Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development
School of Psychology, Birkbeck, University of London
Malet Street, London, WC1E 7HX
Phone: +44 (0)20 7079 6258
Fax: +44 (0)20 7631 6587
Research interests
I research the development of attention during infancy, in particular infants' capacity to control what they pay attention to and what they ignore. Research suggests that differences in attentional control abilities emerge early in development and that these differences can predict subsequent learning in academic settings (eg). Early impairments in attentional control may also causally disrupt learning in a number of disorder and at-risk groups (eg, eg). I have been developing gaze-contingent computer paradigms for infants aimed at training attentional control in typically developing as well as high-risk infants. Current and future collaborations using these training paradigms include with the University of East London, the Institute of Psychiatry (London) and Tampere University (Finland), in projects funded by the MRC, NIHR and Nuffield Foundation. Populations being targeted include infants born pre-term, infants from low socio-economic status backgrounds and infants at familial risk of ADHD.
I work with a number of other collaborators, including Tim Smith at Birkbeck (on fixation parsing and infants' spontaneous viewing tendencies during the free viewing of naturalistic scenes), Michael Murias and Emily Jones at the University of Washington, Seattle, Gaia Scerif at Oxford and the ECHOES team. I also contribute to the British Study of Autism Baby Siblings, implementing MATLAB scripts and analysing eyetracker and EEG data from infants and toddlers aged 6-36 months who are at high risk of developing autism.
Publications
Wass, S.V., Smith, T.J. & Johnson, M.H. (2012). Parsing eyetracking data to provide accurate fixation duration estimates in infants and adults. Behavior Research Methods. DOI 10.3758/s13428-012-0245-6 pdf / scripts for download / sample processed files
Wass., S.V., Scerif, G. & Johnson, M.H. (2012). Training attentional control and working memory - is younger, better? Developmental Review 32 (4), 360–387. pdf
Wass, S.V., Porayska-Pomsta, K. & Johnson, M.H. (2011). Training attentional control in infancy. Current Biology 21 (18), 1543-1547. pdf / supp mat / press: Telegraph (UK), Science Daily (US), ABC News (US), Speigel (Germany), Telegraph (India).
Wass, S.V. Distortions and disconnections: disrupted brain connectivity in autism. (2011). Brain and Cognition 75(1), 18-28. pdf
Porayksa-Pomsta, K., Frauenberger, C., Wass., S.V. et al. (2011). Developing technology for autism, an interdisciplinary approach. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing 16 (2), 117-127.
Wass, S.V., Karmiloff-Smith, A. (2010). The missing developmental dimension in the network perspective. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33 : 175-176. pdf
Wass, S.V. & Porayska-Pomsta, K. The uses of didactic and cognitive training technologies in the behavioral treatment of Autism Spectrum Disorders. Manuscript under review. pdf
Wass, S.V., Smith, T.J. & Johnson, M.H. Factors influencing fixation durations during unconstrained orienting in infancy. Manuscript under review.
Curriculum vitae
1997-1999 BA/MA in Experimental Psychology at Oxford University (First Class Honours, top 5 in year group)
1999-2009 Worked outside academia, directing opera on mainland Europe (including work at opera houses in Berlin, Vienna, Bregenz, Geneva, Nuremberg)
2009-2011 PhD at Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development and London Knowledge Lab, Institute of Education. Bloomsbury Scholarship. Supervisors: Prof Mark Johnson (CBCD) and Dr Kaska Porayska-Pomsta (IoE).
2011-2012 Post-doctoral researcher at Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, London. Supervisor: Prof Mark Johnson.
2013-2016 British Academy Post-doctoral Research Fellow