dr. Tessa van Leeuwen

Bio

I study individual differences in perception, and how these differences affect subjective experience, cognition, and interactions with our environment. I specialize in synaesthesia (mixing of the senses) and crossmodal processing. I also study the link between synaesthesia and other conditions, such as autism. I am currently developing research on other individual differences in subjective experience such as aphantasia and sensory processing sensitivity, and how these individual differences relate to differential processing and personal experiences of our environment.

Research keywords: individual differences in perception, subjective experience, synaesthesia, multisensory processing, autism, crossmodal perception, art & aesthetics, visual perception, schizophrenia, language and cognition.

Courses

• Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed Reality
• Cap.Sel. in Language and Communication
• Introductory Statistics for Res. Master
• Statistics and Experimental Methods 1
• The Human Mind in the Digital World
• Elective courses: LOT Courses
• Bachelorthesis CIW

Recent publications

1. Genetic and environmental architecture of synaesthesia and its associ…

   Taylor, M. J., van Leeuwen, T., Kuja-Halkola, R., Lundström, S., Larsson, H., Lichtenstein, P., Bölte, S., & Neufeld, J. (2023). Genetic and environmental architecture of synaesthesia and its association with the autism spectrum-a twin study. Proceedings of the Royal Society B-Biological Sciences, 290(2009), Article 20231888.

2. Synaesthesia and its relation to social and sensory aspects of autism

   van Leeuwen, T., Koolen, M., Neufeld, J., van Laarhoven, T., & Lier, R. V. (2022). Synaesthesia and its relation to social and sensory aspects of autism. 154-154. Abstract from The 44th European Conference on Visual Perception (ECVP) 2022, Nijmegen, Netherlands.

3. synr: An R package for handling synesthesia consistency test data

   Wilsson, L., van Leeuwen, T., & Neufeld, J. (2022). synr: An R package for handling synesthesia consistency test data. Behavior Research Methods, 55, 4086–4098 .

4. Perceptual processing links autism and synesthesia: A co-twin control…

   Leeuwen, T. M. V., Wilsson, L., Norrman, H. N., Dingemanse, M., Bölte, S., & Neufeld, J. (2021). Perceptual processing links autism and synesthesia: A co-twin control study. Cortex.

5. Perceptual Gains and Losses in Synesthesia and Schizophrenia

   van Leeuwen, T. M., Sauer, A., Jurjut, A.-M., Wibral, M., Uhlhaas, P. J., Singer, W., & Melloni, L. (2021). Perceptual Gains and Losses in Synesthesia and Schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 47(3), 722-730.