Novel Approaches to Examining Learning and Self-Regulation Development Across Context and Levels of Analysis

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

Self-regulation and learning are foundational for human thriving across the lifespan, enabling individuals to adapt to a variety of different settings. In development, these capacities emerge across many systems–including brain, behavior, and physiology–and timescales, interacting with social and material environments. Yet, the multi-level temporal processes of self-regulation and learning central to our theories are rarely reflected in the measures and methods traditional to our field. This symposium showcases a range of methodological advances leveraged to capture the complex nature of self-regulation and learning over key developmental periods. Starting in infancy, the first paper discusses dynamic systems models for quantifying novel patterns of physiological self- and co-regulation while interacting with caregivers. Moving into childhood, the second paper examines associations between real-time unpredictable caregiving and behavioral and physiological self-regulation. The third paper uses a Bayesian approach to explore the role of socioemotional context on cognitive and psychophysiological mechanisms underlying learning in early adolescence. The final paper examines how environmental volatility modulates learning and arousal across adolescence and young adulthood. The talks encompass research on behavior, cognition, and physiology; present novel dynamic systems and computational methods for real-time data; and adopt experimental manipulations that push the scientific boundaries of this burgeoning area of work. An all-female trainee panel spanning multiple institutions offers a fresh perspective to revealing the multi-system and dynamic nature of self-regulation and learning across ecological contexts. These collective insights will generate thoughtful discussion to motivate future research investigating how developing humans engage with and learn from the world around them.

Sub Unit

• Cognitive Processes

Chairs

• Isabella Chask'a Stallworthy, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

• Meriah L. DeJoseph, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

Individual Presentations

• Coupled Oscillator Models Reveal Novel Self- and Co-Regulatory Parasympathetic Dynamics in Infancy - Presenting Author: Isabella Chask'a Stallworthy, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities; Jed T. Elison, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities; Daniel Berry, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

• Unpredictable Caregiving During Puzzle and Free Play are Differentially Associated with Behavioral and Physiological Self-Regulation During Early Childhood - Presenting Author: Elisa Ugarte, University of California - Davis; Paul David Hastings, University of California - Davis

• The Role of Socioemotional Context on Cognitive and Psychophysiological Mechanisms of Learning in Early Adolescence - Presenting Author: Meriah L. DeJoseph, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities; Kathleen M. Thomas, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities; Willem E Frankenhuis; Daniel Berry, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

• Sensitivity to Environmental Volatility Across Development: Evidence from Reinforcement Learning and Pupillometry - Presenting Author: Kate Nussenbaum, New York University; Hannah Hamling; Haoze Zhu, New York University; Linda Kerbl, New York University; Bradli Washington, New York University; Catherine Hartley, Weill Cornell Medicine