal challenges, rooted in empirical data-driven research. The research team is embedded in the Department of Human Movement Sciences, with international expertise in the field of recording and analysing human movement patterns, as well as the neural, biomechanical and physiological underpinnings.
Stichting VU Team
Role in META-MUSEUM
VU Amsterdam contributes to especially experimental components of the project. Our team focuses on neurophysiological, motoric and behavioural responses to various cultural items, so as to unravel the conscious and unconscious (unintentional) components. We have conducted a single high-powered experiment, yielding a large multivariate data set. We are also responsible for analysis and dissemination of the results. During the design and execution of the experiment we closely collaborated with other partners.
VU Amsterdam is responsible for WP5 and involved in WP1, WP3 and WP9.
Expertise & Capabilities
VU Amsterdam (Department of Human Movement Sciences) is world renowned for methods and tools to collect, analyse, model, and interpret human motion and brain data, including kinematics of movement, the interplay of forces that give rise to these movements, and the underlying neuromuscular and neural control. At VU Amsterdam we apply this expertise to many applied fields, especially the broad fields of performance (sports, athletes) and rehabilitation of motor function (e.g., stroke and Parkinson Disease). We utilise this expertise to its full extent in the META-MUSEUM project. In our research we make use of an experimental set-up, which allows us to isolate the factors that may contribute to aesthetic evaluation and confidence, as laid out in the Grant Agreement.
Relevant Past Experience
VU Amsterdam, and the Department of Human Movement Sciences, has been very active and successful in acquiring grants, often spanning different nations and fields of expertise. Below EU/Horizon Europe or other research projects from the team:
- NWO MaGW Grant 406-11-020 (2012-2015). Experimental project on the effect of visual patterns on subjective well-being and postural dynamics. Certain abstract visual patterns with motion can induce sickness and loss of stability. The project investigated various motor, perceptual and subjective measures related to the effects of such simulations. These responses are the joint product of external (sensory) stimuli, but also internal (e.g., (e.g., emotions, expectations) states.
- FirSTeps – the emergence of walking in children. NWO Vidi Grant 016.156.346 (2015-2021). The overall aim of this project was to characterise the emergence of walking in typically developing children and in children affected by cerebral palsy in terms of the motor control.
- Taking Approach-Avoidance Research A Step Further: NWO MaGW Grant 406-14-077 (2014-2020). Experimental study on the effects of emotional stimuli on the tendency to move the body forward (‘Approach’) or backward (‘Avoidance’). Based on the Darwinian notion of evolutionary adaptive motor responses when confronted with significant items in the environment. Human (healthy) subjects stood on a force plate and made various directional stepping movements in response to emotional cues.
- Learn2Walk – Brain meets spine: the neural origin of toddler’ first steps. ERC-2016-STG- 715945 (2017-2022). In this project we aimed to investigate the interplay between brain and muscular activity in toddlers and adults during walking by using advanced statistical tools for the eeg-emg interaction during walking.
Contact:
Scientific coordinators:
Prof. Nadia Dominici –n.dominici[at]vu.nl
Dr. John F. Stins – j.f.stins[at]vu.nl
Project controller: Tim Kampers t.a.d.kampers[at]vu.nl
