Dr Silvia Rigato
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Email
srigato@essex.ac.uk -
Location
3.715, Colchester Campus
Profile
Biography
I completed my BSc and MSc in Developmental and Educational Psychology at University of Padua, Italy. I then worked with Dr. Teresa Farroni at the Hospital of Monfalcone (Trieste), Italy, investigating face perception in newborns. I subsequently moved to London where I obtained a PhD at the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Birkbeck College, supervised by Professor Mark Johnson. I then spent 3 years working as a postdoc at the Goldsmiths InfantLab, directed by Dr. Andy Bremner, investigating the development of the neural basis of tactile localisation. I joined the Department of Psychology at the University of Essex in September 2013. Grants 2017: Promoting awareness and practice in child wellbeing. Co-PI with Dr Maria Laura Filippetti. PVC Research Strategic Fund, University of Essex (£3,374.25). 2015: Developing a screening tool to detect non-adaptive behaviours in developmental disorders. Co-PI with Dr. Karla Holmboe. PVC Research Seedcorn Fund, University of Essex (£14,000). 2014-2016: Longitudinal Trajectories in Brain Function in Infancy. Co-PI with Dr. Karla Holmboe. Grand Challenges Explorations Round 13 (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation): Phase 1 Grant ($100,000). 2014: The emergence of face- and body-selective brain signatures in infants. Co-PI with Dr. Helge Gillmeister. Research Promotion Fund, Department of Psychology, University of Essex (£3,964). 2013: University of Essex Babylab. Research Promotion Fund, Department of Psychology, University of Essex (£3,545). 2013-2014: Development of the neural basis of shared touch in human infancy. British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grant (£9,295). Co-PI with Dr. Andrew Bremner. 2006-2009: Marie Curie Early Career Fellowship (PhD funding).
Research and professional activities
Research interests
Face and emotion processing in infancy.
I am interested in the infants ability of integrating the information coming from the eye region and the emotional expression. There is growing evidence that infants, and even newborns, are expert in recognizing faces and processing their inner features. They show visual preferences and different brain activation according to specific gaze-expression combinations.
The development of body representation and tactile localisation.
As we move and act on the world, we need to continuously update the sense of our posture and the position of our limbs (body schema). This involves taking into account the visual and proprioceptive cues about our body, based on which a mental representation of the body is formed. I investigate how infants develop the ability to locate a touch on their body while taking into account their own postural changes.
The development of the neural basis of shared touch.
When observing the experiences of others, we not only understand what they experience but often empathically share their states. One set of mechanisms that contribute to this ability are neural regions where seeing the states of others triggers representations of corresponding states in our brain. I study how this process develops in the infant brain.
Perinatal mental health.
The mother’s ability to respond appropriately to the infant’s communicative signals and her emotional sensitivity are key factors in the child’s cognitive and socio-emotional development. I am interested in studying how prenatal and postnatal maternal changes influence child’s development in the first year of life.
Teaching and supervision
Current teaching responsibilities
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Psychology of Health (PS423)
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Making connections: How children develop (PS507)
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Special Topics in Psychology (PS933)
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Special Topics in Individual Differences and Developmental Psychology (PS938)
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Advanced Psychology of Health (PS951)
Current supervision
Previous supervision
Degree subject: Clinical Psychology (D Clin Psych)
Degree type: Professional Doctorate
Awarded date: 9/1/2024
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
Degree subject: Psychology
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 4/3/2020
Publications
Publications (3)
Rigato, S., Vrticka, P., Stets, M. and Holmboe, K., (2023). Mother-infant interaction characteristics associate with infant falling reactivity and child peer problems at pre-school age
Rigato, S., Stets, M., Charalambous, S., Dvergsdal, H. and Holmboe, K., (2022). Infant visual preference for the mother’s face and longitudinal associations with emotion regulation in the first year of life
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 (31)
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., Vrticka, P., Stets, M. and Holmboe, K., (2024). Mother-infant interaction characteristics associate with infant falling reactivity and child peer problems at pre-school age. PLoS One. 19 (6), e0302661-e0302661
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
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
Rigato, S., Stets, M., Charalambous, S., Dvergsdal, H. and Holmboe, K., (2023). Infant visual preference for the mother's face and longitudinal associations with emotional reactivity in the first year of life.. Scientific Reports. 13 (1), 10263-
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
Rigato, S., Charalambous, S., Stets, M. and Holmboe, K., (2022). Maternal depressive symptoms and infant temperament in the first year of life predict child behavior at 36 months of age. Infant Behavior and Development. 67, 101717-101717
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-
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-
Rigato, S., Stets, M., Bonneville-Roussy, A. and Holmboe, K., (2020). Impact of maternal depressive symptoms on the development of infant temperament: Cascading effects during the first year of life. Social Development. 29 (4), 1115-1133
Rigato, S., Charalambous, S., Stets, M. and Holmboe, K., (2020). Maternal depressive symptoms and infant temperament in the first year of life predict child behaviour at 36 months of age. Infant Behavior and Development
Rigato, S., Banissy, MJ., Romanska, A., Thomas, R. and van Velzen, J., (2019). Cortical signatures of vicarious tactile experience in four-month-old infants. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience. 35, 75-80
Rigato, S., Bremner, AJ., Gillmeister, H. and Banissy, MJ., (2019). Interpersonal representations of touch in somatosensory cortex are modulated by perspective. Biological Psychology. 146, 107719-107719
Gillmeister, H., Stets, M., Grigorova, M. and Rigato, S., (2019). How do bodies become special? Electrophysiological evidence for the emergence of body-related cortical processing in the first 14 months of life.. Developmental Psychology. 55 (10), 2025-2038
(2019). Supplemental Material for How Do Bodies Become Special? Electrophysiological Evidence for the Emergence of Body-Related Cortical Processing in the First 14 Months of Life. Developmental Psychology
Gillmeister, H., Bowling, N., Rigato, S. and Banissy, MJ., (2017). Inter-individual differences in vicarious tactile perception: A view across the lifespan in typical and atypical populations. Multisensory Research. 30 (6), 485-508
Rigato, S., Rieger, G. and Romei, V., (2016). Multisensory signalling enhances pupil dilation.. Scientific Reports. 6 (1), 26188-
Rigato, S., Begum Ali, J., van Velzen, J. and Bremner, AJ., (2014). The Neural Basis of Somatosensory Remapping Develops in Human Infancy. Current Biology. 24 (11), 1222-1226
Rigato, S., Bremner, AJ., Mason, L., Pickering, A., Davis, R. and van Velzen, J., (2014). The electrophysiological time course of somatosensory spatial remapping: vision of the hands modulates effects of posture on somatosensory evoked potentials. European Journal of Neuroscience. 39 (4), 703-703
Rigato, S., Menon, E., Farroni, T. and Johnson, MH., (2013). The shared signal hypothesis: Effects of emotion‐gaze congruency in infant and adult visual preferences. British Journal of Developmental Psychology. 31 (1), 15-29
Bremner, AJ., Hill, EL., Pratt, M., Rigato, S. and Spence, C., (2013). Bodily Illusions in Young Children: Developmental Change in Visual and Proprioceptive Contributions to Perceived Hand Position. PLoS ONE. 8 (1), e51887-e51887
Rigato, S., Bremner, AJ., Mason, L., Pickering, A., Davis, R. and van Velzen, J., (2013). The electrophysiological time course of somatosensory spatial remapping: vision of the hands modulates effects of posture on somatosensory evoked potentials. European Journal of Neuroscience. 38 (6), 2884-2892
Rigato, S., Menon, E., Gangi, VD., George, N. and Farroni, T., (2013). The role of facial expressions in attention-orienting in adults and infants. International Journal of Behavioral Development. 37 (2), 154-159
Rigato, S. and Farroni, T., (2013). The Role of Gaze in the Processing of Emotional Facial Expressions. Emotion Review. 5 (1), 36-40
Rigato, S., Menon, E., Johnson, MH., Faraguna, D. and Farroni, T., (2011). Direct gaze may modulate face recognition in newborns. Infant and Child Development. 20 (1), 20-34
Rigato, S., Menon, E., Johnson, MH. and Farroni, T., (2011). The interaction between gaze direction and facial expressions in newborns. European Journal of Developmental Psychology. 8 (5), 624-636
Rigato, S., Farroni, T. and Johnson, MH., (2010). The shared signal hypothesis and neural responses to expressions and gaze in infants and adults. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. 5 (1), 88-97
Farroni, T., Menon, E., Rigato, S. and Johnson, MH., (2007). The perception of facial expressions in newborns. European Journal of Developmental Psychology. 4 (1), 2-13
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)
Rigato, S., Stets, M., Bonneville-Roussy, A. and Holmboe, K., (2018). Impact of maternal depressive symptoms on the development of infant temperament: Cascading effects during the first year of life
Grants and funding
2023
Public Engagement Evidence & Search Support BabyLab
University of Essex (QR Impact Fund)
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)
2014
Longitudinal Trajectories in Brain Function in Infancy
Grand Challenges (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation)
