I would also like to thank all of my coworkers, family and friends for their support and assistance on this day and the four years leading up to it.
@gestaltrevision.bsky.social
@kuleuvenuniversity.bsky.social

A special thank you to the members of my examination committee, Francesca Bacci, @aennebrielmann.bsky.social , Roland Fleming and Bram Vervliet for the insightful questions, engaging discussions, and for making this day truly memorable.

A huge thank you to my mentor and promotor Johan Wagemans for his unwavering support and guidance, and to my co-promotors @biekezaman.bsky.social and Koen Brosens for their interest and insightful advice.

This study aimed to examine whether and when multimodal integration of visual and auditory components occurs in the multimodal Ganzfeld (visual and auditory homogeneous stimulation).

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@pec-ipe.bsky.social
#VisionScience #VisualPerception #Ganzfeld

This work highlights visual dominance in Ganzfeld settings as well as how sensory input and more specifically, suggestive elements like sound and color may influence multisensory percept formation under Ganzfeld stimulation.

* The “wave” phenomenon: Water-like sounds were the only consistent category of auditory hallucination across studies, potentially because the low frequencies of brown noise resemble ocean waves. These were often paired with blue visual fields.

* Noise seems suggestive (especially brown noise): Auditory hallucinations that did occur seemed influenced by the sound characteristics; brown noise, with its low-frequency profile, produced more hallucinations than white noise or no noise.

* Unimodal focus: Over half (53%) maintained focus on visual experience, while noise often “faded into the background” (24%).

* Multisensory integration is scarce: Only 4–13% of participants reported congruent multimodal experiences (e.g., matching visual and auditory content).

Key findings:

* Visual perception dominates: Even under multimodal stimulation, 89–96% of participants reported visual hallucinations, while auditory experiences were rare (18–26%).

Using a multi-method approach across three experiments, we combined quantitative measures with qualitative interviews to explore how auditory conditions (no-noise, white-noise, brown-noise) interact with visual Ganzfeld stimulation in both laboratory and art installation settings.

A special thanks to my co-authors Liv Smets and Johan Wagemans for this wonderful collaboration!

A special thank you to product designer Kamiel Ceyssens for all of his help in constructing the custom-made curved translucent screen of our Ganzfeld lab!
@gestaltrevision.bsky.social @kuleuvenuniversity.bsky.social al @nconsc.bsky.social
#VisionScience #VisualPerception #Ganzfeld

We combined a quantitative measure of experienced phenomena with in-depth interviews, offering a richer understanding of the perceptual experience. To this end, we created our own Ganzfeld lab.

In this particular paper, we set out to clarify both the terminology used in past literature, as well as the phenomenology of Ganzfeld experiences, supplemented with our own findings using a mixed-methods approach.

A huge thank you to my PhD advisor Johan Wagemans for his enthusiasm and guidance in tackling this research area together.

This paper laid the foundation for my Ganzfeld project, where we investigated what perceptual experiences emerge or decay in the Ganzfeld, a homogeneous visual field, known to induce peculiar perceptual experiences.