My name is Anouk Keizer and I currently work as an assistant professor at the department of Experimental Psychology at Utrecht University. I am a member of the Helmholtz Institute and the Utrecht Research Group for Eating Disorders.

I am interested in how healthy individuals and (psychiatric) patients experience and perceive their own body and how bodily dimensions may contribute to perception and experience of the environment. Which processes shape the way in which we perceive and use our body? Can we be sure that our appearance in the mirror or in our mind really reflects how we actually look or appear to others?

To date, most of my research has focused on disturbed body size experience in patients with anorexia nervosa, at the level of perception, action and bodily illusions. In my current research and previous post-doc project I continued the line of research set out during my PhD, with a specific focus on how VR bodily illusions and multisensory input may be beneficial in reducing the overestimation of body size in anorexia nervosa. In addition, I am working on body representation and body size perception in body builders, pregnant women and the development of body representation throughout the lifespan.

You can download a copy of my PhD thesis here, click here for the summary of my thesis in English and here for the summary in Dutch