Talk on the development of executive function...

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John Spencer (PSY - Staff)

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Feb 4, 2026, 2:20:04 AM (yesterday) Feb 4
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Greetings Colleagues,

 

The Dynamic Field Theory Community is starting a new public talk series with presentations on the first Wednesday of every month. We are pleased to announce the first talk in this series:

 

The Dynamic Field Theory Community Presents…

Understanding the early development of executive function

 

Presenter: John P. Spencer, Professor, University of East Anglia

When: Wednesday February 4th at 4pm GMT+0

Where…

________________________________________________________________________________

Microsoft Teams meeting

Join: https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/32838875960272?p=KE6ze0PYAI7b3alzkI

Meeting ID: 328 388 759 602 72

Passcode: 2pJ3G7cD


 

Abstract: Data suggest that executive functions (EFs) are a key developmental skill predicting school readiness and longer-term health and well-being outcomes. This has led to heightened interest in designing intervention tools to boost EFs in early development. In this talk, I will focus on a key developmental challenge that is a barrier to realising effective intervention: how to conceptualise early EFs. To address this challenge, I will describe a new theory of early EFs using the framework of Dynamic Field Theory. In particular, I will present an overview of our WOLVES 2.0 neural architecture that captures data from both early word learning tasks, later card-sorting tasks (e.g., the DCCS task), as well as the relationship between dimensional label learning and EF. This work sets the stage for on-going work looking at the relationship between word learning and EF in early development.

 

Note that the talk will focus on the following paper, available here…

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0273229724000662

 

Spencer, J.P., Buss, A.T., McCraw, A.R., Johns, E. & Samuelson, L.K. (2025). Integrating attention, working memory, and word learning in a dynamic field theory of executive function development: Moving beyond the ‘component’ view of executive function. Developmental Review, 75, 101182.

 

All are welcome.

 

Cheers,

John

 

John P. Spencer, PhD

Professor

 

Developmental Dynamics Lab   

https://www.facebook.com/DDPSYUEA 

https://ddlabs.uea.ac.uk

 

School of Psychology,

Room 0.09

Lawrence Stenhouse Building,

University of East Anglia,

Norwich Research Park,

Norwich NR4 7TJ

United Kingdom

 

Telephone 01603 593968

Book time with John Spencer (PSY - Staff)

 

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UK 14th for Research Quality in Psychology, Psychiatry, and Neuroscience (Times Higher Education rankings for the Research Excellence Framework 2021)

World Top 200 (Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2022)
UK Top 30 (The Times/Sunday Times 2022 and Complete University Guide 2022)
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World Top 50 for research citations (Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2022)
World Top 50 (Times Higher Education Impact Rankings 2022)
Athena SWAN Silver Award Holder (since 2019) in recognition of advancement towards gender equality for all (Advance HE)

 

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