![A light-skinned female-presenting person with light hair wearing a dark purple sweater over a button-up shirt in front of a dark gray background](/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/2024-01/Rouw%20Headshot.jpg?itok=d-yNwN4c)
Romke Rouw
Dr. Romke Rouw began her career studying psychology at University of Amsterdam, where she became fascinated by the question of why objective stimuli in the outside world are often such poor predictors of what happens in the rich, internal, mental world of a particular individual. This fascination was strengthened during a one-year visit to Kosslyn's lab, studying visual mental imagery, and her Ph.D. work on configural processing of faces at Tilburg University. After obtaining her Ph.D., she returned to the University of Amsterdam as a faculty member. To unravel the connection between highly subjective sensations and behavioral and neurological mechanisms, her lab employs a broad range of techniques (e.g., in-lab behavioral experiments, large online studies, psychophysics, and various neuroimaging techniques). She regularly presents to non-academic audiences which is both fun and allows her to raise public awareness for unusual responses to stimuli as part of a 'normal' condition.