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Caregiver executive functions are associated with infant visual working memory (2024)
Journal Article
Amaireh, G., Caes, L., Theyer, A., Davidson, C., & Wijeakumar, S. (2024). Caregiver executive functions are associated with infant visual working memory. Infant and Child Development, 33(6), Article e2543. https://doi.org/10.1002/icd.2543

Caregiver executive functions (EFs) play an integral role in shaping cognitive development. Here, we investigated how caregiver EF abilities (86 caregivers; Mage = 33.4 years, SD = 4.5) was associated with visual working memory (VWM) in infants (86 i... Read More about Caregiver executive functions are associated with infant visual working memory.

Caregiver executive functions are associated with infant visual working memory (2024)
Journal Article
Amaireh, G., Caes, L., Theyer, A., Davidson, C., & Wijeakumar, S. (2024). Caregiver executive functions are associated with infant visual working memory. Infant and Child Development, 33(6), Article e2543. https://doi.org/10.1002/icd.2543

Caregiver executive functions (EFs) play an integral role in shaping cognitive development. Here, we investigated how caregiver EF abilities (86 caregivers; mean age = 33.4 years, SD = 4.5) was associated with visual working memory (VWM) in infants (... Read More about Caregiver executive functions are associated with infant visual working memory.

Association between caregiver and infant visual neurocognition (2024)
Journal Article
Theyer, A., Davidson, C., Amaireh, G., & Wijeakumar, S. (2024). Association between caregiver and infant visual neurocognition. Infant Behavior and Development, 76, Article 101975. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infbeh.2024.101975

Previous work has shown that caregiver attention shapes visual cognition in infants through dyadic interactions. Is this association measurable when visual cognition is objectively measured in caregivers and infants using comparable experimental para... Read More about Association between caregiver and infant visual neurocognition.

The impact of caregiver inhibitory control on infant visual working memory (2024)
Journal Article
Davidson, C., Theyer, A., Amaireh, G., & Wijeakumar, S. (2024). The impact of caregiver inhibitory control on infant visual working memory. Infant Behavior and Development, 74, Article 101921. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infbeh.2023.101921

Visual working memory (VWM) emerges in the first year of life and has far-reaching implications for academic and later life outcomes. Given that caregivers play a significant role in shaping cognitive function in children, it is important to understa... Read More about The impact of caregiver inhibitory control on infant visual working memory.

Stunting in infancy is associated with atypical activation of working memory and attention networks (2023)
Journal Article
Wijeakumar, S., Forbes, S. H., Magnotta, V. A., Deoni, S., Jackson, K., Singh, V. P., Tiwari, M., Kumar, A., & Spencer, J. P. (2023). Stunting in infancy is associated with atypical activation of working memory and attention networks. Nature Human Behaviour, 7(12), 2199–2211. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01725-3

AbstractStunting is associated with poor long-term cognitive, academic and economic outcomes, yet the mechanisms through which stunting impacts cognition in early development remain unknown. In a first-ever neuroimaging study conducted on infants fro... Read More about Stunting in infancy is associated with atypical activation of working memory and attention networks.

Home enrichment is associated with visual working memory function in preschoolers (2023)
Journal Article
Davidson, C., Caes, L., Shing, Y. L., McKay, C., Rafetseder, E., & Wijeakumar, S. (2024). Home enrichment is associated with visual working memory function in preschoolers. Mind, Brain, and Education, 18(1), 72-84. https://doi.org/10.1111/mbe.12383

Home enrichment plays an important role in shaping children's development. In the current study, we inquired whether home enrichment was associated with pre-schoolers' visual working memory (VWM) function, a critical cognitive system necessary for ma... Read More about Home enrichment is associated with visual working memory function in preschoolers.

The first year in formal schooling improves working memory and academic abilities (2023)
Journal Article
Davidson, C., Shing, Y. L., McKay, C., Rafetseder, E., & Wijeakumar, S. (2023). The first year in formal schooling improves working memory and academic abilities. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 60, Article 101205. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2023.101205

Neurocognition and academic abilities during the period of 4 and 7 years of age are impacted by both the transition from kindergarten to primary school and age-related developmental processes. Here, we used a school cut-off design to tease apart the... Read More about The first year in formal schooling improves working memory and academic abilities.

Disentangling age and schooling effects on inhibitory control development: An fNIRS investigation (2021)
Journal Article
McKay, C., Wijeakumar, S., Rafetseder, E., & Shing, Y. L. (2022). Disentangling age and schooling effects on inhibitory control development: An fNIRS investigation. Developmental Science, 25(5), Article e13205. https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.13205

Children show marked improvements in executive functioning (EF) between 4 and 7years of age. In many societies, this time period coincides with the start of formal school education, in which children are required to follow rules in a structured envir... Read More about Disentangling age and schooling effects on inhibitory control development: An fNIRS investigation.

Frontotemporal activation differs between perception of simulated cochlear implant speech and speech in background noise: An image-based fNIRS study (2021)
Journal Article
Defenderfer, J., Forbes, S., Wijeakumar, S., Hedrick, M., Plyler, P., & Buss, A. T. (2021). Frontotemporal activation differs between perception of simulated cochlear implant speech and speech in background noise: An image-based fNIRS study. NeuroImage, 240, 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118385

In this study we used functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to investigate neural responses in normal-hearing adults as a function of speech recognition accuracy, intelligibility of the speech stimulus, and the manner in which speech is disto... Read More about Frontotemporal activation differs between perception of simulated cochlear implant speech and speech in background noise: An image-based fNIRS study.

Speech planning and execution in children who stutter: Preliminary findings from a fNIRS investigation (2021)
Journal Article
Jackson, E. S., Wijeakumar, S., Beal, D. S., Brown, B., Zebrowski, P. M., & Spencer, J. P. (2021). Speech planning and execution in children who stutter: Preliminary findings from a fNIRS investigation. Journal of Clinical Neuroscience, 91, 32-42. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jocn.2021.06.018

Few studies have investigated the neural mechanisms underlying speech production in children who stutter (CWS), despite the critical importance of understanding these mechanisms closer to the time of stuttering onset. The relative contributions of sp... Read More about Speech planning and execution in children who stutter: Preliminary findings from a fNIRS investigation.

Processing pipeline for image reconstructed fNIRS analysis using both MRI templates and individual anatomy (2021)
Journal Article
Forbes, S. H., Wijeakumar, S., Eggebrecht, A. T., Magnotta, V. A., & Spencer, J. P. (2021). Processing pipeline for image reconstructed fNIRS analysis using both MRI templates and individual anatomy. Neurophotonics, 8(2), Article 025010. https://doi.org/10.1117/1.nph.8.2.025010

Significance: Image reconstruction of fNIRS data is a useful technique for transforming channel-based fNIRS into a volumetric representation and managing spatial variance based on optode location. We present an innovative integrated pipeline for imag... Read More about Processing pipeline for image reconstructed fNIRS analysis using both MRI templates and individual anatomy.

Home assessment of visual working memory in pre‐schoolers reveals associations between behaviour, brain activation and parent reports of life stress (2021)
Journal Article
McKay, C., Shing, Y. L., Rafetseder, E., & Wijeakumar, S. (2021). Home assessment of visual working memory in pre‐schoolers reveals associations between behaviour, brain activation and parent reports of life stress. Developmental Science, 24(4), Article e13094. https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.13094

Visual working memory (VWM) is reliably predictive of fluid intelligence and academic achievements. The objective of the current study was to investigate individual differences in pre-schoolers’ VWM processing by examining the association between beh... Read More about Home assessment of visual working memory in pre‐schoolers reveals associations between behaviour, brain activation and parent reports of life stress.

A Dynamic Field Theory of Visual Working Memory (2020)
Book Chapter
Wijeakumar, S., & Spencer, J. (2020). A Dynamic Field Theory of Visual Working Memory. In R. Logie, V. Camos, & N. Cowan (Eds.), Working Memory: The state of the science. Oxford University Press

The functional brain networks that underlie visual working memory in the first two years of life (2020)
Journal Article
Delgado Reyes, L., Wijeakumar, S., Magnotta, V. A., Forbes, S. H., & Spencer, J. P. (2020). The functional brain networks that underlie visual working memory in the first two years of life. NeuroImage, 219, Article 116971. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.116971

Visual working memory (VWM) is a central cognitive system used to compare views of the world and detect changes in the local environment. This system undergoes dramatic development in the first two years; however, we know relatively little about the... Read More about The functional brain networks that underlie visual working memory in the first two years of life.

Prefrontal cortex activation supports the emergence of early stone age toolmaking skill (2019)
Journal Article
Putt, S. S., Wijeakumar, S., & Spencer, J. P. (2019). Prefrontal cortex activation supports the emergence of early stone age toolmaking skill. NeuroImage, 199, 57-69. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2019.05.056

Trends toward encephalization and technological complexity ∼1.8 million years ago may signify cognitive development in the genus Homo. Using functional near-infrared spectroscopy, we measured relative brain activity of 33 human subjects at three diff... Read More about Prefrontal cortex activation supports the emergence of early stone age toolmaking skill.

Early adversity in rural India impacts the brain networks underlying visual working memory (2019)
Journal Article
Wijeakumar, S., Kumar, A., M. Delgado Reyes, L., Tiwari, M., & Spencer, J. P. (2019). Early adversity in rural India impacts the brain networks underlying visual working memory. Developmental Science, 22(5), Article e12822. https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12822

© 2019 The Authors. Developmental Science Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. There is a growing need to understand the global impact of poverty on early brain and behavioural development, particularly with regard to key cognitive processes that em... Read More about Early adversity in rural India impacts the brain networks underlying visual working memory.

A fNIRS Investigation of Speech Planning and Execution in Adults Who Stutter (2019)
Journal Article
Jackson, E. S., Wijeakumar, S., Beal, D. S., Brown, B., Zebrowski, P., & Spencer, J. P. (2019). A fNIRS Investigation of Speech Planning and Execution in Adults Who Stutter. Neuroscience, 406, 73-85. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroscience.2019.02.032

© 2019 IBRO Our study aimed to determine the neural correlates of speech planning and execution in adults who stutter (AWS). Fifteen AWS and 15 controls (CON) completed two tasks that either manipulated speech planning or execution processing loads.... Read More about A fNIRS Investigation of Speech Planning and Execution in Adults Who Stutter.

Tracing the evolutionary trajectory of verbal working memory with neuro-archaeology (2018)
Journal Article
Putt, S. S., & Wijeakumar, S. (2018). Tracing the evolutionary trajectory of verbal working memory with neuro-archaeology. Interaction Studies, 19(1-2), 272-288. https://doi.org/10.1075/is.17042.put

We used optical neuroimaging to explore the extent of functional overlap between working memory (WM) networks involved in language and Early Stone Age toolmaking behaviors. Oldowan tool production activates two verbal WM areas, but the functions of t... Read More about Tracing the evolutionary trajectory of verbal working memory with neuro-archaeology.

Evaluating motion processing algorithms for use with functional near-infrared spectroscopy data from young children (2018)
Journal Article
Delgado Reyes, L. M., Spencer, J. P., Bohache, K., & Wijeakumar, S. (2018). Evaluating motion processing algorithms for use with functional near-infrared spectroscopy data from young children. Neurophotonics, 5(02), 1. https://doi.org/10.1117/1.nph.5.2.025008

Motion artifacts are often a significant component of the measured signal in functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) experiments. A variety of methods have been proposed to address this issue, including principal components analysis (PCA), corr... Read More about Evaluating motion processing algorithms for use with functional near-infrared spectroscopy data from young children.