My research program investigates how our sense of self and our connections to others are fundamentally grounded in bodily and sensorimotor processes, with a particular focus on early human development. Using electrophysiological methods (EEG/ERP), my lab has examined how infants and young children develop representations of their own bodies and how these representations support social understanding and interaction.

A key thread of this work explores the development of “body maps” in the infant brain. Through studies of somatosensory processing and body-based attention, we have demonstrated that these maps emerge early in life and play a crucial role in how infants understand both their own actions and the actions of others.

My work has also addressed broader theoretical questions at the intersection of embodiment, development, and neuroscience. I have become more interested in how embodied frameworks bridging biological and psychological levels of analysis can help us better understand human behavior and cognition. Recent projects have expanded to examine these processes in applied contexts, including studies of social robotics and investigations of motor development using naturalistic approaches.

Some selected recent publications are shown below. For a full list of publications, please see my CV or my Google Scholar profile.

Marshall, P. J. (2024) Towards a biologically coherent approach to the brain and how it develops. Human Development, 68, 209–220.

Horger, M. N., Campbell, K., & Marshall, P. J. (2024). Electrophysiological responses to digit stimulation in a tactile oddball paradigm. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 203, 112391.

Yang, Y., Langer, A., Howard, L., & Marshall, P. J., Wilson, J. R. (2024). Towards an ontology for generating behaviors for socially assistive robots helping young children. Proceedings of the AAAI Fall Symposia, 2, 1, 213-218

Taylor, J., Weiss, S. M., & Marshall, P. J. (2023). Genes, genomes, and developmental process. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 46, e204.

Langer, A., Marshall, P. J., Levy-Tzedek, S. (2023). Ethical considerations in child-robot interactions. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 151,105230.

Ma, L., Marshall, P. J, & Wright, W. G. (2023) The order of attentional focus instructions affects how postural control processes compensate for multisensory mismatch: A crossover study. Experimental Brain Research, 241,1393-1409.

Weiss, S. M., & Marshall, P. J. (2023). Anticipation across modalities in children and adults: Relating anticipatory alpha rhythm lateralization, reaction time and executive function. Developmental Science, e13277.

Ma, L., Marshall, P. J., & Wright, W.G. (2022). The impact of external and internal focus of attention on visual dependence and EEG alpha oscillations during postural control. Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation, 19, 81.

Shen, G., Weiss, S. M., Meltzoff, A. N., Allison, O. N., & Marshall, P. J. (2022). Exploring developmental changes in infant anticipation and perceptual processing: EEG responses to tactile stimulation. Infancy, 27, 97-114

Marshall, P. J., Houser, T. M., & Weiss, S. M. (2021). The shared origins of embodiment and development. Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience, 15, 726403.

Belhassein, K., Marshall, P. J., Badets, A., & Bouquet, C. A. (2021). Social learning of action-effect associations: Modulation of action control following observation of virtual action’s effects. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 83, 484-496.

Taylor, J., Weiss, S. M., & Marshall, P. J. (2020). “Alexa, how are you feeling today?” Mind perception, smart speakers, and uncanniness. Interaction Studies, 21, 329-352.

Meltzoff, A. N., & Marshall, P. J. (2020). Importance of body representations in social-cognitive development: New insights from infant brain science. Progress in Brain Research, 254, 25-48.

Weiss, S. M., Laconi, R. N., & Marshall, P. J. (2020). Individual differences in anticipatory mu rhythm modulation are associated with executive function and processing speed. Cognitive Affective and Behavioral Neuroscience, 20, 901-916.

Shen, G., Meltzoff, A. N., Weiss, S. M., & Marshall, P. J. (2020). Body representation in infants: Categorical boundaries of body parts as assessed by somatosensory mismatch negativity. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 44, 100795.

Marshall, P. J., & Meltzoff, A. N. (2020). Body maps in the infant brain: implications for neurodevelopmental disabilities. Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology, 62, 778-783.

Shen, G., Meltzoff, A. N., & Marshall, P. J. (2019). Body representations as indexed by oscillatory EEG activities in the context of tactile novelty processing. Neuropsychologia, 132, 107144.

Meltzoff, A. N., Saby, J. N., & Marshall, P. J. (2019). Neural representations of the body in 60-day-old human infants. Developmental Science, 22, 12698.