Dr Silvia Rigato
I joined the InfantLab in August 2010, having completed my PhD at the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development at Birkbeck, University of London, and my BSc and MSc degrees in Developmental and Educational Psychology in Italy, University of Padua. I am currently running the ‘Where is my hand’ study, which investigates how the brain responds to an unexpected touch sensation. My research interests include the development of multisensory perception and processing, and the interaction between emotional expressions and gaze direction in early infancy.
Selected publications
Publications in international peer- reviewed journals
Rigato, S., Menon, E., Farroni, T., & Johnson, M.H. (In press). The shared signal hypothesis: effects of emotion-gaze congruency in infant and adult visual preferences. British Journal of Developmental Psychology.
Rigato, S., Menon, E., Johnson, M.H., & Farroni, T. (2011). The interaction between gaze direction and facial expressions in newborns. European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 8, 624-636.
Rigato S., Menon E., Johnson M.H., Faraguna D., Farroni T. (2011) Direct gaze may modulate face recognition in newborns. Infant and Child Development, 20, 20-34.
Rigato S., Farroni T., Johnson M.H. (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., Johnson M.H. (2007). The perception of facial expressions in newborns. European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 4(1), 2-13.
Published abstracts/Posters and presentations
Rigato S., van Velzen J., Davis R. & Bremner A.J. The electrophysiological time course of postural remapping of somatosensry space. XI International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience, Palma, Mallorca, 25-29 September 2011.
Rigato S., van Velzen J., & Bremner A.J. Neural bases of hand localization across changes in arm posture. British Psychological Society Developmental Section, Newcastle, 7-9 September 2011.
Thoma V., Rigato S., Gosling A. ERP correlates of Object Repetition depend on Perceptual Load. British Association for Cognitive Neuroscience Conference, Bristol, 1-3 September 2010.
Rigato S., Farroni T., & Johnson M.H. Gaze direction affects infants’ responses to emotional expressions. British Psychological Society Developmental Section, Nottingham, 9-11 September 2009.
Rigato S., Farroni T., & Johnson M.H. Do infants show the compatibility effect? An ERP study of gaze-emotion interaction. Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, San Francisco, CA, US, 21 - 24 March 2009.
Rigato S., Farroni T., & Johnson M.H. Neural processing of facial emotional expression and eye gaze direction in adults and four month-old infants. British Psychological Society Developmental Section, Oxford, 1-3 September 2008.
Rigato S., Menon E., Farroni T., & Johnson M.H. The interaction between gaze direction and facial expression in newborns. Annual Meeting of the British Psychological Society, Dublin, 2-4 April 2008.
Menon E., Benetti S., Rigato S., George N., & Farroni, T. L’interazione tra direzione dello sguardo ed espressioni emotive nello spostamento dell’attenzione. AIP, XXI Congresso Nazionale della Sezione di Psicologia dello Sviluppo, Bergamo, 20-22 Settembre 2007.
Menon E., Rigato S., Farroni T., & Johnson M.H. Direct gaze modulates face recognition in newborns. Jean Piaget Society, Amsterdam, 31 May-2 June 2007.
Farroni T., Benetti S., Menon E., Rigato S., Pastrello K., & George N. Modulation of the gaze cueing effect by facial expression. Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, New York, 5-8 May 2007.
Menon E., Rigato S., Benetti S., & Farroni T. L’influenza della direzione dello sguardo sul riconoscimento dei volti alla nascita. XX Congresso Nazionale, Sezione di Psicologia dello Sviluppo, AIP, Verona, 15-17 September 2006.
Farroni T., Menon E., Rigato S., & Johnson M.H. The perception of facial expressions in newborns. British Psychological Society, Developmental Section, Royal Holloway University of London, 7-9 September 2006.