Neuropsychology of Space

Albert Postma obtained his PhD at Nijmegen University in 1991. Subsequently he moved to Utrecht University. He now holds the chair of Clinical Neuropsychology, Utrecht University and is head of the Department of Experimental Psychology. Over the past two decades, his research has focused on spatial cognition and human memory in both healthy and brain damaged individuals. Much of this work has been inspired by the EU NEST Fp6 program "Finding your way in the world - on the neurocognitive basis of spatial memory and orientation in humans? (Wayfinding) for which Albert Postma was coordinator. Another line of his spatial cognition research has focused on multisensory space and what happens to spatial cognitive abilities after sensory deprivation (blindness; deafness). Albert Postma has been editor for the memory and learning section of Acta Psychologica for several years, as well as guest editor for special issues on spatial cognition of Neuropsychologia and Acta Psychologica. Ineke van der Ham obtained her Bachelor's degree in clinical psychology at Erasmus University Rotterdam. She continued her studies at Utrecht University where she obtained her Master's degree in cognitive neuroscience. In 2006 she started as a PhD student at the department of experimental psychology at Utrecht University. In her PhD work she mainly focused on the hemispheric lateralization patterns typically found in spatial relation processing. In 2009 she was a visiting research fellow at Harvard University. In 2010 she finished her dissertation entitled: Thinking left and right, neurocognitive studies on spatial relation processing. In 2010-2015 she was employed as an assistant professor neuropsychology at Utrecht University. Since 2015 she is an assistant professor neuropsychology at Leiden University. In her current research, she focuses mainly on the neurocognition of navigation ability and navigation impairments. She is developing diagnostic and training tools, making use of virtual reality and serious gaming techniques.