Two years after the introduction of Registered Reports in Developmental Science, we ask the Editors to reflect on the take up and reaction of the research community to this article type.
Learn how Developmental Science’s introduction of Registered Reports is advancing the developmental psychology research.
Judit Gervain is a CNRS Senior Research Scientist at the Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception in Paris. Judit has been working on early speech perceptions and language acquisition, using behavioural methods, optical brain imaging and electrophysiological measures to understand how babies learn their native languages.1. What are you most known for in your research community?
I have been doing brain imaging, in particular near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), with newborns and young infants to uncover the origins and neural basis of language development.
2. The one benefit of Registered Reports I feel most passionate about is…
… the possibility to have research questions published and time-stamped, thus guaranteeing publication opportunity even for young or less well-funded labs, so they have the freedom to test innovative ideas even if they turn out to be empirically false.
3. What book are you reading at the moment?
In my own area, I am reading Gyorgy Buzsaki’s Rhythms of the Brain - it provides a very different perspective on the brain, anchored in physiology, than what I am used to in cognitive developmental neuroscience. I do hope one day we will be able to bridge these different approaches. As for fun, I have just re-read Salinger’s teenage classic, The Catcher in the Rye - a very developmental book, one might say. As a grown-up and having children who are slowly approaching adolescence, I have a different outlook on the book, but I was happy to discover the main ideas still resonate well with me. Maybe a sign that I have managed to keep my inner child alive!
Daniel Ansari is a developmental psychologist and developmental cognitive neuroscientist. He is currently a Professor and Canada Research Chair in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience in the Department of Psychology and the Brain & Mind Institute at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, leading the Numerical Cognition Laboratory. Daniel and his team explore the developmental trajectory underlying both the typical and atypical development of numerical and mathematical skills, using both behavioral and neuroimaging methods.
