Attention in social settings
Children pay attention to things very differently when they are doing things together with an adult. But how, and why, do these short- and long-term influences happen?
To understand this I study the microdynamics of how shared attention states are established and maintained, using dual EEG and fNIRS.
Selected papers:
Attention in solo settings
How do babies and children pay attention in a complex, real-world environments? What determines when they shift their attention, and where they shift their attention to?
At the moment I am trying to look at this by studying multi-scale dynamics – looking at interactions between slow-scale fluctuations in arousal/alertness and faster time-scale fluctuations in brain activity, and how these are both influenced by dynamic properties of our environment.
Selected papers:
Attention training
For my PhD I also designed concentration training games for babies, which over the years I have developed and tested with many wonderful collaborators around the world. Just as many other people have found, though, our recent results haven’t been so encouraging, so I don’t do so much of that work now.
Inter-relationships between stress and attention
My particular interest is understanding the developmental interactions between two domains sometimes characterised as at opposite ends of the human spectrum: early-developing arousal systems, that subserve basic mechanisms of survival and homeostasis; and the later-developing ‘higher-order’ cognitive domain of executive control.
As part of this I study how moment-by-moment fluctuations in a child’s physiological stress affect their ability to exercise executive control. But I also study the problem from the opposite perspective – looking at how we use executive control to change our behaviours ‘on the fly’, moment by moment, to compensate for dynamical changes both within us, and in our environments, and maintain stable levels of physiological stress. I am also interested in studying how these behaviours ‘go wrong’, leading to ‘metastatic’, dysregulatory interactions.
Selected papers:
Stress in solo settings
How do children learn to self-regulate in real-world settings by learning to adapt their behaviours, moment by moment, to maintain stable stress levels in the face of a changing environment? And how can these processes go wrong – leading to ‘metastatic’, dysregulatory interactions? To answer this we look at which stress states are the most stable – i.e. the most long-lasting – in real-world settings. And we try to figure out why some states are more stable than others.
Selected papers:
Stress in social settings
Parent-child co-regulation – it’s great when it works…
Through development we transition from co-regulation – where stress states are shared across the child-parent dyad – towards self-regulation – where stress states are managed by children on their own. But is co-regulation just about the adult setting a positive example of how to stay calm, and the child copying that – or is it more complicated? And what types of parental behaviours are likely to associate with best long-term development of self-regulation skills?
Selected papers:
Parent-child dys-regulation – it’s not so great when it goes wrong!
We know that stress states spread across parent-child dyads – known as stress contagion. But how does this happen? Is it a good thing, a bad thing, or somewhere in between? And how, specifically, do a child’s developing vocal behaviours trigger stress contagion – for good and for bad…
Selected papers:
Environmental influences on stress and attention
Second by second, day by day, and year by year, we are constantly adapting and evolving around the environments in which we live. I use wearable sensors (microphones, cameras) to record the different types of environment in which children spend time, and to measure the influences that these environments have on long-term development.
Selected papers:
Naturalistic research
For my research I don’t do many experiments, as most people do. Instead, I study cognitive and brain functions embedded in real-world settings. Here’s why –>
Selected papers:
