Dr. Sobana Wijeakumar

Avalanches of choice: How stranger-to-stranger interactions shape crowd dynamics | PNAS Pedestrian routing choices play a crucial role in shaping collective crowd dynamics, yet the influence of interactions among unfamiliar individuals...

Very cool paper relevant to social imitation www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

The Developmental and Brain Sciences program at UMass Boston is looking for a half-time Program Coordinator. This colleague will be working directly with me (the Director of the program). Feel free to DM me with any questions! employmentopportunities.umb.edu/boston/en-us...

It’s out!

2 x full-time teaching associate roles in psychology at the University of Nottingham.

One role is for a fixed-term contract for 18 months from 1 April 2026 and the second role is for a fixed-term contract ending on 31st July 2027.

jobs.nottingham.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx...

The deadline for this fully-funded PhD studentship with me and @alexhendry.bsky.social
is tomorrow (18th Feb). Apply if you are interested in improving executive functions in children from neurotypical and neurodiverse families.

Sharing a fantastic paper using Miro-E I was lucky to be involved in. Led by the amazing Nikhil Deshpande, Aly Magassouba and others at @uoncompsci.bsky.social @notts-psych.bsky.social. A Multimodal Adaptive Framework for Social Interaction with the MiRo-E Robot mdpi.com/3727124 #mdpisensors

Only one week left to apply for this ESRC PhD studentship with me and @alexhendry.bsky.social. If you are interested in how to improve executive functions through caregiver-child play interactions in neurotypical and neurodiverse families, consider applying!

Feasibility and acceptability of a parent‐toddler programme to support the development of executive functions in children at elevated likelihood of autism or ADHD: Pilot findings This study reports feasibility, fidelity and acceptability of a pilot of START; a 12-week parent-toddler, group-based, neurodiversity-affirming programme aiming to support executive function developm...

START – a new programme supporting toddlers at elevated likelihood of autism or ADHD – shows promising findings tinyurl.com/5n92yuzy
 
#DevPsyc #devsky #devsci #AutRes

Two weeks till the deadline for this fully funded ESRC DTP studentship with me and @alexhendry.bsky.social looking at play interactions and executive functions in neurotypical and neurodiverse families. Please share!

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Awake Infants: Insights From More Than 750 Scanning Sessions Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in awake infants has the potential to reveal how the early developing brain gives rise to cognition and behavior. However, awake infant fMRI poses signifi...

Congratulations to @lillianbehm.bsky.social, Nick Turk-Browne, and a huge team for putting together this paper (out today) on lessons from a decade of attempts to study awake infants with fMRI:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Apply now for a PhD in our school with @drswijeakumar.bsky.social and
@alexhendry.bsky.social 👇

Three weeks until the deadline for the fully funded ESRC DTP position with me @notts-psych.bsky.social and @alexhendry.bsky.social. Please share with colleagues and interested students.

@notts-psych.bsky.social

@mgsesrcdtp.bsky.social, can you please share widely?

ESRC DTP Strategic Joint Studentship: Adopting a Research-Informed Approach to Develop Play Interactions to Improve Executive Functions in Neurotypical and Neurodiverse Families. at Midlands Graduate ... Find a ESRC DTP Strategic Joint Studentship: Adopting a Research-Informed Approach to Develop Play Interactions to Improve Executive Functions in Neurotypical and Neurodiverse Families. on jobs.ac.uk,...

Funded ESRC DTP Strategic joint PhD studentship with me at @notts-psych.bsky.social and @alexhendry.bsky.social on play interactions to improve executive functions. Application details in the link. Deadline: 18th Feb. Please share widely with interested students!
www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DQE738/e...

Thank you to Dr. Schwarzlose for contributing the fantastic review article "Infant sensory gating and a developmental cascade to autistic traits and anxiety" this year 🤩 #ACNP2026

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Feeding gut microbes to nourish the brain: unravelling the diet–microbiota–gut–brain axis - Nature Metabolism This Review provides an overview of the interplay between host diet and the gut microbiota, and how this affects brain function.

#Throwback 🧪

REVIEW | Feeding gut microbes to nourish the brain: unravelling the diet–microbiota–gut–brain axis

@elizschneider.bsky.social‬, ‪@jfcryan.bsky.social et al

Vocalisations are coupled with movement of all limbs throughout infancy - Scientific Reports Scientific Reports - Vocalisations are coupled with movement of all limbs throughout infancy

Full ref:
Duda-Goławska, J., Laudańska, Z., et al. Vocalisations are coupled with movement of all limbs throughout infancy. Sci Rep 15, 44899 (2025). doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Very nice work!

New paper alert from BabylabPAN

Spontaneous speech-like vocalisations of infants are coupled with increased arm and leg movements. Across most of the first year (4-12 mo) the onset of a vocalisation is coupled with a brief limb movements. A🧵below

OA text: rdcu.be/eWOko

Funding @ncn.gov.pl

December:

Early and later susceptibility to effects of parenting: Exploring Frankenhuis and Panchanathan’s (2011) evolutionary commitment hypothesis.

doi.org/10.1037/dev0...

Alpha power indexes working memory load for durations Biological sciences; Neuroscience; Cognitive neuroscience

Alpha power indexes working memory load for durations
www.cell.com/iscience/ful...
#neuroscience

Just published! ✨ Across 15+ timepoints, we found that unpredictability in economic hardship – not only severity – shapes young children’s self-regulation. Understanding these dynamics can help us design supports that promote stability and adaptive development. 👉 bit.ly/4oIZO75

Applying a Transformer-based machine-learning model to classify caregiver and infant behaviours during dyadic interactions Multimodal caregiver-infant interactions have both concurrent and long-term impacts on child attention, cognitive and social skills. These behaviours …

‼️New paper‼️Alex Turner, Aly Magassouba and I applied a transformer-based ML network to capture caregiver-infant behaviors during play. Performance metrics differ based on data partition - with drop when tested on unseen dyads! @notts-psych.bsky.social
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

This is now out in Cerebral Cortex.

Open Access: academic.oup.com/cercor/artic...

@antoniahamilton.bsky.social @gabriellavigliocco.bsky.social Uzair Hakim @paola182.bsky.social Danny Thompkings @fdi55.bsky.social

@aimeetheyer.bsky.social @davidsonchri.bsky.social @notts-psych.bsky.social

Caregiver-infant behaviours during multi-component object play are associated with infant visual working memory Through play interactions, caregivers play a significant role in shaping children’s early cognitive development. The over-arching objective of this cr…

New paper from our work on Project NeuroSync published in Infant and Behavior Development. The interaction between caregiver scaffolding and infant object engagement is associated with better visual working memory in 6-to-10-month-old infants.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Certificate of Athena Swan Gold from AdvanceHE

Absolutely delighted to learn today that @notts-psych.bsky.social has been awarded #AthenaSwan GOLD by @advancehe.bsky.social.

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.

Stage 2 report now out! Newborn Auditory Brainstem Response and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome doi.org/10.1002/jnr.... #OpenAccess

Nice work!