DNL lab meetings – Develomental Neurocognition Lab

Spring 2021

Wednesday 13 January: Welcome back and goals for the term
Schedule to appear shortly

Autumn 2020

Wednesday 16 September: Welcome back and goals for the term
Wednesday 23 September: Fred, paper discussion: Qu, Y., Jorgensen, N. A., & Telzer, E. H. (2020). A call for greater attention to culture in the study of brain and development. Perspectives on Psychological Science. DOI: 10.1177/1745691620931461.
Wednesday 30 September – Philip / Michael D. / Hugh – Thomas Kuhn vs. Karl Popper
Wednesday 7 October – Dom Song – Deep neural networks
Wednesday 14 October – Gilly & Georgie – Primate data presentation
Wednesday 21 October – Professor Cecilia Hayes (University of Oxford) – Cognitive Gadgets
Wednesday 28 October – Jo van Herwegen – Maths development and culture
Wednesday 4 November – Olatz Ojinaga Alfageme – Function of the cerebellum in higher cognitive functions
Wednesday 11 November – no meeting (READING WEEK)
Wednesday 18 November- Katie Gilligan-Lee – Meta-analysis on the effect of spatial training on maths performance
Wednesday 25 November – Louisa Gosse – Exploring the relationship between sleep and early neurocognitive development using EEG and fNIRS
Wednesday 2 December – Dr. Laurie O’Neill (Max Planck Institute) – Problem-solving in parrots compared to crows
Wednesday 9 December – Fred – Study design for the CLUE project on the effects of urban pollution on adolescent cognitive development
Wednesday 16 December – Christmas drinks and Big Quiz of the Year (at your desk, Santa hats obligatory)

Summer 2020

Wednesday 22 April: Welcome back and goals for the term
Wednesday 29 April: Fred double header: (1) Friston’s dynamical causal model of co-vid 19 and the role of social distancing; (2) Discussion of developmental disorders commentary (originally entitled “Developmental disorders: Struggling at school? The unbiased eye sees few specific disorders, no specific brain regions”) responding to Astle Current Biology paper.
Wednesday 6 May: Gilly discussion of Leslie Rogers paper on cause vs. effect in brain/behaviour laterality effects
Wednesday 13 May: Roberto discussion of Nicols et al. (2020) Bilingualism Affords No General Cognitive Advantages
Wednesday 20 May: Hugh – AI and responses to the pandemic, part one: automated contact tracing; part two: accelerating the discovery and mass production of a vaccine
Wednesday 27 May: Lizzy – Developmental trajectories of executive functions, and structural models of EF at 11 and 13 years, in the SCAMP adolescent cohort
Wednesday 3 June: Michael D. – Developmental Cognitive Epistemology
Wednesday 10 June: Georgie on the BASIS (infants at risk for autism) study of typical and atypical infant laterality effects in face processing
Wednesday 17 June: Olatz – poster presentation for ICIS Down syndrome neonatal brain imaging results
Wednesday 24 June: Michael D., Philip & Hugh: The Great Consciousness Face-off.
Wednesday 1 July: Fred presenting a draft paper ‘Reconciling genetic and socioeconomic status effects on brain and behavioural development’
Wednesday 8 July: Big debate – bring a bottle. Psychology’s response to the Covid-19 crisis

Spring 2020

Wednesday 15 January 11-1: Welcome back and goals for term
Wednesday 22 January 11-1: Matt Slocombe – data presentation on analogical learning mechanisms and developmental theory
Wednesday 29 January 11-1: Laurel on genomic structural equation modelling of academic achievement in ALSPAC
Wednesday 5 February 11-1: Hugh on the new Birkbeck initiative in AI and ethics; Fred on the new Astle paper on connectomics and learning disabilities
Wednesday 12 February 11-1: Dom Song – computational models of reading development
Wednesday 19 February 11-1: NO MEETING
Wednesday 26 February 11-1: Olatz on early brain development
Wednesday 4 March 11-1: Gilly (tba)
Wednesday 11 March 11-1: tbc
Wednesday 18 March 2-4: Michael Dash
Wednesday 25 March 2-4: Debate – evolutionary convergence

Autumn 2019

Wednesday 9 October 11-1: Welcome back and goals for term
Wednesday 16 October 11-1: Fred on between-species vs. within-species variation in brain size
Wednesday 23 October 11-1: Georgie conference report on evolution of primate brain
Wednesday 30 October 11-1: Philosophical discussion on the conceptual viability of causality between levels of description (e.g., whether genes can cause behaviour)
Wednesday 6 November: Reading week, no meeting
Wednesday 13 November 11-1: Michael Dash on ‘consciousness is not social in origin’
Wednesday 20 November 11-1: Matt S. on critique of contemporary cognitive load theory (and its application to education)
Wednesday 27 November 11-1: Olatz on DTI methods, and presentation of her recent submission to Research in Developmental Disabilities
Wednesday 4 December 11-1: Hugh on Artificial Intelligence and ethics
Wednesday 11 December 2-4: Debate on Big Data and Slow Science, to be followed by Christmas drinks in adjoining hotel bar

Summer 2019

Wednesday 8th May 11-1 – Guest seminar: Maximo Trench – Analogy
Wednesday 15th May 11-1 – Short project presentations: Maria Ashworth, Paulien Eijckeler, Erica Ranzato
Wednesday 22nd May 11-1 – Jenny Glennon: Comorbid autism in genetic syndromes – insights from visuospatial processing
Wednesday 5th June 11-1 – Ane Goikolea Vives: Mouse models of neural plasticity to early damage
Wednesday 12th June 11-1 – Guest seminar: Prof. Michelle De Haan (UCL Institute of Child Health)
Wednesday 19th June 11-1 – Jo: Rodent models of Williams syndrome – implications for interventions
Wednesday 26th June 11-1 – Matt Kirkman – Genetic, educational, and brain imaging predictors of individual differences in recovery from surgery for brain tumours in young adults
Wednesday 3rd July 11-1 – Fred: Intervention in theory and practice
Wednesday 10th July 11-1 – Debate on historical versus contemporary study of mindfulness

Spring 2019

Wednesday 16th January 11-1 – Welcome back
Wednesday 23rd January 11-1 – Gilly: “Me Human” Science Museum exhibition
Wednesday 30th January 11-1 – Fred: How The Brain Works and what comes next – How The Brain Differs?
Wednesday 6th February 11-1 – Matt: Study designs for analogy and learning experiments
Wednesday 13th February 11-1 – Guest seminar: Zeynep Civelek (University of St Andrews): The developmental and evolutionary origins of inferring unseen causes
Wednesday 27th February 11-1 – Pauline / Maria / Erica: Short project presentations
Wednesday 6th March 11-1 – Jo paper discussion: Discussion article: 15 suggestions for developmental research. Karen E. Adolph, Justine E. Hoch, and Whitney G. Cole. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 2018.
Wednesday 13th March 11-1 – Fred: Report on Royal Society workshop on the impact of technology: “Human transformation: Remembering and Learning”
Wednesday 20th March 11-1 – Olatz: Some preliminary data on fetal / neonatal imaging of infants with Down syndrome and subsequent cognitive profiles
Wednesday 3rd April 2-4 – Debate and drinks – Evolution of language learning (Gilly)

Autumn 2018

Wednesday 3rd October 11-1 – Welcome back
Wednesday 17th October – Cosmin: Using mobile phones to monitor Parkinson’s disease; deep neural network analysis of infant EEG to predict autism outcome
Wednesday 24th October – Lizzy: Socioeconomic status effects in executive functions of 11-12 year olds
Wednesday 31st October – Dr. Themis Karaminis (Edge Hill University): Computational modelling of native and non-native spoken word recognition in noise
Wednesday 7th November – Olatz: Investigating the relationship of infant sleep quality to resting state EEG responses and cognitive development.
Wednesday 14th November – Georgie: Emotion and cognition in adolescents [Note, on Wednesday 14th, Philip is giving his Departmental Seminar on the Death of Consciousness, Room 534 Malet St. 1-2pm]
Wednesday 21st November – Michael Dash: Meaning Before Language Acquisition
Wednesday 28th November – Matt: Data presentation on children’s analogy and concept development
Wednesday 5th December – Olatz: Practice presentation; Cathy: Neuroscience of adult learning
Wednesday 12th December 11-2 – Debate and Xmas drinks – On Tool Use

Summer 2018

Wednesday 2nd May: Term Plans & Presentation Schedule
Wednesday 9th May: Cathy
Wednesday 23rd May: Katie & Gilly
Wednesday 30th May: Matt (Theory)
Wednesday 6th June: Group Catch-Up/Progress Report
Wednesday 13th June: Jenny
Wednesday 20th June: Lizzy
Wednesday 27th June: Matt (Data)
Wednesday 4th July: DEBATE

Spring 2018

Wednesday 24th January – Dr Philip Clapson: ‘A Critique of ‘Chasing the Rainbow: The Non-conscious Nature of Being’’
Wednesday 31st January – Georgina Donati: ‘Are we looking at this upside down? Assessing the interaction between executive functions and emotional traits over adolescence’
Wednesday 7th February – Dr Gillian Forrester: ‘Motor Biases and Social Cognition’
Wednesday 14th February – READING WEEK
Wednesday 21st February – Tessa Dekker (UCL): ‘The Role of Probabilistic Inference in Child Visuomotor Development’
Wednesday 28th February – Dr Philip Clapson: ‘Preview: Death of Consciousness, Birth of a Science: The Theory of Brain-Sign’
Wednesday 7th March – Andrea Caso (LonDowns): ‘Clustering data from the Mullen Scale in Down Syndrome’
Wednesday 14th March – Dr Michael Dash: ‘Consciousness Has Risen From the Grave!’
Wednesday 21st March – Debate on Methodology
Wednesday 28th March – Symposium in Memory of Annette Karmiloff-Smith

Autumn 2017

Wednesday 11th October, 11-1: Welcome back and plans for term
Wednesday 18th October, 11-1: Cosmin Stamate – Neural Networks for Beginners
Wednesday 25th October, 11-1: Matt Slocombe – How can grounded cognition inform a developmental account of analogical reasoning?
Wednesday 1st November, 11-1: Dr. Michael Dash – Foetal pain and consciousness
Wednesday 15th November, 11-1: Project presentations: Lizzy Booth and Jenny Glennon
Wednesday 22nd November, 11-1: Dr. Rachael Davis: title tbc
Wednesday 29th November, 11-1: Seminar: Professor Denis Mareschal: title tbc
Wednesday 6th December, 3-5: DNL Debate, followed by Christmas drinks
Wednesday 13th December, 11-1: Project presentations: Dr. Gilly Forrester and Georgie Donati

Summer 2017

Tuesday 2nd May, 11-1: Welcome back and plans for term
Tuesday 9th May, 11-1: Fred – Report of some of the new research presented at ICPS 2017 in Vienna
Tuesday 16th May, 11-1: DNL Double Header – (1) Georgina Donati: Genetic analysis of adolescent latent cognitive traits and the overlap with common variation with Maths and Science; (2) Dr. Maitrei Kohli: Behavioural Genetics inspired framework for evolving populations of artificial neural networks
Tuesday 23rd May, 11-1: Fred – Report of last week’s Learnus lecture given by Prof. Sue Gathercole on struggling learners and the contrast between diagnostic and dimensional approaches
Tuesday 30th May, 11-1: Dr. Michael Dash – Is There Evidence for Consciousness Before Birth?
Tuesday 6th June, 11-1: Dr. Gilly Forrester – New studies: (1) social emotional processing and cerebral lateralisation using the face pop out task from BASIS; (2) cradling and lateralisation
Tuesday 13th June, 11-1: Fred – Theories of deficit and theories of intervention: can an understanding of mechanism bridge the gap?
Tuesday 20th June, 11-1: Matt Slocombe – Analogy and analogical reasoning: Mechanisms, development and pilot study data
Tuesday 27th June, 11-1: Jenny Glennon – Project update

Spring 2017

Tuesday 17th January, 11-1: Welcome back and plans for term
Tuesday 14th January, 11-1: Dr. Gilly Forrester – What can motor laterality tell us about the evolution and development of processing socio-emotional stimuli?
Tuesday 31st January, 11-1: Matt Slocombe – Relational structure, analogy and categorisation
Tuesday 7th February, 11-1: Fred – When improving strengths produces better outcomes than remediating weaknesses
Tuesday 21st February, 11-1: Lizzy Booth: The development of executive function skills
Tuesday 28th February, 11-1: Georgie Donati: The development of emotion regulation in adolescence
Tuesday 7th March, 11-1: Dr. Hana D’Souza: Update on the LonDowns project
Tuesday 21st March, 11-1: Cathy Rogers: Project design and pilot data on the development of creativity
Tuesday 28th March, 11-1: Fred: Population enrichment – Make everyone better or make everyone the same?

Autumn 2016

Tuesday 11th October, 11-1: Welcome back and plans for term
Tuesday 18th October, 11-1: Fred – An overview of neurocomputational approaches to understanding autism
Tuesday 1st November, 11-1: Seminar: Dr. Gillian Forrester (BBK) – Handedness as a marker of cerebral lateralisation in children with and without ASD
Tuesday 8th November, 11-1: Dr. Philip Clapson – Does Moral Choice Exist? (discussion of the 2016 paper: “The phylogenetic roots of human lethal violence”)
Tuesday 15th November, 11.40-1: Seminar: Dr Sam Wass (UEL) – New meanings of “thin-skinned”: autonomic and neural correlates of biological sensitivity to context
Tuesday 22nd November, 11.40-1: Cosmin Stamate – Deep neural networks and using EEG to predict outcome for babies at risk of ASD
Tuesday 29th November, 11.40-1: Jenny Glennon – Fragile X and ASD traits
Tuesday 20th December, 11.45-1.45: Seminar: Dr. Roberto Filippi (UCL) – The effects of a multilingual experience across the lifespan

Summer 2016

Tuesday 26th April: Welcome back and plans for the term
Tuesday 3rd May: Fred on computational modelling of intervention
Tuesday 10th May: Seminar: Dr. Hannah Wilkinson (CEN, Birkbeck) – A cognitive neuroscience approach to understanding and promoting classroom behaviours for learning
Tuesday 24th May: Dr. Michael Dash – The emergence of consciousness and autobiographical memory (part 2)
Tuesday 31st May: Jenny Glennon – Syndromic autism: Descriptively or causally similar to non-syndromic autism?
Tuesday 7th June: Seminar: Dr. Hiwet Costa (Kingston University) – Approximate Number System and mathematical skills in preschool children
Tuesday 14th June: Cosmin Stamate – Project update: Deep neural networks: weight initialisation, use in analysing EEG data from ASD studies, and models of attention and eye gaze in vision
Tuesday 21st June: Dr. Philip Clapson – Brain-sign theory for neurologists: An introduction to the Theory of Brain-Sign, a scientific theory which replaces consciousness
Tuesday 28th June: Hala Alireza – Mechanisms of intervention and the interface with clinical practice: The example of Word Finding Difficulties

Spring 2016

Tuesday 12th January: 11-1pm – Welcome back and plans for the term
Tuesday 19th January: 11-1pm – Philip: ‘Brain sign theory changes the subject: Agency, causality and free will’
Tuesday 2nd February: 11-1pm – Fred: Discussion papers (Snowling et al., 2016; Elliott & Resing, 2015) on longitudinal studies of dyslexia, relation of dyslexia to intelligence testing
Tuesday 9th February: 11-1pm – Cosmin: Breeding better learners: A transfer learning approach based on behaviour genetics
Tuesday 23rd February: 11-1pm – Fred: a computational model linking age-related changes in the heritability of intelligence with age-related changes in brain structure
Tuesday 1st March: 11-1pm – Hala: Data presentation from the WORD project of the development of naming abilities in typically developing children and children with word-finding difficulties
Tuesday 8th March: 11-1pm – Cathy: Does the regular use of touch screen devices affect the cognitive development of infants?
Tuesday 15th March: 11-1pm – Rachael: Wellcome ISSF project on early behavioural predictors of autism

Autumn 2015

Tuesday 6th October: 11-1pm – Welcome back and plans for the term
Tuesday 13th October: 11-1pm – Seminar: Dr. Fiona Richardson (Anglia Ruskin University): Brain imaging of Specific Language Impairment
Tuesday 20th October: 11-1pm – Seminar: Dr. Sam Wass (MRC-CBU, University of Cambridge) – title tbc
Tuesday 27th October: 11.30-1pm – Fred: Is genetics of any use to educators?
Tuesday 10th November: 11.30-1pm – Cosmin Stamate: Transfer learning approach for financial applications
Tuesday 17th November: 11.30-1pm – Jenny Glennon & Cathy Rogers, titles tbc
Tuesday 24th November: 11.30-1pm – Fred: overview of current explanations of autistic spectrum disorder
Tuesday 1st December: 11.30-1pm – Andrew Oliver: Andy Clark’s predictive mind theory
Tuesday 15th December: 11-1pm – Dr. Michael Dash: The emergence of consciousness and autobiographical memory (part 1)

Summer 2015

Tuesday 28th April: 11.00-12.45 – Welcome back and plans for the term
Tuesday 5th May: 11.00-12.45 – Discussion paper: Noble et al. (2015) Family income, parental education, and brain structure in children and adolescents. Nature Neuroscience.
Tuesday 12th May: 11.00-12.45 – Seminar: Dr. Beata Grzyb (University of Plymouth): Toddlersâ€™ scale errors: when developing language comes between perception and action.
Tuesday 19th May: 11.00-12.45 – What next for Fred’s modelling?
Tuesday 26th May: 11.00-12.45 – Cosmin Stamate: Deep belief networks, the BG framework, and the Tescos data set
Tuesday 16th June: 11.00-12.45 – Andrew Oliver: Computational modelling and developmental disorders
Tuesday 23rd June: 11.00-12.45 – Seminar: Dr. Roberto Filippi (Anglia Ruskin University): Developmental approaches to bilingualism

Spring 2015

Tuesday 13 January: 11.00-12.45 – Welcome back meeting and planning for the term
Tuesday 20 January: 11.00-12.45 – Paper discussion Murray & Egan (2014) Does reading to infants benefit their cognitive development at 9-months-old? An investigation using a large birth cohort. Child Language Teaching & Therapy.
Tuesday 27 January: 11.00-12.45 – Maitrei Kohli: Hybrid computational model to capture population variability exhibited by children in learning the English past tense
Tuesday 3 February: 11.00-12.45 – Cosmin Stamate: Deriving evolving intelligent systems by modelling cognitive genetics concepts with diverse ensembles of deep neural networks
Tuesday 10 February: 11.00-12.45 – Fred: Reading without phonology: An fMRI case study of atypical language development
Tuesday 24 February: 11.00-12.45 – Rachael Davis – 4 key papers in developmental disorder research
Tuesday 17 March: 11.00-12.45 – Hala Alirez – Current theories of intervention for developmental language impairments
Tuesday 24 March: 11.00-12.45 – Dr. Esha Massand (CBCD, Birkbeck) – What can babies tell us about Down syndrome?

Autumn 2014

Tuesday 7 October: 11.00-12.45 – Welcome back meeting and planning for the term
Tuesday 14 October: 11.00-12.45 – Seminar: Prof. Daniel Ansari (University of Western Ontario): Numerical cognition
Tuesday 21 October: 9.00-17.00 – Workshop on the Science of Learning at the Royal Society
Tuesday 28 October: 11.30-12.45 – Fred: Genetics for educators; Dr. Emma Meaburn: The genetic basis of reading and language abilities in childhood and adolescence
Tuesday 4 November: 11.30-12.45 – Fred: Population modelling of individual differences in resilience to ageing
Tuesday 11 November: 11.30-12.45 – Dr. Juan Yang: modelling of intervention
Tuesday 18 November: 11.30-12.45 – Dr. Philip Clapson: Paper discussion – ‘Weaponising neurotechnology: international humanitarian law and the loss of language’ by Gregor Noll
Tuesday 25 November: 11.30-12.45 – Seminar: Dr. Caspar Addyman (Birkbeck): A neuroconstructivist approach to time perception
Tuesday 2 December: 11.30-12.45 – Rachael Davis: Data presentation

Summer 2014

Tuesday 6 May: 11.30-12.30 – Welcome back meeting and planning for the term
Tuesday 27 May: 11-12.45pm – Discussion paper: Spoorns (2014). Contributions and challenges for network models in cognitive neuroscience. Nature Neuroscience.
Tuesday 3 June: 11-12.45pm – Rachael Davis: Data presentation on modelling developmental trajectories in autism spectrum disorder
Tuesday 10 June: 11-12.45pm – Fred: brain plasticity and education – a computational perspective
Tuesday 17 June: Double header! 11-11.30 – George Bell: Deferred imitation as a measure of episodically-defined memory in infants / toddlers with Down syndrome; 11.30-1pm – Dominika Sieradzka: What can common genetic variants tell us about specific psychotic experiences in adolescence and the psychosis continuum?
Tuesday 24 June: 11-12.45pm – Dr. Juan Yang: Dynamic learning style prediction method based on a pattern recognition technique
Tuesday 1 July: 11-12.45pm – Maitrei Kohli: Hybrid computational modelling framework for transfer learning based on behavioural genetics
Tuesday 8 July: 11-12.45pm – tbc
Tuesday 15 July: 11-12.45pm – Fred: Time to give up on developmental psychology and individual differences?

Spring 2014

Tuesday 14 January: 11-1pm – Chantelle Blagrove: Data presentation – Word-finding difficulties in bilingual children and children with learning disabilities
Tuesday 21 January: 11-1pm – Seminar: Dr. Harry Purser (University of Nottingham): Contextual effects in categorisation
Tuesday 28 January: 11-1pm – Seminar: Dr. Philip Clapson (Birkbeck): The Theory of Brain-Sign and Why Consciousness does not Exist
Tuesday 4 February: 11-1pm – Hannah Broadbent: Spatial navigation in Williams syndrome
Tuesday 11 February: 11-1pm – Literature review: Hala Alireza: Word-finding difficulties – theories and relationship to other developmental disorders of language
Tuesday 18 February: 11-1pm – Paper discussion: Alan Richomme: Mazzone & Lalumera (2010) Concepts: stored or created? Minds and Machines, 20, 47-68
Tuesday 25 February: 11-1pm – Rachael Davis: Data presentation: Simulating regressive developmental trajectories in autism
Tuesday 4 March: 11-1pm – Seminar: Dr. Tim Smith (Birkbeck): Eye-tracking techniques in perceiving naturalistic scenes and their application to developmental disorders
Tuesday 11 March: 11-1pm – Seminar: Dr. Emily Farran (IOE): The development of large-scale spatial knowledge; what can we learn about navigation strategies by using virtual environments and eye-tracking?
Tuesday 18 March: 11-1pm – Dominika Sieradzka: Data presentation: tbc

Autumn 2013

Tuesday 8 October: 11-1pm – Welcome Back meeting
Tuesday 15 October: 11-1pm – Paper discussion: Evolutionary perspectives on mind, brain, and education
Tuesday 22 October: 11-1pm – Maitrei Kohli: Behavioural genetics and transfer learning
Tuesday 12 November: 11.30-1pm – Fred: How the brain works (that’s relevant for educators)
Tuesday 26 November: 11.30-1pm – Manuela Pisch: A longitudinal study of the role of sleep in infant socio-cognitive development

Summer 2013

Tuesday 23 April: 11-1pm – Welcome Back meeting
Tuesday 30 April: 11-1pm – Fred: Is the mystery of thought solved by context-dependent categorisation?
Tuesday 7 May: 11-1pm – Paper discussion: Weber et al., Nature, January 2013, Discrete genetic modules are responsible for complex burrow evolution in Peromyscus mice.
Tuesday 14 May: 11-1pm – Xenia Konstantinopoulou: Language development and rehabilitation in children with focal brain lesions
Tuesday 21 May: 11-1pm – NO MEETING
Tuesday 28 May: 11-1pm – Seminar: Dr. Jo van Herwegen (University of Kingston): Interventions to improve numeracy skills in young children
Tuesday 4 June: 11-1pm – Dean D’Sousa: Data presentation
Tuesday 11 June: 11-1pm – Paper presentation: The pruning theory of schizophrenia
Tuesday 18 June: 11-1pm – Seminar: Saloni Krishnan (Birkbeck College): How noise and context affects children in naturalistic listening conditions
Tuesday 24 June: 11-1pm – Alan Richomme: Data presentation on context effects in categorisation
Tuesday 2 July: 11-1pm – Jake Alvarez: Data presentation on testing the predictions of the pruning theory of autism.

Spring 2013

Tuesday 15 January: 11-1pm – Welcome Back meeting
Tuesday 22 January: 11-1pm – Seminar: Dr. Iroise Dumontheil (Birkbeck College): Genetic effects on working memory for social information vs. standard working memory tasks
Tuesday 29 January: 11-1pm – Paper discussion: Tucker-Drob & Harden (2012) “Learning motivation mediates gene-by-socioeconomic status interaction on mathematics achievement in early childhood”
Tuesday 5 February: 11-1pm – Nick Rendell: Computational modelling of ageing effects on cognition
Tuesday 12 February: 11-1pm – Rachael Davis: Longitudinal trajectories of development in autism – predictors of outcome
Tuesday 19 February: 11-1pm – Hiwet Mariam Costa: Working memory interventions and children’s mathematical abilities
Tuesday 26 February: 11-1pm – Dr. Anna Fedor: Simulating interventions for word-finding difficulties in a computational model of children’s productive vocabulary development
Tuesday 12 March: 11-1pm – Annette: An overview of the LonDowns project – Research into Down syndrome, learning disabilities, and dementia
Tuesday 19 March: 11-1pm – Seminar: Dr. Katie Tworney (University of Liverpool): Computational modelling of syntax acquisition / Testing a dynamic neural field model of infant categorisation
Tuesday 26 March: 11-1pm – Fred: An overview of the forthcoming 5-volume set “Developmental disorders: Understanding Atypical Human Variability”

Autumn 2012

Tuesday 9 October: 11-1pm – Welcome Back meeting
Tuesday 16 October: 11-1pm – Fred: More on multi-scale population modelling of development: What can psychologists learn from genetic association analyses?
Tuesday 23 October: 11-1pm – Dominika Sieradzka: Understanding psychotic experiences in adolescence: Recent findings and future plans
Tuesday 6 November: 11-1pm – Seminar: Dr. Clare Press: What mechanisms underlie mirroring of others’ actions and how do they develop?
Tuesday 13 November: 11.30-1pm – Rachael Davis: Flexibility of the body schema in young children
Tuesday 20 November: 11.30-1pm – Fred: Cognitive neuroscience approaches to autism – Latest perspectives
Tuesday 27 November: 11.30-12.30pm – Aline Scherff: Data presentation: Autistic traits and internalising traits: Associations in adolescence
Tuesday 4 December: 11.30-1pm – Maitrei Kohli: Data presentation: Population modelling and the heritability of developed traits – Simulating evolutionary selection for domain-relevant computational properties
Wednesday 12 December: 1-2.30pm – Seminar: Dr. Julien Mayor (University of Geneva) – A computational model of unimpaired word learning and its extension to Williams syndrome
Tuesday 18 December: 11-1pm: Seminar: Dr. Victoria Knowland (City University): Sensitive periods, adult education, and the developing world

Summer 2012

Tuesday 24 April: Welcome Back meeting
Tuesday 1 May: JesÃºs Oliva: Modelling inflectional morphology across languages and across approaches
Tuesday 15 May: Seminar: Dr. Yulia Kovas (Goldsmiths, University of London): Genetics, genomics, culture, and mathematics: The latest results from twin and cross-cultural studies.
Tuesday 22 May: Dr. Harry Purser: Characterising exectuive function and working memory: no inconsiderable confusion; Saloni Krishnan: Non-word repetition – what can it tell us?
Tuesday 29 May: Seminar: Dr. Liz Pellicano (Institute of Education): Number sense in autism
Wednesday 6 June: Jubilee Discussion session: What can cross-syndrome comparisons tell us about typical development? No, really, in practise, what do they tell us?
Tuesday 12 June: Jo Camp: Parental reports of everyday executive functioning and Williams syndrome and Down syndrome: A BRIEF look at the use of standardised measures with atypical populations
Tuesday 19 June: Seminar: Prof. Barry Smith (Birkbeck): How the senses really work: The taste test
Tuesday 26 June: Hannah Broadbent: Egocentric and allocentric navigation strategies in typical development and in Williams syndrome
Tuesday 3 July: Short project presentations from the GEL lab: Kostas Papageorgiou: Genetic associations in attention; Aline Scherff: Autistic traits and internalising traits – associations in adolescence
Tuesday 10 July: Fred: Multi-level computational modelling of cognition – Modelling associations between levels of description (or ‘What can gene-behaviour associations tell us about cognitive processes?’)

Spring 2012

Tuesday 10 January: Welcome Back meeting
Tuesday 17 January: Research methods discussion paper: Bem, D. J. (2011). Feeling the Future: Experimental evidence for anomalous retroactive influences on cognition and affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100, 407-425.
Tuesday 24 January: Dr. Anna Fedor: Modelling atypical vocabulary development and interventions to alleviate word-finding difficulties.
Tuesday 31 January: Maitrei Kohli: Developing a new computational modelling framework based on behavioural genetics
Tuesday 7 February: Dr. Nick Lange: Temporal aspects of hypothesis generation
Tuesday 14 February: Seminar: Dr. Kaska Porayska-Pomsta (Institute of Education): The ECHOES project – The challenges of building educational technology for use in schools by children with autistic spectrum disorders
Tuesday 21 February: Dean D’Souza: An event-related potential investigation into speech processing in toddlers with Williams syndrome
Tuesday 28 February: Seminar: Dr. Paul Chadderton (Imperial College): In vivo, multi-cellular recording from rat auditory cortex.
Tuesday 6 March: [Note: 11.30am – 12.30pm] Fred: Behavioural regression may reveal the atypical neural mechanisms causing the autistic phenotype.
Tuesday 13 March: Dr. Michael Dash: Epistemology of early development
Tuesday 20 March: Hannah Broadbent: Williams syndrome, space and navigation
Tuesday 27 March: Seminar: Dr. Gary Morgan (City University, London): title to be confirmed

Autumn 2011

Tuesday 25 October: Welcome to new lab members and an overview of research in the DNL
Tuesday 8 November: Vicky Knowland and Themis Karaminis: Findings from thesis projects
Tuesday 13 December: Seminar: Dr. Sam Wass: Attentional training in infants

Summer 2011

Tuesday 17 May: Seminar: Prof. Yonata Levy (Hebrew University of Jerusalem): Longitudinal studies of early language development in Williams syndrome and Down syndrome

Spring 2011

Tuesday 11 January: Welcome Back meeting
Tuesday 18 January: Seminar: Dr. Torsten Baldeweg (ICH): Growing up with brain injury: Structural constraints and functional plasticity
Tuesday 25 January: Seminar: Dr. Chloe Marshall (City): Specific Language Impairment in deaf signing children
Tuesday 1 February: No meeting
Tuesday 8 February: Seminar: Dr. Odette Megnin (Cambridge): Behavioural and event-related potential studies of audiovisual integration in autistic spectrum disorder
Tuesday 15 February: Dr. Anna Fedor: Neurocomputational models of vocabulary development
Tuesday 22 February: Dr. Roberto Filippi: Behavioural and brain basis of cognitive control in bilinguals
Tuesday 1 March: No meeting
Tuesday 7 March: Seminar: Dr. Melle van der Molen (University of Amsterdam): Pre-attentive auditory discrimination in fragile X syndrome: a mismatch negativity study
Tuesday 15 March: Seminar: Dr. Courtenay Norbury (Royal Holloway): EyeSay! Investigating language production processes in typical and atypical development
Tuesday 29 March: Seminar: Dr. Tony Steffert (Educational NeuroCare): 101 Introduction to EEG Neurofeedback
Tuesday 5 April: No meeting
Tuesday 12 April: Seminar: Dr. Emily Jones (Centre for Child Health, Behaviour and Development, Seattle): Gender differences in social perception in infancy

Autumn 2010

Tuesday 26 October: Sam: Training attention with contingent video displays in 12 month olds: Results and discussion
Tuesday 2 November: Paper discussion: Williams syndrome, social skills, and language
Tuesday 9 November: Vicky Knowland: Developmental trajectories of audio-visual integration: An ERP study
Tuesday 16 November: Seminar: Dr. Chris Donlan (UCL): Linguistic correlates of children’s emergent skills in simple arithmetic: typical and atypical patterns
Tuesday 23 November: Themis Karaminis: A connectionist model of syntax production in English and Greek – capturing typical development and Specific Language Impairment
Tuesday 30 November: Seminar: Prof. Cathy Price (FIL, UCL): Functional brain imaging studies of developmental dyslexia
Tuesday 7 December: Emily Farran: Project update
Tuesday 12 December: Short project presentations (i) Jo Camp: Problem solving in typical and atypical development – A comparison of Williams syndrome, Down syndrome, and Autistic Spectrum Disorder; (ii) Hannah Broadbent: The use of virtual environments to examine route learning and the development of cognitive map knowledge in Williams syndrome; (iii) Dean D’Souza: Investigating the cascading effects of poor visual scanning on number [and social] development; (iv) Sam Wass: How to design a successful TV program for infants and toddlers

Summer 2010

Tuesday 20 April: Welcome back meeting
Tuesday 27 April: Fred: Sensitive periods in brain development: Implications for education
Tuesday 4 May: Seminar: Prof. Jay Belsky (Birkbeck): Childhood experience and the development of reproductive strategies: An evolutionary theory of socialization revisited
Tuesday 11 May: Paper discussion: Bates (2008): “Current genetic discoveries and education: Strengths, opportunities, and limitations”; Raizada & Kishiyama (2010): “Effects of socioeconomic status on brain development, and how cognitive neuroscience may contribute to levelling the playing field.”
Tuesday 18 May: Seminar: Prof. Barbara Finlay (Cornell University): Thinking outside the cortex: Social motivation in the evolution and development of language
Tuesday 25 May: Seminar: Dr. Marie Smith (Birkbeck): Inverse mapping the neuronal correlates of face categorizations
Wednesday 26 May: Special meeting: Informal discussion on Plasticity and sensitive periods in brain development, with Prof. Mark Johnson, Prof. Daphne Maurer, and Prof. Barbara Finlay. Time: 3-5pm. Venue: Liz Bates Seminar Room.
Tuesday 1 June: Seminar: Dr. Jo van Herwegen (Kings College): Novel metaphor and metonymy in Williams syndrome and typical development
Tuesday 8 June: Seminar: Sam Wass: Training attention in 12-month-old infants using adaptive video displays
Tuesday 15 June: Short data presentations: Debi Ghosh, Dean de Souza, Matthew Cranwell
Tuesday 22 June: Seminar: Dr. Michael Dash (Birkbeck): prenatal brain imaging
Tuesday 29 June: Vicky: Data presentation
Tuesday 6 July: Seminar: Dr. Luca Onnis: Some constraints on statistical language learning

Spring 2010

Tuesday 5 January: Welcome back meeting
Tuesday 12 January: Seminar: Roberto Filippi: A selective attention study with monolinguals and bilinguals
Tuesday 19 January: Seminar: Dr. Harry Purser: A comparison of synthetic brain imaging and lesioning as methods to measure functional specialisation in artificial neural networks
Tuesday 26 January: Discussion paper: Ploeger et al. (2009) Why did the savant syndrome not spread in the population? A psychiatric example of a developmental constraint
Tuesday 2 February: Seminar: Dr. Michael Dash: The origin and early development of consciousness
Tuesday 9 February: Themis Karaminis: Data presentation on: A cross-linguistic developmental model of syntax comprehension
Tuesday 16 February: Vicky Knowland: Data presentation on: Exploring the neural correlates of audio-visual integration
Tuesday 23 February: Seminar: Dr. Fiona Richardson (Institute of Neurology): Using dynamic causal modelling to investigate the cortical dynamics of multimodal brain regions in language comprehension
Tuesday 2 March: Seminar: Dr. Emma Meaburn (Birkbeck): How do genetic and environmental factors work at the biological level to influence behaviour?
Tuesday 9 March: Fred: Modelling developmental regression in autism: Possible avenues for explaining heterogeneity in the wider autism phenotype
Tuesday 16 March: Seminar: Dr. Derek Moore (East London): Assessing the impact of socio-economic status: from infant brain to social gain
Tuesday 23 March: Seminar: Prof. Mark Johnson (Birkbeck): Theories in developmental cognitive neuroscience
Tuesday 30 March: Seminar: Dr. Jo McCleery (Birmingham): Neural correlates of auditory gesture and speech processing / Neurodevelopmental basis of face and object processing in children with autism

Autumn 2009

Tuesday 22 September: Welcome back meeting
Tuesday 29 October: No meeting (PhD induction)
Tuesday 6 October: Paper discussion: Socio-economic status and cognitive development
Tuesday 13 October: Fred talk rehearsal: Neuroconstructivism and the learning brain Â– perspectives on the overlap between autism and specific language impairment
Tuesday 20 October: Alan Richomme, MSc thesis: Modelling the typical and atypical development of face recognition
Tuesday 27 October: Dr. Harry Pursuer, paper discussion: Steven HarnadÂ’s theory of categorisation
Tuesday 3 November: No meeting
Tuesday 10 November: Seminar: Dr. Fabrizio Pizzioli: ERP approaches to developmental language impairment
Tuesday 17 November: Seminar: Kerry Hudson and Susie Formby: Drawing and visual search in Williams syndrome
Tuesday 24 November: Themis Karaminis: data presentation
Thursday 26 November: Fred talk rehearsal: Mapping cognitive functions to brain regions
Tuesday 1 December: No meeting
Tuesday 8 December: Seminar: Hayley Leonard: Spatial frequency and face recognition
Tuesday 15 December: Vicky Knowland: data presentation

Summer 2009

Tuesday April 21: Welcome back, conference info, timetable
Tuesday April 28: Behavioural genetics tutorial
Tuesday May 5: Seminar: Dr. Suzy Styles (Oxford): Infant word learning
Tuesday May 12: Seminar: Prof. Denis Mareschal (Birkbeck): Bayesian modelling of development
Tuesday May 19: Paper session: Ramus & Szenkovits (2008) Â‘What phonological deficit?Â’; Wang et al. (2009), Â‘Common genetic variants on 5p14.1 associate with autism spectrum disordersÂ’
Tuesday May 26: Seminar: Dr. Dagmara Annaz: Face construction tasks in children with autism, Williams syndrome, and Downs syndrome
Tuesday June 2: Seminar: Dr. Lorna Halliday (UCL) on language disorders
Tuesday June 9: No lab meeting: Centre for Educational Neuroscience Symposium
Tuesday June 16: Seminar: Dr. Gilly Forrester (Sussex): Multi-dimensional approaches to early child communication in typical and atypical development
Tuesday June 23: Seminar: Prof. Tony Charman (Institute of Education): Language regression in autism
Tuesday June 30: Dr. Dagmara Annaz and Prof. Annette Karmiloff-Smith: Sleep abnormalities in developmental disorders
Tuesday July 7: Seminar: Dr. Emily Farran (Institute of Education): Use of virtual reality tasks to explore spatial navigation in Williams syndrome
Tuesday July 14: Fred talk rehearsal: Using trajectory analysis to explore the origins of developmental deficits

Spring 2009

Tuesday January 20th: Discussion paper: Groszer et al. (2008). Impaired synaptic plasticity and motor learning in mice with a point mutation implicated in human speech deficits. Current Biology.
Tuesday January 27th: Seminar: Dr. Emily Farran (Institute of Education): Spatial cognition in Williams syndrome
Tuesday February 3rd: Seminar: Dr. Fred Dick (Birkbeck): Cortical auditory organisation and reorganisation
Tuesday February 10th: Seminar: Sam Wass: Intervention studies in typical and atypical development
Tuesday February 17th: Seminar: Dr Rosa Hoekstra ( The Open University): Unravelling the association between autistic traits and intelligence: findings from a longitudinal twin study
Tuesday February 24th: Seminar: Dr. Harry Purser: Studies of figurative language comprehension in children with autism, specific language impairment, and pragmatic language impairment
Tuesday March 3rd: Tessa Dekker: Data presentation from fMRI study
Tuesday March 10th: Fred talk rehearsal: The origins of genius
Tuesday March 17th: Vicky Knowland: Data presentation
Tuesday March 24th: No meeting
Tuesday March 31st: Seminar: Themis Karaminis: Cross-linguistic data from Greek children with Specific Language Impairment