Congrats to Shuo Zhang (@shuoz.bsky.social) for defending her master's thesis! She discovered infants may have stable levels of social attention, a trait linked to empathy in adults. Cheers!

New ManyBabies publication! Over 10+ years and 5,000+ babies tested, we've learned a ton about how to study the developing mind. In this comment, we discuss three such lessons that are shaping the future of ManyBabies. We'd love to hear your thoughts!

What 5000 babies can tell us about developing minds and how to study them - Communications Psychology

A decade of ManyBabies research, testing thousands of babies across hundreds of labs, has shown that some, but not all findings in infant research replicate well. Collectively, these projects have sho...

doi.org

Automated Quantification of Affect Synchrony: Links to Autism Risk and Social Communication in Infancy doi.org/10.1007/s108...

New work from Alicia Vallorani's dissertation + NIH F31! 🧠🎉 Using naturalistic social interactions + fMRI, negative affect during interactions shaped subsequent mentalizing network connectivity. A great example of dynamic social processing in real-world contexts. 📄 doi.org/10.1093/scan...

Effect of social interaction negative affect on within-person mentalizing network connectivity

Abstract. Understanding others’ intentions and emotions is supported by the mentalizing network, helping people navigate the inherently complex dynamics of

doi.org

For those in the US - Take 2 min to urge Congress to reject the administration’s FY2027 budget proposal that seeks a complete dissolution of the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE) Directorate and a staggering 54% cut to the National Science Foundation: www.votervoice.net/Shares/BAAAA...

"Prenatal behavioral contagion through maternal yawning and fetal resonance" Read more in Current Biology: spkl.io/63320AAVza Giulia D’Adamo & colleagues @currentbiology.bsky.social

“The team’s research offers clear pathways to improving educational practice for children with autism, hearing loss, and other developmental challenges,” wrote psychology professor and department chair Phil McCabe, who nominated the group. news.miami.edu/stories/2026...

Our research team—Nashmia, Danita, Georgia, & Anastassia—presented some of our lab's new findings on newborn social attention development at the RCIF conference! Thanks to Arushi, Shuo, & Tiffany for their mentorship & to the families who participated. #WomenInSTEM #UMiami

Really excellent to see more attempts to model social cues like gaze using natural behaviour. For too long we've constrained variation for experimental control *but the meaning is often in the variation!* #neuroskyence elifesciences.org/articles/105...

Dynamic modulation of social gaze by sex and familiarity in marmoset dyads

A fully automated 3D tracking framework reveals that sex and familiarity strongly shape natural social gaze dynamics in freely interacting marmosets.

elifesciences.org

New 🦍 💭 paper in @psychscience.bsky.social We continue to ask simple questions that are hard to answer "Individual Differences in Great Ape Cognition Across Time and Domains: Stability, Structure, and Predictability" Bonus: Rasch models in the supplement 🤓 journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Academic friends, It's beyond heartbreaking to watch what's unfolding in Iran & the region. A few of us drafted an open letter calling for protection of civilians & of educational, research, medical & cultural institutions. Please read & sign if you agree: sites.google.com/view/protect... #IranWar

Protect Academic Life in Iran

We, the undersigned academics and researchers from around the world, express our profound concern over recent military strikes on Iran, the retaliatory responses, and the reported impact on civilian l...

sites.google.com

New paper! Had lots of fun writing this with @lauriebayet.bsky.social There is so much more to say about extrinsic and intrinsic experiences which shape infants' face perception and learning, hopefully this keeps & starts conversations about a topic we love! journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

From a Baby’s Point of View: How Infants’ Face Diets Shape Their Face Perception - Charisse B. Pickron, Laurie Bayet, 2026

Individual variations in face-perception expertise become apparent by the second year of life. We propose that infants’ “face diet”—the nature and quantity of t...

journals.sagepub.com

Cross-cultural & cross-species comparisons of mutual gaze & infant emotion: Challenging WEIRD, barren, institutional, zoo, & other rare rearing environments assumptions - by Jaddi, Kishimoto, & Bard psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/... (preprint: osf.io/preprints/ps...)

My (very) short piece on how prenatal experience with the mother's voice may rapidly scaffold the development of face perception in newborn infants is now out in @natrevpsychol.nature.com ! www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Stoked to share our new lab pub led by the amazing @normanjzeng.bsky.social ! After watching multi-party agent events, infants expect agents to preserve their moral "role" in a resource distribution task. Indiv. variability predicted by infants' social contact. www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Infants make moral character inferences in multi-agent social interactions - Communications Psychology

Using eye-gaze methods, this research investigated infants’ ability to make moral character inferences. For a wide range of moral roles, infants could use an agent’s past moral behavior to revise thei...

nature.com

Casey, @lauriebayet.bsky.social @simpson.bsky.social et al. (2026) assessed & demo'd feasibility of webcam-based, asynchronous online behavioral studies w/ 0–6wos & caregivers ➡️ findings provide a foundation for future research on neonatal mimicry of caregivers #infancypapers doi.org/10.1111/infa...

Neonatal Mimicry of Caregivers at Home: Feasibility of an Asynchronous Online Paradigm

While early life sets the stage for later learning, comparatively less is known about newborns' cognition than that of older infants. A striking example is the lack of consensus regarding the extent ...

doi.org

What can face preference in newborns tell us about their face representation? Contrasting learned familiarity with inherent bias accounts doi.org/10.1093/chid...

What can face preference in newborns tell us about their face representation? Contrasting learned familiarity with inherent bias accounts

Abstract. Possible mechanisms behind newborn face preferences are debated, including innate templates, top-heavy bias, focus on eyes, and rapid learning ex

doi.org

Evidence for representation of pretend objects by Kanzi, a language-trained bonobo

Ching-Lung Hsu@hiallen72.bsky.social · 6mo ago

doi.org/10.1126/scie...

A lovely read about researchers who make animals happy for a living 😊 A day spent playing the sounds of baby bonobo laughter is surely a day well spent www.sciencenews.org/article/scie...

Animals experience joy. Scientists want to measure it

Scientists have long focused on quantifying fear and other negative emotions in animals. Now they’re trying to measure positive feelings — and it’s a challenge.

sciencenews.org

1/7 Can infants recognise the world around them? 👶🧠 As part of the FOUNDCOG project, we scanned 134 awake infants using fMRI. Published today in Nature Neuroscience, our research reveals 2-month-old infants already possess complex visual representations in VVC that align with DNNs.

Neonatal mimicry of caregivers at home: Feasibility of an asynchronous online paradigm #OpenAccess by @lauriebayet.bsky.social & team! doi.org/10.1111/infa...

Neonatal Mimicry of Caregivers at Home: Feasibility of an Asynchronous Online Paradigm

While early life sets the stage for later learning, comparatively less is known about newborns' cognition than that of older infants. A striking example is the lack of consensus regarding the extent ...

doi.org

NATURE has done a terrific (if depressing) job of summarizing the devastating cuts to science during Trump's first year. At this point, only the willingness of the House and Senate to restore research budgets prevents scientific extinction. www.nature.com/immersive/d4...

US science after a year of Trump: what has been lost and what remains

A series of graphics reveals how the Trump administration has sought historic cuts to science and the research workforce.

nature.com

Male and female empathy across 24 countries and 60 latitudinal degrees #OpenAccess doi.org/10.1016/j.pa...

Impact of Surgical Masks on Newborns' Spontaneous Face Processing Skills doi.org/10.1111/infa...

Check out our new paper on the #development of #gaze-following in wild #chimpanzees, led by @kris-sabbi.bsky.social, @zeppypearl.bsky.social, & Isabelle Monroe! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

2025 sucked. In 2026, we are taking back our science! We are excited to launch our Substack: The Science Fight Club. Read our first post, written by @cdelawalla.bsky.social, a review of 2025, a preview of 2026, and a big call to action. open.substack.com/pub/sciencef...

There’s a fantastic developmental science resource called Children Helping Science, at MIT (childrenhelpingscience.com). Researchers run child studies online, Parents sign up & participate with their kids. CHS got an offer from an anonymous donor: matching gifts up to $100K through December!

Congrats, Dr. @tiffany6390.bsky.social! 👏 news.miami.edu/stories/2025...

Big ideas in 180 seconds

The 10th Annual Three Minute Thesis Competition showcased graduate students across the University of Miami presenting research in fields ranging from medicine and computer engineering to literature an...

news.miami.edu

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:/...