Capturing the dynamics of learning and forgetting through adaptive retrieval practice

Across virtually all levels and topics of education, students need to learn facts. The SlimStampen algorithm, developed at the UG, aims to optimize the process of fact learning. PhD student Thomas Wilschut explains how the algorithm works, what it tells us, and how future work (including his own) can improve it.

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The Flow of Life: It Matters What You Do Before Arriving

Setting goals efficiently drives long-term goal pursuit, but it also facilitates the experience of flow states – such an intense focus on the present activity that goals, as future-oriented objects, lose importance and experience becomes deeply meaningful. Metaphorically, what makes a journey meaningful is not its destination, but the process itself.

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The synergy of meditation and psychedelics

Both psychedelics and meditation have the potential to elicit self-transcendent experiences that are deeply meaningful and healing. This post addresses the question is whether it is possible to create a synergistic combination of psychedelics and meditation. A recent study addresses this topic, and is the subject of a documentary, “Descending the Mountain”, which will be screened on April 30, 2023.

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The blessing and the curse of classifying neuroimaging data

Machine learning in cognitive neuroscience In modern cognitive neuroscience, it has become common-practice to apply machine learning techniques to data obtained through neuroimaging. Despite this widespread use, however, there is something amazingly enigmatic about it. On the one hand, there is this organ that for millennia has eluded scholars: billions of neurons connected in myriads […]

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How do early career researchers at BSS do 1,5 years into the pandemic?

Two years into the pandemic university staff at all levels have invested a lot of time and energy in transitioning to online teaching, supervision, and virtual work. YESS BSS surveyed early career researchers to learn more about their concerns. They suggest improvement could be made in offering support, reducing (or compensating for) teaching load, and considering career opportunities.

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Buddy program for persons with a severe mental illness

In her buddy program, Dr. Lisette van der Meer couples psychology students to people with a serious mental illness. The aim? Stimulate a reconnection with society for service users while at the same time create a learning opportunity beyond the textbooks for students. Mindwise interviewed Dr. Lisette van der Meer and buddy Justin L. Abu Hoof about their experiences.

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