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Dr. Sheila Krogh-Jespersen Joins DevSci

New DevSci developmental psychologist uses eye tracking to study infants’ social knowledge

Dr. Sheila Krogh-Jespersen, a new Research Assistant Professor of Medical Social Sciences, joins DevSci as a developmental psychologist researching the development of infants’ social competence, focusing on how infants perceive goal-directed actions. Her work investigates the development of intentional understanding by examining infants’ and children’s ability to recruit social information from their environment and their use of this information during interactions with others. In the past, Krogh-Jespersen looked at normative development in infants and children as they learn from their social world. Her recent articles focused on goal prediction in infants and young children, determining whether infants’ perceptions of goal-directed actions are utilized during real-time social interactions, for example, when taking the perspective of another person during a game. As Krogh-Jespersen joins Northwestern, her recent work is beginning to examine the pathways that differ across development, including examining the chain of events that occur when infants’ goals are blocked or are in conflict with others’ goals, and how this could have downstream effects on social cognitive development.

With infants, visual attention provides insight into their reactions to situations where verbal responses aren’t possible, so Krogh-Jespersen utilizes eye-tracking to understand how infants represent others’ intentions or goals. Eye tracking methods indicate a deeper understanding of when specific capabilities emerge and how they contribute to child development. By measuring visual attention, we gain knowledge about infants’ expectations of how others will act and their predictions about how events will unfold. This research highlights the significance of infant interaction with social partners, whether the infant is engaged, distracted, or simply uninterested. The spectrum of reaction to social situations and, more generally, what holds an infant’s attention emphasizes the infant’s social knowledge.

Northwestern programs like DevSci and Developmental Mechanisms of Psychopathology encourage Krogh-Jespersen to explore the atypical as well as the typical, and push further into bigger and more meaningful questions about early development. At Northwestern, she plans to continue examining infants’ intentional understanding, including situations such as when an infant’s goal conflicts with an adult’s goal, and how their ability to reconcile situations such as these may underpin their social competence. As part of the Neurodevelopmental Resource Core Krogh-Jespersen will be consulting and training others on eye tracking methods.


Recent Publications

Krogh-Jespersen, S. & Woodward, A. L. (2018). Reaching the goal: Active experience  facilitates 8-month-old infants’ prospective analysis of goal-based actions.  Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 171, 31-45.

Krogh-Jespersen, S., Kaldy, Z., Carter, A. Groth, A., & Woodward, A. L. (2018) Goal  prediction in 2-year-old children with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder: An  eye-tracking study. Autism Research, 870-883.

Kardan, O., Shneidman, L., Krogh-Jespersen, S., Gaskins, S., Berman, M. G., &  Woodward, A. (2017). Cultural and developmental influences on overt visual  attention to videos. Nature: Scientific Reports, 7, 1126.