The main focus of my research is on emotional development. My PhD studies investigate the way people can differentiate between real and deceptive emotional expressions (for instance the way they tell the difference between a real and a fake smile) and how this ability evolves across development. I am interested not only in children’s ability to identify deceptive emotional expressions, but also the implicit and explicit strategies they use. Another area of interest focuses on children’s math anxiety and how this relates to processing of negative emotional stimuli and socio-emotional development.

Research interests

•  Individual differences in anxiety

•  Emotion understanding and emotion recognition

•  Understanding the authenticity emotional expressions

•  Development of deception