Mind & Life Podcast

Marieke Van Vugt – Finding Balance

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October 5, 2023

View or download a transcript of this episode

In this episode, Wendy speaks with cognitive scientist, contemplative practitioner, and ballet dancer Marieke Van Vugt. Marieke is a pioneer in studying mind wandering and meditation through computer modeling, and is also advancing participatory research through her collaborations with Tibetan monastics. This conversation covers many topics, including:

Marieke Van Vugt, PhD
  • her braided interests in meditation, dance, and cognitive science;
  • computer modeling of mind and meditation;
  • exploring distraction, mind wandering, and becoming aware;
  • how thoughts can get “stuck” in our minds;
  • creating a meditating computer;
  • the relevance of stuck thoughts to various mental disorders;
  • trauma through the lens of predictive models of mind;
  • analytical meditation and Tibetan monastic debate;
  • collaborating with monastics in research;
  • humility and fluidity of mind;
  • re-thinking the tasks used in cognitive science;
  • the phenomenon of brain synchrony;
  • dance and embodiment;
  • the roots of thinking in the body;
  • problems with abstraction in science;
  • curiosity vs. the critical mind in ballet;
  • flow, responsiveness, and compassion;
  • and advice to young scholars.

Marieke Van Vugt, PhD, is an assistant professor in the cognitive modeling group at the University of Groningen (The Netherlands). She obtained her PhD with Michael Kahana in the neuroscience program of the University of Pennsylvania, and undertook a postdoctoral fellowship with Jonathan Cohen at Princeton University. Her research aims to understand how, when and why we start mind-wandering; when it is beneficial and when it is harmful. She uses a multimodal approach that combines computational modeling, scalp EEG, intracranial EEG, behavioral studies, and functional MRI. In addition, she is interested in how meditation practice affects our cognitive system, and the consequences this has for our behaviour. She is also interested in how two brains think together, which she studies with EEG hyperscanning, and in real-life situations such as Tibetan monastic debate and dance performances.

Resources

Faculty website
Personal website
Marieke’s Instagram (dance & ballet)