Sam Wa
Biographic Data
| ID | 4599433 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Sam Wa |
| GIVEN NAMES | Sam |
| FAMILY NAME | Wa |
| SIGNATURE | WA S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of East London |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7421-3493 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 17 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Assessing the effect of object locations on word learning during naturalistic adult–child interactions
The aim of this study was to assess previously observed relationships between object locations and early word learning within an ecologically valid design. Adults labeled objects during openly structured interactions with their child. Fine-grained distributions of object locations were determined by a convolutional neural network. However, an analysis of the distributions of these locations during the interactions revealed that none of the spatia…
Influence of a Short-Term Attention Intervention on the Attentional Skills of Toddlers With Suspected or Confirmed Autism Spectrum Disorder
Examination of the effectiveness of an attention intervention using a randomized controlled trial for toddlers with suspected or confirmed autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Data was collected from Alberta, Ontario, and Nova Scotia, Canada between February 2018 and February 2020 (halted due to COVID-19 pandemic). Participants were 35 toddlers randomized to the attention condition (age at start: 25.49 + 3.91 months; 29 boys; mother’s ethnicity: 65% w…
Needing to shout to be heard? Caregiver under-responsivity and disconnection between vocal signaling and autonomic arousal in infants from chaotic households
Children raised in chaotic households show affect dysregulation during later childhood. To understand why, we took day-long home recordings using microphones and autonomic monitors from 74 12-month-old infant–caregiver dyads (40% male, 60% white, data collected between 2018 and 2021). Caregivers in low-Confusion Hubbub And Order Scale (chaos) households responded to negative affect infant vocalizations by changing their own arousal and vocalizing…
Who Leads and Who Follows? The Pathways to Joint Attention During Free-Flowing Interactions Change Over Developmental Time
Joint attention (JA) has been found to correlate with many developmental outcomes. However, little is known about how naturalistic JA is established and develops during early infancy. In this study, free-flowing tabletop toy play between infants at 5 and 15 months and their mothers (N = 48 dyads; 65% white) was observed to (1) examine changes in JA, (2) investigate whether infants become better leaders or followers of JA, and (3) explore the role…
Annual Research Review
During development we transition from coregulation (where regulatory processes are shared between child and caregiver) to self‐regulation. Most early coregulatory interactions aim to manage fluctuations in the infant's arousal and alertness; but over time, coregulatory processes become progressively elaborated to encompass other functions such as sociocommunicative development, attention and executive control. The fundamental aim of coregulation …
Understanding allostasis
Optimal performance lies at intermediate autonomic arousal, but no previous research has examined whether the emergence of endogenous control associates with changes in children's up-regulation from hypo-arousal, as well as down-regulation from hyper-arousal. We used wearables to take day-long recordings from N = 58, 12-month-olds (60% white/58% female); and, in the same infants, we measured self-regulation in the lab with a still-face paradigm. …
Learning to imitate facial expressions through sound
The question of how young infants learn to imitate others’ facial expressions has been central in developmental psychology for decades. Facial imitation has been argued to constitute a particularly challenging learning task for infants because facial expressions are perceptually opaque: infants cannot see changes in their own facial configuration when they execute a motor program, so how do they learn to match these gestures with those of their i…
Bidirectional Mechanisms rather than Alternatives
The origins of effortful control
Physiological stress, sustained attention, emotion regulation, and cognitive engagement in 12-month-old infants from urban environments
Over the last 2 centuries there has been a rapid increase in the proportion of children who grow up in cities. However, relatively little work has explored in detail the physiological and cognitive pathways through which city life may affect early development. To assess this, we observed a cohort of infants growing up in diverse settings across South East England across a 2-day assessment battery. On Visit 1, day-long home recordings were made to…
Future preferences and prospection of future of outcomes
INTRODUCTION: Symptoms of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and conduct problems have been associated with heightened temporal discounting of reward value resulting in a preference for immediate over delayed outcomes. We examined the cross-sectional relationship between future preference (including intertemporal choice) and prospection (the ability to bring to mind and imagine the experience of future personally-relevant events and …
Increases in Arousal are More Long‐Lasting than Decreases in Arousal
In emotion regulation, negative or undesired emotions are downregulated, but there are also opponent processes to emotion regulation—in which undesired emotions are exacerbated dynamically over time by processes that have an amplifying or upregulating impact. Evidence for such processes has been shown in adults, but little previous work has examined whether infants show similar patterns. To examine this, we measured physiological arousal in 57 ty…
New meanings of thin-skinned
Previous research is inconsistent as to whether a more labile (faster-changing) autonomic system confers performance advantages, or disadvantages, in infants and children. To examine this, we presented a stimulus battery consisting of mixed static and dynamic viewing materials to a cohort of 63 typical 12-month-old infants. While viewing the battery, infants' spontaneous visual attention (looks to and away from the screen) was measured. Concurren…
Changes in behavior and salivary cortisol after targeted cognitive training in typical 12-month-old infants
Previous research has suggested that early development may be an optimal period to implement cognitive training interventions, particularly those relating to attention control, a basic ability that is essential for the development of other cognitive skills. In the present study, we administered gaze-contingent training (95 min across 2 weeks) targeted at voluntary attention control to a cohort of typical 12-month-old children (N = 24) and sham tr…
Individual Differences in Infant Oculomotor Behavior During the Viewing of Complex Naturalistic Scenes
Little research hitherto has examined how individual differences in attention, as assessed using standard experimental paradigms, relate to individual differences in how attention is spontaneously allocated in more naturalistic contexts. Here, we analyzed the time intervals between refoveating eye movements (fixation durations) while typically developing 11‐month‐old infants viewed a 90‐min battery ranging from complex dynamic to noncomplex stati…
Robustness and Precision
In recent years, eye‐tracking has become a popular method for drawing conclusions about infant cognition. Relatively little attention has been paid, however, to methodological issues associated with infant eye‐tracking. Here, we consider the possibility that systematic differences in the quality of raw eye‐tracking data obtained from different populations and individuals might create the impression of differences in gaze behavior, without this ac…
Training attentional control and working memory – Is younger, better
Authors have argued that various forms of interventions may be more effective in younger children. Is cognitive training also more effective, the earlier the training is applied? We review evidence suggesting that functional neural networks, including those subserving attentional control, may be more unspecialised and undifferentiated earlier in development. We also discuss evidence suggesting that certain skills such as attentional control may b…
Changes in behavior and salivary cortisol after targeted cognitive training in typical 12-month-old infants
Previous research has suggested that early development may be an optimal period to implement cognitive training interventions, particularly those relating to attention control, a basic ability that is essential for the development of other cognitive skills. In the present study, we administered gaze-contingent training (95 min across 2 weeks) targeted at voluntary attention control to a cohort of typical 12-month-old children (N = 24) and sham tr…
Training attentional control and working memory – Is younger, better
Authors have argued that various forms of interventions may be more effective in younger children. Is cognitive training also more effective, the earlier the training is applied? We review evidence suggesting that functional neural networks, including those subserving attentional control, may be more unspecialised and undifferentiated earlier in development. We also discuss evidence suggesting that certain skills such as attentional control may b…
Individual Differences in Infant Oculomotor Behavior During the Viewing of Complex Naturalistic Scenes
Little research hitherto has examined how individual differences in attention, as assessed using standard experimental paradigms, relate to individual differences in how attention is spontaneously allocated in more naturalistic contexts. Here, we analyzed the time intervals between refoveating eye movements (fixation durations) while typically developing 11‐month‐old infants viewed a 90‐min battery ranging from complex dynamic to noncomplex stati…
Robustness and Precision
In recent years, eye‐tracking has become a popular method for drawing conclusions about infant cognition. Relatively little attention has been paid, however, to methodological issues associated with infant eye‐tracking. Here, we consider the possibility that systematic differences in the quality of raw eye‐tracking data obtained from different populations and individuals might create the impression of differences in gaze behavior, without this ac…
Changes in behavior and salivary cortisol after targeted cognitive training in typical 12-month-old infants
Previous research has suggested that early development may be an optimal period to implement cognitive training interventions, particularly those relating to attention control, a basic ability that is essential for the development of other cognitive skills. In the present study, we administered gaze-contingent training (95 min across 2 weeks) targeted at voluntary attention control to a cohort of typical 12-month-old children (N = 24) and sham tr…
Increases in Arousal are More Long‐Lasting than Decreases in Arousal
In emotion regulation, negative or undesired emotions are downregulated, but there are also opponent processes to emotion regulation—in which undesired emotions are exacerbated dynamically over time by processes that have an amplifying or upregulating impact. Evidence for such processes has been shown in adults, but little previous work has examined whether infants show similar patterns. To examine this, we measured physiological arousal in 57 ty…
New meanings of thin-skinned
Previous research is inconsistent as to whether a more labile (faster-changing) autonomic system confers performance advantages, or disadvantages, in infants and children. To examine this, we presented a stimulus battery consisting of mixed static and dynamic viewing materials to a cohort of 63 typical 12-month-old infants. While viewing the battery, infants' spontaneous visual attention (looks to and away from the screen) was measured. Concurren…
Future preferences and prospection of future of outcomes
INTRODUCTION: Symptoms of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and conduct problems have been associated with heightened temporal discounting of reward value resulting in a preference for immediate over delayed outcomes. We examined the cross-sectional relationship between future preference (including intertemporal choice) and prospection (the ability to bring to mind and imagine the experience of future personally-relevant events and …
Bidirectional Mechanisms rather than Alternatives
The origins of effortful control
Physiological stress, sustained attention, emotion regulation, and cognitive engagement in 12-month-old infants from urban environments
Over the last 2 centuries there has been a rapid increase in the proportion of children who grow up in cities. However, relatively little work has explored in detail the physiological and cognitive pathways through which city life may affect early development. To assess this, we observed a cohort of infants growing up in diverse settings across South East England across a 2-day assessment battery. On Visit 1, day-long home recordings were made to…
Annual Research Review
During development we transition from coregulation (where regulatory processes are shared between child and caregiver) to self‐regulation. Most early coregulatory interactions aim to manage fluctuations in the infant's arousal and alertness; but over time, coregulatory processes become progressively elaborated to encompass other functions such as sociocommunicative development, attention and executive control. The fundamental aim of coregulation …
Understanding allostasis
Optimal performance lies at intermediate autonomic arousal, but no previous research has examined whether the emergence of endogenous control associates with changes in children's up-regulation from hypo-arousal, as well as down-regulation from hyper-arousal. We used wearables to take day-long recordings from N = 58, 12-month-olds (60% white/58% female); and, in the same infants, we measured self-regulation in the lab with a still-face paradigm. …
Learning to imitate facial expressions through sound
The question of how young infants learn to imitate others’ facial expressions has been central in developmental psychology for decades. Facial imitation has been argued to constitute a particularly challenging learning task for infants because facial expressions are perceptually opaque: infants cannot see changes in their own facial configuration when they execute a motor program, so how do they learn to match these gestures with those of their i…
Influence of a Short-Term Attention Intervention on the Attentional Skills of Toddlers With Suspected or Confirmed Autism Spectrum Disorder
Examination of the effectiveness of an attention intervention using a randomized controlled trial for toddlers with suspected or confirmed autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Data was collected from Alberta, Ontario, and Nova Scotia, Canada between February 2018 and February 2020 (halted due to COVID-19 pandemic). Participants were 35 toddlers randomized to the attention condition (age at start: 25.49 + 3.91 months; 29 boys; mother’s ethnicity: 65% w…
Needing to shout to be heard? Caregiver under-responsivity and disconnection between vocal signaling and autonomic arousal in infants from chaotic households
Children raised in chaotic households show affect dysregulation during later childhood. To understand why, we took day-long home recordings using microphones and autonomic monitors from 74 12-month-old infant–caregiver dyads (40% male, 60% white, data collected between 2018 and 2021). Caregivers in low-Confusion Hubbub And Order Scale (chaos) households responded to negative affect infant vocalizations by changing their own arousal and vocalizing…
Who Leads and Who Follows? The Pathways to Joint Attention During Free-Flowing Interactions Change Over Developmental Time
Joint attention (JA) has been found to correlate with many developmental outcomes. However, little is known about how naturalistic JA is established and develops during early infancy. In this study, free-flowing tabletop toy play between infants at 5 and 15 months and their mothers (N = 48 dyads; 65% white) was observed to (1) examine changes in JA, (2) investigate whether infants become better leaders or followers of JA, and (3) explore the role…
Assessing the effect of object locations on word learning during naturalistic adult–child interactions
The aim of this study was to assess previously observed relationships between object locations and early word learning within an ecologically valid design. Adults labeled objects during openly structured interactions with their child. Fine-grained distributions of object locations were determined by a convolutional neural network. However, an analysis of the distributions of these locations during the interactions revealed that none of the spatia…
Psychology (16 works) · Developmental psychology (14 works) · Cognitive psychology (11 works) · Neuroscience (10 works) · Arousal (7 works) · Child and Animal Learning Development (7 works) · Cognition (7 works) · Medicine (7 works) · Attentional control (5 works) · Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development (5 works)