Dr. Sammy Perone leads the Lab for the Developing Mind at Washington State University. Our research investigates the brain, physiological, and behavioral basis of self-regulatory processes from infancy to adulthood. We use a variety of cutting-edge technologies to investigate the regulation of thought, emotion, and behavior including, electroencephalography (EEG), electrocardiography (ECG), and eye-tracking.
We are actively investigating neural correlates of the experience of boredom in adolescents and adults in collaboration with Elizabeth Weybright, Our research examines contextual, top-down, and individual influences on the experience of boredom. Our goal is to harness our emerging multi-level understanding of boredom to help people effectively cope with boredom and engage in healthy activities in their everyday life. Some of our research has been featured on WSU Insider and on Thrive Global.
The lab has ongoing collaborations with Maria Gartstein, director of the WSU Infant Temperament Lab in the Department of Psychology. Our research is examining the influence of the early functional organization of the brain and parent-child interactions on emotion regulatory processes during infancy and the emergence of top-down control in early childhood. We are actively working to launch new research exploring brain-to-brain synchronization between parents and their children.
New research in collaboration with Sara Waters is just beginning and uses a combination of EEG and ECG to advance our understanding of the integration of brain and body as it relates to bottom-up and top-down influences on decision-making and emotion regulation.
The lab offers undergraduate students an excellent opportunity to participate in all phases of research, including working with infants, children, adolescents, and adults. Research activities include testing participants, coding behavior, recruiting families, data management, data interpretation, and reading and discussion of the extant literature. Advanced opportunities are possible, such as independent research, poster presentations, and community outreach. The lab also provides interdisciplinary training to Ph.D. students in Prevention Science. Graduate students receive advanced training in theory, electrophysiological methodology, and experimental research. Please contact Dr. Perone for more information.
Recent Publications
Perone, S., & Gartstein, M. A. (in press; available online). Relations between functional connectivity and parent-infant interactions. Infant Behavior and Development https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infbeh.2019.101344
Perone, S., Weybright, E. H., & Anderson, A. J. (2019). Over and over again: Changes in frontal EEG asymmetry across a boring task. Psychophysiology, 56, e13427 doi.org/10.1111/psyp.13427
Perone, S., & Gartstein, M. A. (2019) Mapping cortical rhythms to infant behavioral tendencies via baseline EEG and parent-report. Developmental Psychobiology, 61, 815-823. doi.org/10.1002/dev.21867
Perone, S., Plebanek, D., Lorenz, M., Spencer, J. P., & Samuelson, L. K. (2019). Empirical tests of a brain-based model of executive function. Child Development, 90, 210-226 https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12885
Anderson, A. J., & Perone, S. (2018). Developmental change in the resting state electroencephalogram: Insights into cognition and the brain. Brain and Cognition, 126, 40-52 doi.org/10.1016/j.bandc.2018.08.001
Perone, S., Palanisamy, J., & Carlson, S.M. (2018). Age-related changes in brain rhythms from early to middle childhood: Links to Executive Function. Developmental Science, 21, e12691. doi.org/10.1111/desc.12691