Dr Maria Filippetti
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Email
m.filippetti@essex.ac.uk -
Telephone
+44 (0) 1206 873780
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Location
2.701, Colchester Campus
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Academic support hours
Please email me to book an appointment
Profile
Biography
I am a developmental cognitive neuroscientist investigating the development of body representations. In particular, I am interested in the role of multisensory integration in how infants learn about their bodies. I completed my undergraduate and master degrees in Developmental and Educational Psychology at University of Padua, in Italy. I then moved to London to start a PhD at the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Birkbeck College London. During my PhD, I studied the developmental origins of body perception using behavioural techniques and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). I did a postdoc at Royal Holloway University of London focused on the interaction between interoceptive and exteroceptive body-related signals in the development of body-awareness in infants and adults. My second postdoc was at University College London where I furthered my expertise on self- and body-awareness across the lifespan, with a specific focus on affective touch. I joined the Department of Psychology of University of Essex in Autumn 2017 as a lecturer. My current research investigates the developmental precursors of self-recognition and the development of interoceptive processing with a specific focus on feeding and eating behaviours.
Qualifications
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PhD in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Birkbeck University of London,
Appointments
University of Essex
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Lecturer, Psychology, University of Essex (4/9/2017 - 30/9/2023)
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Senior Lecturer, Psychology, University of Essex (1/10/2023 - present)
Research and professional activities
Research interests
body representations
interoception
hunger and satiety
multisensory development
Current research
Multisensory integration and body awareness across the lifespan
What makes your body your own? How do babies learn to distinguish between their own and other people’s bodies? The purpose of this research is to study how human beings develop an integrated sense of self that is grounded to a coherent body, and how different processes interact together to maintain and updated body awareness. While my work focuses on infancy and childhood, I am also interested in adults’ body awareness.
The development of interoceptive processing
Unlike other species, human babies enter the world completely dependent on their caregivers to manage their needs. For example, during feeding parental behaviour can influence the development of infants’ ability to sense their hunger and satiety signals. I am interested in understanding the relationship between interoception in caregivers and infants’ ability to promptly identify and correctly interpret their internal changes in sensations.
Self-recognition
The ability to recognize one’s face is considered a fundamental aspect within the spectrum of selfhood. However, what is believed to be the most representative instance of personal identity is probably the less reliable representation of the self; the rather infrequent encounters we have with our own face are in fact mediated by a reflecting surface and likely distorted by a variety of expectations shaped by ourselves and others. How do we balance this information in order to maintain a contentment and stable mental representation of our own identity?
Conferences and presentations
Neural correlates of self-recognition in 6- to 8- month-old infants
Federation of the Europena Society of Neuropsychology, Thessaloniki, Greece, 25/9/2023
Neural correlates of self-recognition in 6- to 8- month-old infants
Societa Italiana di Psicofisiologia e Neuroscienze Cognitive Italy, 14/9/2022
Neural correlates of self-recognition in 6- to 8- month-old infants
International Congress of Infant Studies, Ottowa, Canada, 8/7/2022
Becoming you: the development of body and self-face representations
Invited presentation, Active Self Summer School, Feldafing, Germany, 1/6/2022
Self-identification in childhood:Changes in self-other boundaries modulate children’s body image attitudes
Experimental Psychology Society, Nottingham, United Kingdom, 6/1/2022
Teaching and supervision
Current teaching responsibilities
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Growing in the World (PS102)
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Psychology of Health (PS423)
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Making connections: How children develop (PS507)
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MSc Psychology Research Project (PS900)
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Advanced Brain and Behaviour (PS943)
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Advanced Psychology of Health (PS951)
Current supervision
Previous supervision
Degree subject: Electronic Systems Engineering
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 6/7/2022
Degree subject: Computer Science
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 6/7/2022
Publications
Publications (2)
Bianco, F., Rigato, S., Filippetti, ML. and Ognibene, D., (2024). Learning mental states estimation through self-observation: a developmental synergy between intentions and beliefs representations in a deep-learning model of Theory of Mind
Filippetti, ML., Clarke, A. and Rigato, S., (2021). The mental health crisis of expectant women in the UK: effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on prenatal mental health, antenatal attachment and social support
Journal articles (29)
Kirsch, LP., Tanzer, M., Filippetti, ML., Von Mohr, M. and Fotopoulou, A., Mothers are more egocentric towards their own child’s bodily feeling. Communications Psychology
Filippetti, ML., Clarke, ADF. and Rigato, S., The mental health crisis of expectant women in the UK: effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on prenatal mental health, antenatal attachment and social support. BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth. 22 (1)
Rigato, S., De Sepulveda, R., Richardson, E. and Filippetti, ML., (2024). This is me! Neural correlates of self-recognition in 6- to 8- month-old infants. Child Development. 95 (5), 1797-1810
Chawner, L. and Filippetti, ML., (2024). A developmental model of emotional eating. Developmental Review. 72, 101133-101133
Filippetti, ML., Andreu-Perez, J., De Klerk, C. and Rigato, S., (2023). Are advanced methods necessary to improve infant fNIRS data analysis? An assessment of baseline-corrected averaging, general linear model (GLM) and multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) based approaches. NeuroImage. 265, 119756-119756
Cook, C., Crucianelli, L. and Filippetti, ML., (2023). Changes in self-other boundaries modulate children’s body image attitudes. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. 17, 1181395-
Rigato, S., Filippetti, ML. and De Klerk, CJM., (2023). Infants’ representations of the infant body in the first year of life: A preferential looking time study. Scientific Reports. 13 (1), 14091-
Filippetti, ML., Clarke, ADF. and Rigato, S., (2022). The mental health crisis of expectant women in the UK: effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on prenatal mental health, antenatal attachment and social support. BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth. 22 (1), 68-
Morris, AJ., Filippetti, ML. and Rigato, S., (2022). The Impact of Parents’ Smartphone Use on Language Development in Young Children. Child Development Perspectives. 16 (2), 103-109
Andreu-Perez, J., Hagras, H., Kiani, M., Rigato, S. and Filippetti, ML., (2022). Towards Understanding Human Functional Brain Development with Explainable Artificial Intelligence: Challenges and Perspectives. IEEE Computational Intelligence Magazine. 17 (1), 16-33
de Klerk, CCJM., Filippetti, ML. and Rigato, S., (2021). The development of body representations: an associative learning account.. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 288 (1949), 20210070-
Filippetti, ML., (2021). Being in Tune With Your Body: The Emergence of Interoceptive Processing Through Caregiver–Infant Feeding Interactions. Child Development Perspectives. 15 (3), 182-188
Andreu-Perez, J., Emberson, LL., Kiani, M., Filippetti, ML., Hagras, H. and Rigato, S., (2021). Explainable Artificial Intelligence Based Analysis for Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience. Communications Biology. 4 (1), 1077-
Crucianelli, L. and Filippetti, ML., (2020). Developmental perspectives on interpersonal affective touch. Topoi. 39 (3), 575-586
Della Longa, L., Filippetti, ML., Dragovic, D. and Farroni, T., (2020). Synchrony of Caresses: Does Affective Touch Help Infants to Detect Body-Related Visual–Tactile Synchrony?. Frontiers in Psychology. 10, 2944-
Crucianelli, L., Wheatley, L., Filippetti, ML., Jenkinson, P., Kirk, E. and Fotopoulou, A., (2019). The Mindedness of Maternal Touch: An Investigation of Maternal Mind-Mindedness and Mother-Infant Touch Interactions. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience. 35, 47-56
Filippetti, ML., Kirsch, L., Crucianelli, L. and Fotopoulou, A., (2019). Affective certainty and congruency of touch modulate the experience of the rubber hand illusion. Scientific Reports. 9 (1), 2635-
Filippetti, ML. and Crucianelli, L., (2019). If I were a grown-up: Children's response to the Rubber Hand Illusion with different hand sizes. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. 185, 191-205
Orioli, G., Filippetti, ML., Gerbino, W., Dragovic, D. and Farroni, T., (2018). Trajectory Discrimination and Peripersonal Space Perception in Newborns. Infancy. 23 (2), 252-267
Filippetti, ML. and Tsakiris, M., (2018). Just before I recognize myself: the role of featural and multisensory cues leading up to explicit mirror self-recognition. Infancy. 23 (4), 577-590
Panagiotopoulou, E., Filippetti, ML., Gentsch, A. and Fotopoulou, A., (2018). Dissociable sources of erogeneity in social touch: Imagining and perceiving C-Tactile optimal touch in erogenous zones. PLoS ONE. 13 (8), e0203039-e0203039
Filippetti, ML. and Tsakiris, M., (2017). Heartfelt embodiment: Changes in body-ownership and self-identification produce distinct changes in interoceptive accuracy. Cognition. 159, 1-10
Panagiotopoulou, E., Filippetti, ML., Tsakiris, M. and Fotopoulou, A., (2017). Affective touch enhances self-face recognition during multisensory integration. Scientific Reports. 7 (1), 12883-
Filippetti, ML., Farroni, T. and Johnson, MH., (2016). Five-Month-old Infants' Discrimination of Visual-Tactile Synchronous Facial Stimulation. Infant and Child Development. 25 (3), 317-322
Filippetti, ML., Lloyd-Fox, S., Longo, MR., Farroni, T. and Johnson, MH., (2015). Neural mechanisms of body awareness in infants. Cerebral Cortex. 25 (10), 3779-3787
Filippetti, ML., (2015). What is special about our own face? Commentary: Tuning of temporo-occipital activity by frontal oscillations during virtual mirror exposure causes erroneous self-recognition. Frontiers in Psychology. 6 (OCT), 1551-
Cole, JH., Filippetti, ML., Allin, MPG., Walshe, M., Nam, KW., Gutman, BA., Murray, RM., Rifkin, L., Thompson, PM. and Nosarti, C., (2015). Subregional hippocampal morphology and psychiatric outcome in adolescents who were born very preterm and at term. PLoS ONE. 10 (6), e0130094-e0130094
Filippetti, ML., Orioli, G., Johnson, MH. and Farroni, T., (2015). Newborn Body Perception: Sensitivity to Spatial Congruency. Infancy. 20 (4), 455-465
Filippetti, ML., Johnson, MH., Lloyd-Fox, S., Dragovic, D. and Farroni, T., (2013). Body perception in newborns. Current Biology. 23 (23), 2413-2416
Conferences (1)
Kiani, M., Andreu-Perez, J., Hagras, H., Filippetti, ML. and Rigato, S., (2020). A Type-2 Fuzzy Logic Based Explainable Artificial Intelligence System for Developmental Neuroscience
Reports and Papers (1)
Kirsch, LP., Tanzer, M., Filippetti, ML., Von Mohr, M. and Fotopoulou, A., (2022). Mother knows best: Mothers are more egocentric towards their own child’s bodily emotions
Grants and funding
2023
Public Engagement Evidence & Search Support BabyLab
University of Essex (QR Impact Fund)
Understanding the role of skin temperature in the development of bodily-self awareness
British Academy
The role of multisensory experience in the development of body representations
Economic and Social Research Council
2022
Enhancing BabyBrains� programme with Essex Babylab research to improve parent-baby relationships
University of Essex (ESRC IAA)
2020
Understanding the development mechanisms underlying emotional eating
Academy of Medical Sciences
2019
Embodied vulnerability to body (dis)satisfaction in children
Experimental Psychology Society
The changing body: body representations across the lifespan
The Guarantors of Brain
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