Research Studies

Dr. Buss’ central research questions relate to understanding the mechanisms of emotional development with respect to developing temperament and personality. She is primarily interested in the dynamics of emotional reactivity and regulation and how individual differences in state affect are related to trait affect or temperament. She views emotional expression as partially reflecting individual differences in temperament. In addition, the identification of individual differences in biological processes is central to her research. She is primarily interested in the differentiation of negative affect states and traits (e.g., fear, anger, and sadness) and emotion regulation and dysregulation. Her research program is designed to identify specific mechanisms that underlie individual differences in affective development. Her current research is focused on identifying individual differences in affective developmental trajectories. Specifically, she is interested in addressing questions about whether certain affective styles, related to fear regulation or dysregulation, will serve as protective factors or as diatheses for children at risk for mood disorders. Her current study, TEENS (Temperament, Evolving Emotions, and Neuroscience Study) aims to understand the systems involved in the development of emotion and temperament (e.g., personality and anxiety) in adolescents. To learn more, please visit Dr. Buss’ lab.

Dr. Cole studies emotional development in early childhood with a particular interest in emotion regulation (the ability to modulate one’s emotional reactions). The ability to regulate emotions in effective and flexible ways plays a role in the development of social, emotional, and cognitive competencies in children. Moreover, difficulties in emotion regulation have implications for the development of psychopathology. In previous work, she has shown that typically developing preschoolers can (a) self-modulate anger, (b) self-generate positive emotions even if a situation is difficult, and (c) self-generate effective strategies for regulating emotion. She has also shown that children who have difficulty doing these things may be at risk for developing later psychopathology. Current work is designed to understand how little children become competent emotion regulators as preschoolers and how parental emotion can aid or interfere with children’s emotion regulation development. The Development of Self-Regulation Dynamics (DYN-o-SR) is an NICHD-funded collaborative study currently in the data collection stage.  This study uses behavioral and biological (ANS) measures to test a generalized model of self-regulation and its sensitivity to both angry and fearful emotions, to children as well as adults, to parent-child dyadic interaction, and to age-related differences between 30 to 60 months of age. We use advanced modeling techniques with the goal of demonstrating age-related change in emotion regulation dynamics. The Processing of the Emotional Environment Project (PEEP) is an NIMH-funded collaborative study currently in the data analytic stage.  This study capitalizes on neuroimaging methods to test the sensitivity of 7- and 8-year-old children’s voice- and speech-sensitive neural network to their mother’s voice and whether that depends on the emotion in the mother’s voice.  We are also testing an innovative method for objective assessment of the natural emotional environment, using EAR (electronically activated recordings). The Development of Toddlers Study (D.O.T.S.) is an NIMH-funded longitudinal study following 120 children from age 18 months to age 48 months, examining how their own skills and personalities and various aspects of their parents’ lives influence the development of awareness, effectiveness, and flexibility in preschool-age emotion regulation.  This study provides opportunities to ask new, related questions of archived data. For more information, please visit Dr. Cole’s lab.

Dr. Diaz’s research program seeks to understand how aging affects language. Older adults often have larger and more diverse vocabularies, and have broader life experiences, suggesting robust stores of knowledge. However, access to that information can often be challenging. Older adults often have some challenges with word retrieval, like taking longer to find a word, or temporarily being unable to say a word they know (i.e., a tip of the tongue event). Our lab studies how knowledge is represented and what factors influence word retrieval difficulties for older adults. We use computer tasks, speaking tasks, and neuroimaging techniques like Magnetic Resonance Imaging to better understand these issues. For more information, please visit Dr. Diaz’s lab web page.

Dr. Drager’s research interests focus on augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) for children and adults with severe disabilities. Specifically, her research interests include AAC for individuals with severe expressive communication disorders, especially for children, adolescents, and adults with severe disabilities who are at the beginning stages of communication, including children with autism. She is also interested in issues faced by the global community in AAC. Dr. Drager studies the role that AAC technologies play in human interaction, and is interested in our ability to harness environmental or personal information to increase access to relevant vocabulary and concepts, and thus to decrease the communication burden and demand on individuals with severe communication disabilities. For information on Dr. Drager’s lab, please visit this page.

Dr. Eiden’s research focuses on understanding developmental trajectories among children at risk due to multiple adversities associated with parental substance use and problems, as well as early childhood interventions designed to ameliorate these risks and promote competence. Her studies, many of which follow cohorts of children across multiple developmental stages (e.g., prenatal period to adolescence), seek to understand developmental mechanisms that may explain the association between parental risk factors and child outcomes (e.g., infant-parent attachment, parent-child self-regulation, individual differences in children’s autonomic and stress reactivity, and immune/inflammatory mechanisms).  She has a particular interest in prenatal and early childhood interventions for substance using parents, with the goal of promoting family health, including positive developmental cascades for children. Current projects include a randomized clinical trial for first time expectant parents to promote co-parenting and reduce hazardous drinking among father/non-pregnant partners; a translational (human-animal) study of prenatal tobacco and cannabis exposure effects on middle childhood outcomes in a sample recruited in pregnancy; developmental pathways to violence, victimization, and substance use in a sample exposed to cocaine and other substances in utero; a collaboration with Dr. Mary Dozier on a randomized clinical trial for low-income mothers with opioid use disorder using a modification of the Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-Up; and a collaboration with Drs. Jenae Neiderhiser, Danielle Downs, and colleagues in Geisinger on a pilot rural birth cohort study from pregnancy to 3 years of child age. For more information, please visit Dr. Eiden’s lab.

Dr. Gilmore is particularly interested in the development of brain networks that enable perceivers to extract information about the layout of the environment, the shape of objects, and the speed and direction of self-movement from patterns of visual motion called optic flow. Gilmore is also keenly interested in developing tools and practices that make scientific research more open, transparent, and reproducible. He is the co-founder and co-director of the Databrary.org digital library. From 2008 to 2014, Gilmore served as the founding Director of Human Imaging at Penn State’s Social, Life, and Engineering Sciences Imaging Center (SLEIC). He has won the College of the Liberal Arts tenure-line faculty teaching award, leads the Open Data and Developmental Science (ODDS) Initiative for the Child Study Center, and has had support for his research from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. Gilmore has served as president of the Centre Region Bicycle Coalition, the Acoustic Brew Concert Series, and the State College Community Theatre. For more information, please visit Dr. Gilmore’s lab.

Dr. van Hell is interested in the cognitive and neurocognitive processes related to language development, second language learning, and bilinguals’ use of two languages. In her Bilingual and Language Development (BiLD) lab she combines neuropsychological (EEG/ERP), behavioral, and linguistic techniques to study patterns of cross-language interaction and transfer in child and adult second language learners at different levels of proficiency. She also studies the neural and cognitive mechanisms involved in code-switching and in the comprehension of foreign-accented speech. Part of her neurocognitive research takes place in an RV mobile lab parked at schools, the ‘brain bus’. She also uses the ‘brain bus’ for outreach activities, e.g., science fairs of research demonstrations. For information, please visit Dr. van Hell’s lab.

Dr. Huang-Pollock is interested in the cognitive and neuropsychological mechanisms that contribute to the development of psychopathology in children, with a focus on children who have problems with attention. Childhood Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is among the most common reasons for referral to medical, psychological, and school services, and is a significant risk factor for multiple poor outcomes, including academic underachievement, peer relationship problems, and emotional/behavioral difficulties. Her current research, funded by NIMH, is interested in understanding the cognitive mechanisms that could explain why ADHD is such a potent risk factor for anxiety disorders and other mental health problems. She is also interested in how children with attention problems acquire new skills and the degree to which this may explain chronic problems in the acquisition and execution of routine academic and social processes in daily life. For more information, please visit Dr. Huang-Pollock’s lab.

Dr. Keller’s research interests include Neural influences on eating behavior in children; Individual differences in response to portion size in youth; Individual differences in response to food marketing in youth; Teaching children eating-related self-regulation; and, Developing strategies to increase vegetable intake in children and adolescents. Her specializations include pediatric obesity, neuroimaging, food choice, and food selection. For more information, please visit Dr. Keller’s lab.

Dr. Laurent’s interdisciplinary work aims to discover what supports flourishing in the face of life stress, and to promote resilience within families at risk for stress-related mental and/or physical health problems. As head of the Personal Relationships, Interpersonal Stress, and Mindfulness (PRISM) lab she investigates (1) what constitutes stress “regulation” by relating different biological (i.e., neural, neuroendocrine, autonomic) and behavioral stress response facets to psychological well-being; (2) developmental paths shaping stress regulation, including prenatal and postnatal influences of parental stress and mental health; and (3) how practices such as mindfulness and compassion can improve stress regulation in families.  Her work combines stress physiology monitoring, neuroimaging, and/or behavioral observation as people respond to naturalistic stressors that arise in close relationships, toward the ultimate goal of interrupting intergenerational cycles of stress-related health difficulties. For descriptions of her lab’s research and recently concluded and ongoing projects, please visit Dr. Laurent’s lab.

Dr. Lunkenheimer’s research program seeks to understand how parents and children manage the emotions, behaviors, and stress in their day-to-day lives.  It also addresses how parents and children regulate each other as they live, play, and solve problems together.  When parenting is stressful and parents and children are disconnected, discipline may be less effective and children may develop self-regulation problems.  Funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Dr. Lunkenheimer’s research has shown that greater synchrony of heart rate, breathing, positive emotions, and positive behaviors between parent and child is associated with fewer behavior problems in children and less harsh discipline in parents.  The goals of this research are to better understand how parents and children develop dysregulated behavior through their day-to-day interactions and to improve intervention programs to prevent problem behavior in stressed and overburdened families. For more information, please visit Dr. Lunkenheimer’s lab.

Dr. Miller’s research interests are focused around typical and atypical language development, particularly children with specific language impairment; cognitive processes in communication disorders, with emphasis on speed of processing and working memory in children and adults with language disorders; and bilingual language development. She uses behavioral and electrophysiological methods. Member of the Center for Language Science. For more information, please visit Dr. Miller’s lab.

Dr. Myruski’s research focuses on emotion regulation and anxiety, with an emphasis on adolescence. Her work leverages multiple methods (e.g., EEG, ERPs, ECG, behavioral observations) in pursuit of three major goals: (1) to identify biological signatures of implicit and explicit emotion regulation linked to the emergence and maintenance of anxiety symptoms, (2) to track how biological signatures of emotion regulation emerge and change throughout development, and (3) to examine how social context, including both in-person and technology-mediated interaction, facilitates and disrupts emotion regulation and social-emotional well-being. In particular, the pervasive and growing use of digital technology (e.g., social media, mobile devices) has transformed social communication. Dr. Myruski studies how individual differences in emotion regulation strengths and vulnerabilities, and within-person patterns of digital media use may contribute to or exacerbate youth’s anxiety symptoms. To learn more, please visit this page.

Dr. Neiderhiser’s research is focused on understanding how genes and environment work together to shape development throughout the lifespan. Much of this research has focused on interpersonal relationships – including parent-child, spouse, sibling and peer relationships. Examining how individuals influence their environments, and what role genetics may play in this (gene-environment correlation), has long been a focus. She has also examined gene x environment interaction (GxE) and the role of early life experiences, including prenatal experiences, in shaping development throughout the lifespan. Her more recent research has included an examination of the roles of neighborhood context and pubertal hormones on child and adolescent development in combination with the other environmental and genetic influences. She has used studies of twins, siblings, adopted children, and other family members to examine these research questions. All of her research has included extensive assessment of the environment within the household, family relationships, peer relationships, adult and child adjustment, temperament and personality and other related measures. Most recently, in an effort to help address rural health disparities, she is collaborating with Drs. Rina Eiden and Danielle Downs to understand risk and protective processes in families living throughout rural Pennsylvania.

Jenae is also a faculty mentor of graduate and postdoctoral fellows as part of: The Prevention and Methodology Training Program (PAMT) and The Center for Healthy Aging.

Dr. Pérez-Edgar is interested in the relations between temperament and psychopathology. In particular, children with the extreme temperamental trait of behavioral inhibition and shyness show increased risk for social anxiety. However, individual differences in attention mechanisms may play an important role in ameliorating or exacerbating these underlying vulnerabilities. In conducting her work, Dr. Pérez-Edgar has taken a multi-method approach involving direct observation of behavior and cognitive functioning, psychophysiology (EEG & ERP), and neuroimaging (fMRI). Her next projects will examine the emergence of attention to threat in the first two years of life and use mobile eye-tracking technology to observe social behavior in young children. For more information, please visit Dr. Pérez-Edgar’s lab.

Dr. Scherf’s core interests lie in understanding how children form representations of the visual world and how emerging functional specificity of the developing brain supports this process. Specifically, she is interested in the developmental trajectory of face representations because the discrimination and recognition of faces are one of the most taxing perceptual challenges confronted by people in their day-to-day life. Also, faces are the pre-eminent social signal, therefore, studying developmental changes in the behavioral and brain basis of face processing in typically developing individuals and in those affected by social-emotional disorders may index a core set of developmental changes within the broader social information processing system. Her approach allows her to address some of the most pressing questions about how developmental changes in brain function and structure support changes in behavior. She employs converging methodologies, including functional and structural magnetic resonance, and diffusion tensor imaging along with detailed behavioral paradigms in both typically developing populations and those with developmental disorders, with particular emphasis on autism, to examine development across multiple time points from early childhood to adulthood. Her goals are to 1) understand the mechanisms by which these representations change developmentally, particularly during adolescence when pubertal maturation has a profound influence on the re-organization of neural circuits and the processing of social information, 2) understand how the cortex develops the capacity to represent and compute face representations that support multiple aspects of face processing, including face identification, categorization, and, in the future, the process of garnering social attributions from faces, 3) elucidate the consequences when psychological or neural processes deviate from the normal trajectory, and 4) develop intervention paradigms that may alter abnormal developmental trajectories in both the behavioral and neural aspects of face processing. For more information, please visit Dr. Scherf’s lab.

Dr. Teti is a developmental scientist whose research is focused on infant and early child development. He has had a long-standing interest in socio-emotional development in early childhood (e.g., quality of attachment to parents), parenting competence and parenting at risk, how parenting is affected by parental mental health and contextual factors, and how parenting affects infant and child functioning. All of his current projects examine the joint, interactive effects of biological/medical and environmental/parenting factors on child development and parenting during the early years of life. All of them are interdisciplinary and involve graduate and undergraduate students, and his students draw from the projects they work on in developing their own areas of expertise. He believes it is important that students working with him develop into productive scholars in their own fields of expertise, and thus his students are actively involved in all phases of research, from data collection and coding and data analysis, to being co-authors and lead authors on presentations and peer-reviewed papers. He is the principal investigator of Project SIESTA: Project SIESTA (Study of Infants’ Emergent Sleep TrAjectories) draws from previous research demonstrating linkages between sleep disruption in childhood and developmental delays in cognitive development and behavior problems in children. Although these linkages are well-established for children in the preschool years and beyond, very few studies have examined these links in infancy, nor are the reasons for these relations well-understood. Project SIESTA is a longitudinal study of (1) linkages between infant sleep quality during the first two years and infant socioemotional development (e.g., quality of infant-parent attachments, infant behavior problems and behavioral competencies); (2) how parenting of infants at bedtime and night time (from video-recordings), beginning at1 month of age through 24 months, affects the development of infant sleep quality over time; (3) the intersection of parenting practices, parenting quality, and infant sleep in predicting infant developmental outcomes and stress reactivity (diurnal cortisol activity) across the first two years of life. Project SIESTA also examines how parental behavior at bedtime and night time predicts infant functioning during the day. Project SIESTA has several co-investigators from Penn State’s departments of HDFS (Cindy Stifter, Mike Rovine) and Psychology (Pamela Cole), Hershey Medical Center’s Department of Pediatrics (Ian Paul), and one investigator from the University of California, David (Thomas Anders). The study was funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) (R01HD052809). For more information, please visit Dr. Teti’s lab.

Dr. Wilkinson studies early communication and language in learners with developmental and intellectual disabilities. Her main interests include vocabulary learning as well as the use of visual supports in communication and education. Dr. Wilkinson served as Editor for the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology (2014-2016) and as Editor-in-Chief for 2017. She has also served as Associate Editor at Augmentative and Alternative Communication and the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology. Dr. Wilkinson is an affiliated faculty with the Child Study Center at Penn State and holds an adjunct appointment at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.  For information, please visit Dr. Wilkinson’s lab.