Lost At Lowlands: Leiden Psychologists Study Atopia

Lowlands Science is the science field at Lowlands where Dutch universities set up their research labs right in the middle of all the festival chaos. Festivalgoers could drop by and take part in scientific research. This year, Leiden Professor of Neuropsychology Ineke van der Ham and her team built a Space Maze to study how well people can find their way.

Visitors had to walk through the Space Maze and try to remember what they saw along the way. The researchers tested how well they had done afterwards. They also looked at how people navigate around the festival site. 'It's a kind of natural experiment', said Van der Ham. 'We're looking at how well participants know where the tents and stages are.'

Spatial dyslexia

The research helps improve our understanding of atopia, a congenital condition in which the brain cannot form a mental map of its surroundings. 'Atopia is a kind of spatial dyslexia. The Space Maze task is very difficult for a few per cent of the population because they don't store spatial information. They know what they've seen, but not where they saw it.'

Lowlands as a research lab

For psychologists, Lowlands is the perfect place for research, said Van der Ham. 'In the lab, we often run experiments with VR environments on a screen. Here, people walk around and gain experiences over an entire weekend. That makes it ideal for us.'

Timo Kos, Vice-President of the Executive Board, also came to take a look at the research. 'This is a fantastic place to engage the public with our research. Everyone's in a good mood. There's a queue right now, so you can see there's a lot of interest.'

How did festivalgoers find the experiment? Watch the video to find out.

Help with the research and experience the Space Maze for yourself on the Night of Discoveries on 19 September 2026.