The current study examined to what extent face and speech processing interact with each other and whether they enhance or impair the processing of the other in 5-year-olds (n = 51) and adults (n = 34). Using a computer-based speeded sorting task allowed to directly test the influence of auditory speech on face processing and the influence of face…

Longitudinal studies provide developmental science with invaluable information about how variables and the associations between variables change across time, but typically give limited attention to the length of time over which that change occurs. The present study re-analyzed data from previously published meta-analyses of longitudinal data…

The importance of emotional awareness (EA) and emotion regulation (ER) for children's and adolescents' development has been suggested in numerous studies, but longitudinal trajectories of these aspects of emotional competence have rarely been examined. Therefore, the main aim of this study was to investigate developmental trends of EA and ER in…

This study examined whether individual differences in personality (development) from adolescence to emerging adulthood were associated with burnout and happiness in emerging adulthood. At Time 1 (2009; M[subscript age] = 15.7 years), Time 2 (2012), and Time 3 (2015), Belgian participants (N = 329; 43.1% boys) reported on the personality dimensions…

The frequency and length of games, conflicts, and contingency sequences that took place between toddlers as they got to know one another were studied using archival data. The sample consisted of 28 unfamiliar 20- and 30-month-old toddlers (predominantly White, 16 males) who met separately with each of two other toddlers for 18 play dates. The…

Self-regulation often refers to the executive influence of cognitive resources to alter prepotent responses. The ability to engage cognitive resources as a form of executive process emerges and improves in the preschool-age years while the dominance of prepotent responses, such as emotional reactions, begins to decline from toddlerhood onward.…

The analysis of cross-lagged relationships is a popular approach in prevention research to explore the dynamics between constructs over time. However, a limitation of commonly used cross-lagged models is the requirement of equally spaced measurement occasions that prevents the usage of flexible longitudinal designs and complicates cross-study…

While loneliness for short periods of time is normal, prolonged loneliness has severe health risks. This study aims to discover what loneliness trajectories can be found in a cohort of adolescents, how belongingness to different groups may be associated with these trajectories, and the mental, physical, and academic consequences of these…

Eye-tracking research on social attention in infants and toddlers has included heterogeneous stimuli and analysis techniques. This allows measurement of looking to inner facial features under diverse conditions but restricts across-study comparisons. Eye-mouth index (EMI) is a measure of relative preference for looking to the eyes or mouth,…

Negative affect (NA) and positive affect (PA) are established modifiable psychosocial correlates of cognitive health and have demonstrated capacity for meaningful within-person fluctuations based on person--environment interactions, age, and measurement approach. Previous research has shown NA is associated with increased response time…

The present study considered multiple aspects of sleep in a community sample of young children (at ages 30, 36, and 42 months) and their mothers, using both diaries and actigraphy. Through principal components analysis, 17 of 20 commonly used actigraphy variables were reduced to four main components whose variables formed composites of: Activity,…

Previous studies show that newborn infants and adults orient their attention preferentially toward human faces. However, the developmental changes of visual attention captured by face stimuli remain unclear, especially when an explicit top-down process is involved. We capitalized on a visual search paradigm to assess how the relative strength of…

Little is known about whether a widely used mindfulness measure in adults--the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ)--is also reliable and valid in adolescents. The current study evaluated the psychometric properties of a 20-item short-form FFMQ in a sample of 599 high school students (M[subscript age] = 16.3 years; 49% female) living in the…

Adolescents experiment with risk behaviors, including delinquency, substance use, and sexual activity. Multi-level social factors, such as having high-risk peers, neighborhood risks, and parental monitoring, influence adolescents' behaviors. We modeled transition patterns in Bahamian adolescents' risk behaviors across three high school years and…

Acquisition of natural language has been shown to fundamentally impact both one's ability to use the first language and the ability to learn subsequent languages later in life. Sign languages offer a unique perspective on this issue because Deaf signers receive access to signed input at varying ages. The majority acquires sign language in (early)…