[Hiring] PhD: State-Dependent Spatial Representations using immersive Virtual Reality @Wageningen University & Research

Role Description

Are you fascinated by how people understand, navigate, and communicate complex spatial environments? Do you hold a master's degree in cognitive science, environmental psychology, human-computer interaction, geo-information science, or a related field, with experience in experimental research using virtual reality? If so, we have an exciting PhD opportunity for you!

Spatial thinking plays a crucial role in understanding and communicating environmental issues, from climate adaptation and landscape planning to biodiversity loss, water management, and sustainable land use. These challenges often require people to reason about spatial processes that are not immediately visible: future scenarios, delayed consequences, cascading effects, or changes that unfold across places and time. To support better environmental decision-making and communication, we need to understand how people build mental representations of such complex, dynamic spatial systems.

Spatial cognition research has traditionally studied how people represent environments through concepts such as mental models, cognitive maps, and cognitive graphs. However, they are primarily suited to stable environments and are less equipped to handle situations where the same place or action may have different spatial meaning or outcomes depending on context.

This PhD project investigates how people learn, update, and use spatial knowledge when the structure or meaning of an environment depends on hidden or changing conditions, referred to as state-dependent environments. The project asks how people construct and reason with representations that capture not only where things are, but also the conditions under which spatial relations hold.

Specific Research Objectives

• Develop VR-based experimental tasks to study how people learn and update spatial representations during active exploration in different types of state-dependent environments.
• Identify behavioural patterns of state-dependent spatial reasoning that reveal how people detect, anticipate, and adapt to the intertwined relations between spatial structure and its underlying conditions.
• Establish the conditions under which state-dependent spatial representations generalise beyond the learned environment, and what individual and contextual factors predict successful knowledge transfer across virtual-virtual and/or virtual-real contexts.

The outcome will contribute to new concepts and methods for studying spatial cognition as a dynamic, predictive, and adaptive process, with broader relevance to environmental communication, systems thinking, and adaptive decision making.

Qualifications

• A completed, or soon to be completed, MSc (or equivalent) degree in cognitive science, environmental psychology, human-computer interaction, geo-information science, or related field.
• An established background and/or keen interest in spatial cognition, including topics such as spatial learning, navigation, and environmental perception and behavior.
• Hands-on experience in designing and using immersive virtual environments and software (e.g. Unity).
• Experience in conducting empirical research (e.g., experimental design, instrument selection, recruitment, participant testing, and report writing).
• Experience in quantitative data analysis and visualizations with R and/or Python.
• Interest in working with behavioral data, such as movement trajectories, interaction logs, task performance, and eye-tracking data.
• Excellent English communication skills, both written and spoken.
• Motivation, curiosity, creativity, and willingness to work in an interdisciplinary research team.
• Command of the English language is expected to be at C1 level.

Benefits

• Partially paid parental leave.
• Working hours that can be discussed and arranged for the best possible work-life balance.
• Strong focus on vitality with access to sports facilities available on campus for a small fee.
• A fixed year-end bonus of 8.3%.
• Excellent pension scheme.
• Fully funded PhD position with a tailored course program.
• Gross salary for the first year is € 3.059,- per month rising to € 3.881,- in the fourth year.
• Temporary contract for 18 months, extendable based on performance.

Important Information

For more information about the position, please contact Jiayan Zhao at [email protected] or Sytze de Bruin at [email protected]. Questions about the procedure? Get in touch with Jessa Rozema, Corporate Recruiter, via [email protected].

You can apply directly using the apply button on the vacancy page on our website. Only applications submitted through our website will be considered. To apply, please send the following documents (max. 3 pages in total):

• Complete and up-to-date curriculum vitae (max. 2 pages).
• Motivation letter (max. 1 page).

The maximum length of the documents must not exceed 3 pages. If it exceeds, applications will not be considered. Additional files such as grades and transcripts are not required during this stage and will not be considered.

You can apply up to and including August 7, 2026. We hope to schedule the first interviews in the first week of September.