Research interests
The focus of my research is Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, the study of functional brain development over the first years of life. The key questions that motivate my research concern how specialized cognitive functions emerge within particular brain regions (such as the cerebral cortex) during development. Within this approach my research focuses on the perception and cognition of the social and physical world over the early years. We adopt an "interactive specialisation" framework for thinking about human functional brain development (see my book “Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience”, Blackwell, 2005, for a summary of this). Much of this research is conducted collaboratively with other members of the Centre for Brain & Cognitive Development, though we also collaborate with other labs in the US, Europe, and Japan.

The development of the social brain

Within this topic, we study face perception, eye-gaze perception and eye-gaze cued action, and the perception of human action. Through imaging (ERP, NIRS) and behavioural testing methods, our goal is understand the typical and atypical development of the human social brain network.

Developing an understanding of the physical world

Within this area we study object processing and action in the dorsal and ventral streams, object-centred attention, visual masking, perceptual binding, and the representation of occluded objects. In addition to conventional brain correlates of perception, we study event-related oscillations (ERO).

The development of prefrontal cortex function

It is often assumed that the prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain most associated with higher cognitive functions) is "functionally silent" for the first year after birth. However, recent evidence reveals activation of this area from at least the first months. We are conducting longitudinal individual differences studies to trace the early emergence of functions attributed to PFC.