About
Dr. Femke Maij is a postdoctoral researcher working on haptic perception during arm movements in Professor Alan Wing’s group.
Biography
Dr. Femke Maij studied natural sciences at the Radboud University in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, where she specialized in biophysics. She did her PhD project in the group of Jeroen Smeets and Eli Brenner at the VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands. After her PhD project she received a fellowship from NWO (Dutch Science Society) to become a postdoctoral researcher for two years at the SyMoN lab.
Teaching
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Supervisor of two bachelor students of Human Movement Sciences, VU University Amsterdam, on their internship on haptic perception during arm movements (2010-2011)
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Assistant of course ‘Behavioral Concepts in Human Movement Sciences (2010)’ for master students of Human Movement Sciences, VU University Amsterdam
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Supervised a master student of Human Movement Sciences, VU University Amsterdam, on her thesis project on peri-saccadic mislocalisation (2009-2010)
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Assistant of course ‘Mathematics (2008 & 2009)’ for bachelor students of Human Movements Sciences, VU University Amsterdam
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Assistant of course ‘linear systems and dynamics (2007)’ for master students of Human Movements Sciences, VU University Amsterdam
Research
Research interests
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Multi-sensory integration
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Haptics
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Movement
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Saccades
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Temporal uncertainty
Dr Maij's main research interests can be summarized as: how is the brain able to combine different sensory signals? For instance when watching television we need to combine auditory information with visual information, these signals arrive with different delays in the brain. The delays from the different sensory signals make it hard to construct a percept of the world. By investigating a situation in which it is known that people make mistakes while combining different sensory signals we are able to investigate how the brain is able to construct a percept of the world. One such case is that people make systematic errors when localizing briefly presented objects near the time of eye/arm movements. During Femke's PhD-project she studied the role of temporal and spatial aspects on the localization of flashes that are presented near the time of saccadic eye movements. As a postdoc she is working on haptic localization during arm movements.
Other activities
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Organiser of a PhD-day for all human movement related PhD-students from The Netherlands (2010)
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Advisory member of the Works Council of the faculty of Human Movement Sciences at VU University Amsterdam (2008-2010)
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Member of the student association ‘Leonardo da Vinci’ of the study Natural Sciences at Radboud University (2003-2005)
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Member of Program Committee of the study Natural Sciences at Radboud University (2003-2005)
Publications
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Maij F., de Grave, D.D.G., Brenner E., and Smeets J.B.J. (2011) Misjudging where you felt a light switch in a dark room. Experimental Brain Research, 213: 223-227.
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Maij F., Brenner E., and Smeets J.B.J. (2011) Temporal uncertainty separates flashes from their background during saccades. Journal of Neuroscience, 31: 3709-3711.
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Maij F., Brenner E., Smeets J.B.J. (2011) Peri-saccadic mislocalization is not influenced by the predictability of the saccade target location. Vision Research 51, 154-159.
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Maij F., Brenner E., Li H.O., Cornelissen F. W. and Smeets J.B.J. (2010) The use of the saccade target as a visual reference when localizing flashes during saccades Journal of Vision, 10(4): 7, 1–9.
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Maij F., Brenner E., Smeets J.B.J. (2009) Temporal information can influence spatial localization. Journal of Neurophysiology, 102: 490-495.
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van Elswijk G., Maij F., Schoffelen J.M., Overeem S., Stegeman D., Fries P. (2010) Rhythmic neuronal synchronization entails rhythmic gain modulation. Journal of Neuroscience, 30(12): 4481-4488.