My visit to TNO Perceptual and Cognitive Systems group in Soesterberg was a little like stepping onto a James Bond movie – or, more specifically, like a visit to Q’s lab. It helps that you have to ID yourself before you can enter the building through a secured gate – yet my tour of the grounds by Christian Willemse was at least as important in invoking the full Q lab experience. Robots, anechoic chambers, haptic vests, simulations rooms, an optical corridor, an audio hall & a brain-machine lab – cool labs and technologies all around!

During the tour, I met Alexander Toet – who shared some great stories about his life at TNO – and had a productive meeting with Jan van Erp, who demonstrated one of his Haptic Jackets. He emphasized that he was more than open to collaboration with other labs, and would happily share his resources if we’d be able to come up with an interesting research proposal. I could immediately think of several interesting applications of the Haptic Jackets in our research into emotional co-regulation, and was intrigued by the possibilities of using the anechoic chamber in research into interoception. All in all, a great visit, which, hopefully, will form the basis for further collaboration between the Emotion Regulation Lab and Q’s, I mean, the Perceptual and Cognitive Systems lab in the near future!

Since you are not allowed to take photographs in within the TNO Soesterberg compound, some photo’s that nicely represent my visit gathered from online articles and the TNO site: