Violation of expectation (VOE) paradigms are key to understanding infants’ early knowledge. In VOE paradigms, infants are presented sequences of events either according with or violating regularities ...

Research into dyadic social interactions has expanded significantly, enabling a deeper understanding of the dynamic processes underlying interpersonal communication. As the use of larger datasets becomes increasingly common in this field, the need for scalable and efficient analytical tools has grown. Automated coding methods, such as those provided by OpenPose, an open-source software for detecting and tracking human motion, offer significant advantages for analysing the movement of two individuals during an interaction. However, the processing and analysis of large quantities of JSON output files generated by OpenPose remain a considerable challenge. To address this, we introduce duet, an R package designed to streamline the processing and analysis of OpenPose output data, particularly in the context of dyadic interactions. The package provides a suite of functions for data cleaning, interpolation, kinematic analysis, and visualisation, offering researchers a comprehensive and user-friendly workflow. By simplifying the handling of OpenPose data, duet aims to facilitate large-scale, automated analysis of dyadic social interactions, with minimal coding experience, thereby advancing methodological capabilities in social and behavioural sciences.

Faculty Position:         Tenure Track Assistant Professor of Developmental Psychology

New research sheds light on how fatherhood affects the brain. First-time dads showed stronger neural responses to their own babies—especially in areas linked to social and emotional processing—compared to unfamiliar infants or partners. These responses also tracked with bonding and stress.

Caregivers across many cultures modify their speech when interacting with infants or young children. This type of speech, commonly known as “parentese”, is characterized by greater pitch variations, ...

Eighty 4- and 5-year-olds and their parents were randomly assigned to a spatial or narrative activity condition. For a month, parents engaged their children in these activities and learned about the ...

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Research on the COVID-19 pandemic's effect on infant emotional development has produced mixed results, often limited by methodological constraints, such as not having access to data prior to and afte....