PhD candidate
Floor van den Berg received her bachelor's degree in English Language & Culture and graduated cum laude from the research master's in Language and Cognition at the University of Groningen. Currently, she is a PhD candidate at the English Linguistics department of the Faculty of Arts under the supervision of Dr. Hanneke Loerts and Prof. dr. Merel Keijzer. As part of Prof. dr. Keijzer's Vidi project she investigates how learning a new language after the age of 65 enhances cognitive flexibility and well-being levels in healthy and non-healthy seniors. The study assesses the cognitive and social effects that ensue from participation in a foreign language course, as compared to music training or a lecture series, through behavioral measures and eye-tracking paradigms. Importantly, Floor compares cognitive flexibility and well-being outcomes for older adults with Mild Cognitive Impairment or those experiencing subjective memory problems to those for healthy seniors. The project is very much in line with her recently-completed master thesis (conducted within the BALAB), for which she examined the short-term consequences of a brief but intensive online Spanish course on the cognitive flexibility and well-being of healthy Dutch seniors, using behavioral and EEG measures.
