Filip Van Opstal | MaCI - Université Grenoble Alpes

Cognitive Neuroscience

GATES Fellowships

GATES Senior Fellow 2026

Filip Van Opstal

is an Associate Professor in Cognitive Neuroscience at the university of Amsterdam. He studied Experimental and Theoretical Psychology at Ghent University and did his postdoctoral work at Ghent University, the Université Libre de Bruxelles and at Neurospin in Paris. Before taking up his present position, he was a Guest Professor at the Ghent Royal Academy of Fine Arts and a specially appointed Assistant Professor at the Immunology Frontier Research Center and Institute for Academic Initiatives of Osaka University. He has published widely on various aspects of human cognition including numerical cognition, cognitive control, metacognition and consciousness.

Project at the MaCI

Inspired by Distraction. The relation between mind wandering and creativity.

February - May 2026

Mind wandering, the phenomenon that you are thinking about things that are unrelated to the task that you are doing, is generally known to have negative effects on behavior. Although the detrimental effects of mind wandering are well established, articles periodically emerge in popular media suggesting that increased allowance for mind wandering in educational and professional settings may have potential benefits. One of the most critically acclaimed benefits is that mind wandering may foster creativity, the generation of novel yet useful ideas. Famous anecdotal examples include Newton’s falling apple that inspired his ideas on gravity, or Poincaré, who experienced one of his most important theoretical breakthroughs during a geological excursion. In all these cases, a mind wandering episode would act as an incubation period during which your brain is working on problems without you necessarily being aware of this. Solutions to difficult problems, novel ideas and inventions would find their origin in mind wandering episodes. This project aims to empirically substantiate this popular claim.

During this fellowship, the research paradigm will be developed and implemented, and data collection will be initiated by making use of the research facilities at the MaCI. This work will be done in close collaboration with the Laboratoire de Psychologie et NeuroCognition at the University Grenobles Alpes.

Activities