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Early development of cognitive flexibility

Cognitive flexibility is the capacity to adapt to change and problem solve in new situations based on previous experience. It is one of a triad of ‘executive functions’ that are fundamental for behavioural success; the other two being working memory and inhibitory control. During infancy, cognitive flexibility skills are still developing but not much is understood about how these skills change, or what supports their development. Also, tasks that are used to measure cognitive flexibility in adults are not suitable for young children. The Baby-LINC lab is developing new ways to assess cognitive flexibility in babies, with a view toward training programmes that will support the maturation of this important cognitive skill. 

Adult-infant brain synchrony and language learning:

When we communicate with each other, our brain activity naturally becomes synchronised to our social partner, and this neural synchronicity predicts communication success between adults. Infants also synchronise with adults during communication, and this is triggered by the use of important social cues like mutual gaze (eye contact). The Baby-LINC lab is investigating whether neural synchrony between infants and adults, which occurs through the use of eye contact and other social cues, may also affect whether and how babies learn a new language from their social partner. 

Parent-infant brain synchrony and social learning:

Social learning is a process by which infants are able to learn from their social partners by observing and imitating their behaviour and emotional reactions to new events or objects. Parental emotional reactions are an important source of social learning for young babies, particularly in situations that are novel or uncertain. The Baby-LINC lab is investigating how neural synchrony between babies and their parents develops during natural social interactions, and how this brain synchrony supports the social learning process. 

Methodology

We use a novel method called dyadic-EEG (‘hyperscanning’) to collect brain signals from babies and adults at the same time, often whilst they are interacting naturalistically. We are interested in research pertaining to the challenges, solutions and applicability of this EEG methodology to questions in cognitive developmental neuroscience. One of the lab’s new research directions is in the development of smart toys for infant research that make use of sensors that are capable of detecting how children interact with objects in their environments.

Publications

1. Parent-infant interaction and neural synchrony
Journal Articles 

Title

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Wass, S. V., Whitehorn, M., Marriott Haresign, I., Phillips, E., & Leong, V. (2020). Interpersonal Neural Entrainment during Early Social Interaction. Trends in cognitive sciences, 24(4), 329–342. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2020.01.006 PDF
Santamaria, L., Noreika, V., Georgieva, S., Clackson, K., Wass, S., & Leong, V. (2020). Emotional valence modulates the topology of the parent-infant inter-brain network, NeuroImage, 207 116341. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2019.116341 PDF
Clackson, K., Wass, S., Georgieva, S., Brightman, L., Nutbrown, R., & Almond, H. Bieluczyk, J., Carro, G., Dames, B. R., & Leong, V. (2019). Do Helpful Mothers Help? Effects of Maternal Scaffolding and Infant Engagement on Cognitive Performance. Frontiers In Psychology, 10, 2661. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02661 PDF
Leong, V., & Schilbach, L. (2019). The promise of two-person neuroscience for developmental psychiatry: Using interaction-based sociometrics to identify disorders of social interaction. British Journal of Psychiatry PDF
Wass, S.V., Noreika, V., Georgieva,S., Clackson, K., Brightman, L., Nutbrown, R., Santamaria, L., & Leong, V. (2018). Parental neural responsivity to infants’ visual attention: how mature brains influence immature brains during social interaction. PloS Biology, 16(12): e2006328. (IF = 9.2). PDF
Wass, S.V., Clackson, K., Georgieva,S.D., Brightman, L., Nutbrown, R., & Leong, V. (2018). Infants’ visual sustained attention is higher during joint play than solo play: is this due to increased endogenous attention control or exogenous stimulus capture? Developmental Science, 21(6), e12667. PDF
Wass, S.V., Clackson, K. & Leong, V. (2018). Increases in arousal are more long-lasting than decreases in arousal: On homeostatic failures during emotion regulation in infancy. Infancy, 1-22. DOI: 10.1111/infa.12243 PDF
Wass, S.V., de Barbara, K., Clackson, K. & Leong, V. (2018). New meanings of thin-skinned: the contrasting attentional profiles of typical 12-month-olds who show high, and low, stress reactivity. Developmental Psychology, 54(5),816-828, 10.1037/dev0000428 PDF
Neale, D., Clackson, K., Georgieva, S., Dedetas, H., Scarpate, M., Wass, S., & Leong, V. (2018). Towards a neuroscientific understanding of play: A multi-dimensional methodological framework for analysing adult-infant neurobehavioural play patterns. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 273. 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00273 PDF
Leong, V., Byrne, E., Clackson, K., Harte, N., Lam, S., & Wass, S. (2017). Speaker gaze changes information coupling between infant and adult brains. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA (PNAS), 114(50), 13290-13295. (IF = 9.6). doi: 10.1073/pnas.1702493114 PDF
Wass, S., & Leong, V. (2016). Developmental Psychology: How social context influences infants’ attention. Current Biology, 26, R355–R376. PDF

 

Forthcoming Journal Articles

Title

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Carozza, S., & Leong, V. (2020). The role of caregiver touch in early neurodevelopment and parent-infant interactional synchrony. PsyArXiv, https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/5jc78
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Wass, S., Haresign, I. M., Whitehorn, M., Clackson, K., Georgieva, S., Noreika, V., & Leong, V. (2020). Parental frontal brain activity tracks infants’ attention during shared play. PsyArXiv, https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/u84dj PDF
Leong, V., Noreika, V., Clackson, K., Georgieva, S., Brightman, L., Nutbrown, R., & Wass, S. (under review). Mother-infant interpersonal neural connectivity predicts social learning in infants. Nature Neuroscience. PDF
Noreika, V., Wass, S., Georgieva, S., & Leong, V. (in revision). 14 challenges for conducting social neuroscience and longitudinal EEG research with infants. Infant Behaviour & Development (Special Issue on Brain Imaging) PDF
Georgieva, S., Lester, S., Yilmaz, M.N., Wass, S., & Leong, V. (in revision). Topographical and spectral signatures of infant and adult movement artifacts in naturalistic EEG. Frontiers in Neuroscience. PDF
Wass, S.V., Whitehorn, M., Marriot Haresign, I., Phillips, E., & Leong, V. (in preparation). Interpersonal neural synchrony and responsivity during early learning interactions. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. –
Leong, V., Byrne, E., Clackson, K., Harte, N., Lam, S., de Barbaro, K., & Wass, S. (submitted). Infants’ neural oscillatory processing of theta-rate speech patterns exceeds adults’. https://doi.org/10.1101/108852

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Fujita, S., Clackson, K., Georgieva, S., Wass, S,, Neale, D., Ramchandani, P., & Leong, V. (in preparation). Parent-infant emotional synchronicity during social and non-social play. –

 

Book chapters

Title

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Dalley, .J., & Leong, V. (under review). Neuroplasticity. To appear in Jones, P., & Lynall, M.E., (Eds.), Cambridge Textbook of Neuroscience for Psychiatrists. –
2. Methodology
Journal Articles

Title PDF
Noreika, V., Georgieva, S., Wass, S., & Leong, V. (2020). 14 challenges and their solutions for conducting social neuroscience and longitudinal EEG research with infants. Infant behavior & development, 58, 101393. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infbeh.2019.101393
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Leong, V., & Schilbach, L. (2019). The promise of two-person neuroscience for developmental psychiatry: Using interaction-based sociometrics to identify disorders of social interaction. British Journal of Psychiatry, 215(5), 636-638. doi:10.1192/bjp.2019.73
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Georgieva, S., Lester, S., Noreika, V., Yilmaz, M. N., Wass, S., & Leong, V. (2020). Toward the Understanding of Topographical and Spectral Signatures of Infant Movement Artifacts in Naturalistic EEG. Frontiers in neuroscience, 14 352. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2020.00352 PDF
Sela, Y., Santamaria, L., Amichai-Hamburge, Y., & Leong, V. (2020). Towards a Personalized Multi-Domain Digital Neurophenotyping Model for the Detection and Treatment of Mood Trajectories. Sensors, 20(20), 5781. MDPI AG. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s20205781 PDF

 

Forthcoming

Title PDF
Lecchi, T., da Silva, K., Giommi, F., & Leong, V. (2019, in review). Using dual-EEG to explore therapistclient interpersonal neural synchrony. Frontiers, https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/ebkpv PDF
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3. Speech rhythm and infant-directed speech
Journal Articles 

Title PDF
Leong, V., & Goswami, U. (2017). Auditory organization as a cause of reading backwardness. Developmental Science. 20: e12457, doi: 10.1111/desc.12457 PDF
Leong, V., Kalashnikova, M., Burnham, D., & Goswami, U. (2017). The temporal modulation structure of infant-directed speech. OPEN MIND, 1(2), 78-90. doi:10.1162/opmi_a_00008   PDF
Leong, V., & Goswami, U. (2015). Acoustic-Emergent Phonology in the amplitude envelope of child-directed speech. PLoS ONE. 10(12):e0144411 PDF
Leong, V., Kalashnikova, M., Burnham, D., & Goswami, U. (2014). Infant-directed speech enhances temporal rhythmic structure in the envelope. INTERSPEECH-2014, 2563-2567. PDF
Leong, V., Stone, M., Turner, R. & Goswami, U. (2014). A role for amplitude modulation phase relationships in speech rhythm perception. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 136, 366-381 PDF
Goswami, U. & Leong, V. (2013). Speech rhythm and temporal structure: Converging perspectives? Laboratory Phonology, 4, 67-92. PDF

 

Title PDF
Cumming, R., Wilson, A., Leong, V., & Goswami, U. (2015). Awareness of rhythm patterns in speech and music in children with specific language impairments. Frontiers in Language Sciences. 9:672. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2015.00672   PDF
*Szucs, D., & Soltesz, F. (2010). Event-related brain potentials to violations of arithmetic syntax represented by place value structure. Biological Psychology, 84(2), 354-367. (*Data from my MPhil thesis) –

 

Book chapters

Title PDF
Goswami, U., & Leong, V. (2016). Speech rhythm and temporal structure : Converging perspectives? In Thomson, J. and Jarmulowicz, L. (Eds.), Linguistic Rhythm and Literacy. pp. 111-131. John Benjamins : Amsterdam/Philadelphia. +
4. Reading and dyslexia
Journal Articles 

Title PDF
Goswami, U., Barnes, L., Mead, N., Power, A., & Leong, V. (2016). Prosodic similarity effects in short-term memory in children with developmental dyslexia. Dyslexia, 22(4), 287-304 PDF
Leong, V., & Goswami, U. (2014). Impaired extraction of speech rhythm from temporal modulation patterns in speech in developmental dyslexia. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8:96 PDF
Goswami, U., Mead, N., Fosker,T., Huss, M., Barnes, L., & Leong,V. (2013). Impaired perception of syllable stress in children with dyslexia: A longitudinal study. Journal of Memory & Language, 69, 1-17  PDF
Leong, V., Hamalainen, J., Soltesz, F., & Goswami, U. (2011). Rise time perception and detection of syllable stress in adults with developmental dyslexia. Journal of Memory and Language, 64, 59–73. PDF

 

Title PDF
Thomson, J., Leong, V. & Goswami, U. (2013). Auditory processing interventions and developmental dyslexia: a comparison of phonemic and rhythmic approaches. Reading and Writing, 26, 139-161. PDF
Soltesz, F., Szucs, D., Leong, V., White, S., & Goswami, U. (2013). Atypical entrainment of Delta oscillations to rhythmic stimulus streams in developmental dyslexia, PLOS One, 8(10): e76608. PDF

 

Forthcoming Journal Articles  

Title PDF
Leong, V., Cyr, P., Brightman, L., Amunts, L., Martini, S., Belteki, G., Georgieva, S., & Austin, T. (in preparation). ROBO1 genotype predicts differences in neural tracking of speech rhythm patterns in neonates at high- or low- risk for dyslexia. To be submitted to Neuron x

 

Book chapters

Title PDF
 Goswami, U., Leong, V., & Power, A. (2015). Neurocognitive basis of auditory processing and phonology in dyslexia. In Eden, G. (Ed.), Wiley Handbook on the Cognitive Neuroscience of Developmental Dyslexia. x