Liz Simpson
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simpson.bsky.social
Liz Simpson
@simpson.bsky.social
2.9K followers 2.4K following 67 posts
Associate professor of psychology at the University of Miami. Developmental science, infant social behavior. She/her
Director of @soccoglab.bsky.social
ManyBabies6 - Neonatal imitation: https://manybabies.org/MB6/
Posts Replies Media Videos
simpson.bsky.social
Individual differences in sick face sensitivity: females are more sensitive to lassitude facial expressions than males - @tiffany6390.bsky.social

Free for the next 50 days: urldefense.com/v3/__https:/...
November 12, 2025 at 11:27 AM
simpson.bsky.social
Stage 2 report now out! Newborn Auditory Brainstem Response and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome doi.org/10.1002/jnr.... #OpenAccess
Drawing of an infant getting an ABR screening, and two different waveforms shown, one for typical and one for infants later dying of SIDS, pointing towards early detection risk identification and potential intervention, showing a baby sleeping.
November 7, 2025 at 2:14 PM
simpson.bsky.social
Rethinking the study of newborn sociality: Challenges and opportunities. #devpsy Free link until Nov 7th:
kwnsfk27.r.eu-west-1.awstrack.me/L0/https:%2F...
Face to face newborn and woman both with open mouth smiles and eye contact.
September 18, 2025 at 10:33 AM
simpson.bsky.social
Want to learn more? Join us this Sept for a PhD application info session! Interact with faculty & current graduate students! Details will be posted by @umiamipsych.bsky.social when they're available. Meanwhile, please share our Developmental PhD Program brochure: dev.psy.miami.edu/2025-develop...
Developmental faculty smiling and putting their arms around each other laughing Smiling grad students with their arms around each other outside
July 4, 2025 at 3:30 PM
simpson.bsky.social
I study social cognitive development in infants, children, & primates, focusing on face perception, social interaction, & positive emotions. Recruiting a student to study individual differences in newborn sociality. My lab: @soccoglab.bsky.social people.miami.edu/profile/c5b4... (thread 9/10)
Neonatal imitation - newborn baby face to face with an adult and they are both poking out their tongues Eye tracking - side views of two parents holding their babies while the babies look at a screen showing videos of people interacting and various pictures to see what babies pay attention to. It shows highlighted parts around the eye region, showing babies are making eye contact. Smiling lab group photo making U with hands
July 4, 2025 at 3:30 PM
simpson.bsky.social
Dr. Rebecca Shearer conducts community-based research with early childhood programs to promote social-emotional skills, school readiness, & early school achievement through classroom-level investigation & intervention. people.miami.edu/profile/rshe... (thread 8/10)
group photo of lab smiling outside classroom of children sitting on the floor and a few are holding up their hands Text says: Developing holistic kindergarten readiness measurements - The Miami-Dade IDEAS Consortium for Children, housed at the University of Miami, is partnering with the local school district to comprehensively assess school readiness. Picture of a little girl holding an adult's hand as they walk away. Small headshot of Dr. Shearer.
July 4, 2025 at 3:30 PM
simpson.bsky.social
Dr. @lynnkperry.bsky.social studies linguistic regularities (shape bias) & social regularities (peer interactions), language dev in kids w/ lang delays, hearing loss, & ASD. Recruiting students to study interaction in lang/literacy dev w/ hearing loss. people.miami.edu/profile/lkp3... (thread 7/10)
smiling group photo outside in front of a tree with flowers little girl wearing a head camera and playing with toys child reading a book
July 4, 2025 at 3:30 PM
simpson.bsky.social
Dr. dmessinger.bsky.social studies early interaction of healthy & disturbed dev. Uses objective measures, big behavioral data. Focuses on emotional, social, & language dev in poverty & autism. Recruiting students to study interactions in preschools. people.miami.edu/profile/dmes... (thread 6/10)
man on floor with child playing with blocks smiling group photo outside in front of big tree and lots of greenery sample side from research - modeling objectively measured behavior to understand interaction --> development with various graphs and a picture of a smiling baby and smiling mother
July 4, 2025 at 3:30 PM
simpson.bsky.social
Dr. Daryl Greenfield's community-based partnership research is on early science & engineering to improve multiple areas of learning & development in children from birth through 8 years of age, including language, literacy, & executive functions. people.miami.edu/profile/dgre... (thread 5/10)
Early Science Initiate logo - unleashing the power of sicenc in early childhood. Picture of a group of children learning about plants and talking to a teacher. Example of a stimulus material that shows a robot and an engaging science question for children photo collage of Dr. Greenfield and his team wearing matching cartoon robot shirts - says "how science club helps children and teachers learn"
July 4, 2025 at 3:30 PM
simpson.bsky.social
Dr. Britton, affective neuroscientist. Intersection of emotion (approach-avoidance, threat processing, valence flexibility, empathy) & executive funct (flexibility, response inhibition, working mem) related to anxiety. Psychophys, virtual reality, fMRI. people.miami.edu/profile/j.br... (thread 4/10)
BRAIN group: Briding Research on Anxiety Innovations and Neuroscienc Group - lab logo, child smiling and holding out his hand with cartoon brain lightbulbs hanging down chalk board showing sad face and an arrow pointing to a happy face with a hand holding chalk large group photo of students and faculty holding up the U shape with their hands and smiling
July 4, 2025 at 3:30 PM
simpson.bsky.social
...& children from diverse ethnic & cultural backgrounds. Our outstanding faculty are committed to graduate training & mentorship. Applications are due Dec 1st. The following faculty are accepting new PhD students... dev.psy.miami.edu/research/ind... (thread 3/10)
photo collage showing children with EEG, writing, interacting and various settings with diverse infants and children
July 4, 2025 at 3:30 PM
simpson.bsky.social
...in academia & beyond. Our program focuses on understanding children’s cognitive, language, social, & emotional development in typically-developing, atypically-developing, & at-risk populations. Our dev studies typically include bilingual children... dev.psy.miami.edu/graduate-tra... (thread 2/10)
photo collage showing graduation pictures, lab field trip on boats in the ocean, students smiling, student holding up thesis paper, infant and child research settings showing babies and kids smiling
July 4, 2025 at 3:30 PM
simpson.bsky.social
Join us! The Developmental Psychology Doctoral Program at the University of Miami (dev.psy.miami.edu) invites applications for fall 2026. Students are fully funded & receive excellent research training for careers... #DevSci #DevPsy #PsycSciSky #AcademicSky #PhDLife #GradSchool #UMiami (thread 1/10)
sunrise over a beach with palm trees and plants showing a path leading to the ocean with a colorful sky
July 4, 2025 at 3:30 PM
simpson.bsky.social
Approach avoidance responses to facial expressions in young children: A study using a dance pad - by Ikeda doi.org/10.1016/j.co...
Dance pad used in the experiment. Shows different places where child can step on arrows pointing in each direction. Schematic of the experimental environment showing a child looking at a screen while standing on the dance pad.
May 8, 2025 at 2:54 PM
simpson.bsky.social
Maternal care predicts facial expression processing in macaques #OpenAccess by O’Callaghan, Whitehouse, Paukner, Witham, & @bridgetwaller.bsky.social doi.org/10.1016/j.is...
3 experiments with monkey facial expressions: attention bias to facial expressions, attention bias to different intensities of threat expressions, and violation of expected sequence of facial expressions.
March 26, 2025 at 11:52 AM
simpson.bsky.social
A happy face advantage for pareidolic faces in children and adults doi.org/10.1016/j.je...
Happy and angry human and pareidolic faces (objects that look like faces) including a happy cup of coffee and angry loaf of bread.
November 27, 2024 at 11:55 AM
simpson.bsky.social
Follow my grad students, @tiffany6390.bsky.social & @shuoz.bsky.social for research on developmental science, face perception, individual differences, & social interaction. #Psychology #SocialCognition #Infancy
7 students smiling & making U with their hands for the University of Miami, outside with palm trees in background.
November 15, 2024 at 1:21 PM
simpson.bsky.social
Maternal distress increased as infants aged for mothers with more than one child, but not for first-time mothers whose distress levels remained low & stable across this period. Stress related to mother-infant dysfunctional interactions lessened over the first 8 months.
The top graph depicts the means of the parenting stress domain scores over time (months) after birth. The Maternal Distress subscale score is represented by the dotted, red line, which increases with age. The Mother-Infant Dysfunctional Interaction subscale score is represented by the solid green line, which decreases with age. The Difficult Infant subscale score is represented by the dashed purple line, which initially decreased then increases with age. Model predicted values across the first year postpartum. A second graph shows Maternal Distress and Parity interaction, blue dashed line represents mothers with more than one child, and red solid line represents first-time mothers. First time mothers had low & stable stress with age, whereas mothers with multiple children showed increased stress with age. A third graph shows Mother-Infant Dysfunctional Interaction and a fourth graph shows Difficult Infant. They both start high then decrease then go back up, forming V shaped curves.
November 3, 2023 at 7:04 PM
simpson.bsky.social
Fun! Here’s mine.
Word cloud made from pubmed abstracts with the largest words being: faces, human, social, infants, may. Medium size: early, attention, development, differences, imitation. Smaller words: newborns, macaques, touch, oxytocin, interactions.
September 24, 2023 at 12:16 PM
simpson.bsky.social
ManyBabies6 - Neonatal imitation - Study design meeting - all are welcome! Oct 5th (6pm, EST)/October 6th (8am, AEST): stanford.zoom.us/j/9448251163...

Project update video (5 min):
drive.google.com/file/d/1m0QX...

tldr: Need to decide what stimuli to use

Survey: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
Screenshots from a video showing a neonatal imitation test from 3 babies, who are all appearing to imitate an adults' finger movements. Published by Nagy et al., 2014. The babies are laying in an infant seat. In the first, an adult holds up one index finger on their left hand and in the next panel a newborn holds up one index finger on their left hand. An adult holds up two fingers on their right hand, making a peace sign, and then the newborn holds up two fingers on their right hand. An adult holds up 3 fingers on the right hand (thumb, index, and middle fingers) and the infant matches this too.
September 21, 2023 at 9:16 PM
simpson.bsky.social
Are you interested in applying to the University of Miami Psychology Ph.D. Programs? Join us and interact with faculty and current graduate students!

Info Session:
Sept 28th 7-8:30 PM EST

Zoom: bit.ly/umpsy-phd-zoom

How to apply to our programs:
www.psy.miami.edu/graduate/how-to-apply
September 21, 2023 at 5:49 PM
simpson.bsky.social
Our department is hiring!
'23-'24 Psychology Faculty Hire for the Cognitive & Behavioral Neuroscience Division
Arts & Sciences – Psychology Department umiami.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/UMFacu...
We’re hiring! Assistant to associate professor. cognitive & behavioral neuroscience division. The department of psychology at the University of Miami invites applicants for a full-time, tenure eligible, or tenure- track faculty member to join our department’s cognitive & behavioral neuroscience division in August 2024. The specific area is open, but we are particularly interested in individuals who incorporate innovative & sophisticated cognitive, affective, or social neuroscience methods into the research program. Candidates must hold a PhD (nonclinical or clinical) by the appointment start date. Pictures of MRI facilities, campus with palm trees & lake. Website: www. cbn.psy.miami.edu
September 14, 2023 at 6:34 PM
simpson.bsky.social
Dr. Guangyu Zeng graduated from our psyc PhD program in May & now works as an assistant professor of developmental psychology at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, directing an infant research lab! Congrats, Zeng! #CaneGrad https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=wwkuG-YAAAAJ&hl=en
August 14, 2023 at 10:20 PM