Elizabeth V. Edgar
Assistant Professor of PsychologyDirector of the Child Attention and Development Lab
NIMH T32 Postdoctoral Fellowship, Yale University Child Study CenterPd.D. - Developmental Science, Florida International UniversityM.S. - Developmental Sciences, Florida International University; B.S. - Human Development and Family Studies. Pennsylvania State University
elizabeth.edgar@liu.edu
Description
Dr. Edgar is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Long Island University and Director of the Child Attention and Development Lab. She received a Ph.D. in Developmental Science from Florida International University and completed a NIMH T32 Postdoctoral Fellowship at Yale University Child Study Center. Dr. Edgar’s research examines how attention in early childhood shapes learning and development. Her work focuses on multisensory attention—how children integrate sights and sounds—as a foundation for cognitive, language, and social-emotional development. Dr. Edgar is particularly interested in how attentional, neural, and behavioral factors contribute to the development and maintenance of anxiety across childhood. Using methods such as eye-tracking, behavioral observation, EEG, and computational modeling, alongside measures of children’s home and social environments. Dr. Edgar’s research links early attention to real-world developmental outcomes and aims to inform early identification and intervention strategies.
Specialties
Infant and child development; Multisensory attention; Language, cognitive, and socio-emotional development; Anxiety and internalizing symptoms; Advanced statistics; Computational modeling
Publications
Edgar, E. V., Castagna, P. J., Delpech, R., & Crowley, M. J. (2025). Linking attention bias to youth social anxiety and depression: Insights from computational modeling of the Affective Posner task. Journal of Affective Disorders, 388, 119764. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2025.119764
Ramirez, B. K., Edgar, E. V., Todd, J. T., & Bahrick, L. E. (2025). Infant attention to faces and voices and social competence predict childhood temperament. Developmental Psychology. doi: 10.1037/dev0002017
Edgar, E. V., McGuire, K., van Noordt, S., Pelphrey, K. A., Ventola, P., & Crowley, M. J. (2024). Early- and late-stage auditory processing of speech versus non-speech sounds in children with autism spectrum disorder: An ERP and oscillatory activity study. Developmental Psychobiology, 66(8), e22552. doi: 10.1002/dev.22552
Edgar E. V., Waugh, A., Wu, J., Castagna, P. J., Potenza, M. N., Mayes, L. C., & Crowley, M. J. (2024). Risk avoidance and social anxiety in adolescence: Examination of event-related potentials and theta-dynamics on the Balloon Risk Avoidance Task. Brain & Cognition, 180, 106209. doi: 10.1016/j.bandc.2024.106209
Castagna, P. J., Edgar, E. V., Delpech, R., Topel, S., Kortink, E. D., van der Molen, M. J. W., Crowley, M. J. (2024). Computational modeling of social evaluative decision-making elucidates individual differences in adolescent anxiety. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 00, 1-13. doi: 10.1111/jora.12999
Edgar, E. V., Richards, A., Castagna, P. J., Bloch, M. H., & Crowley, M. J. (2024). Post-event rumination and social anxiety: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 173, 87-97. doi: 10.1016/j.psychires.2024.03.013
Masek, L. R., Edgar, E. V., McMillan, B. T. M., Todd, J. T., Golinkoff, R. M., Bahrick, L. E., & Hirsh-Pasek, K. (2024). Building language learning: Relations between infant attention and social contingency in the first year of life. Infant Behavior and Development, 75, 101933. doi: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2024.101933
Edgar, E. V., Eschman, B., Todd, J. T., Testa, K., Ramirez, B., & Bahrick, L. E. (2023). The effects of socioeconomic status on working memory in childhood are mediated by intersensory processing of audiovisual events in infancy. Infant Behavior and Development, 72. doi: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2023.101844
Castagna, P. J., Waters, A. C., Edgar, E. V., Budagzad-Jacobson, R., & Crowley, M. J. (2023). Catch the drift: Depressive symptoms track neural responses during more efficient decision-making for negative self-referents. Journal of Affective Disorders Reports, 13, 100593. doi: 10.1016/j.jadr.2023.100593
Edgar, E. V., Todd, J. T., Eschman, B., Hayes, T. & Bahrick, L. E. (2023). Effects of English versus Spanish language exposure on tests of multisensory attention skills across 3 to 36 months of age. Developmental Psychology, 59(8), 1359-1376. doi: 10.1037/dev0001549
Edgar, E. V., Todd, J. T., & Bahrick, L. E. (2023). Intersensory processing of faces and voices at 6 months predicts language outcomes at 18, 24, and 36 Months of Age. Infancy, 28(3), 569-596. doi:10.1111/infa.12533
Edgar, E. V. (2022). Analyzing infant data at the group- or individual-level: The impact of measurement error on sophisticated analyses. Infant and Child Development, 31(5), e2335. doi:10.1002/icd.2335
Edgar, E. V., Todd, J. T., & Bahrick, L. E. (2022). Intersensory matching of faces and voices in infancy predicts language outcomes in young children. Developmental Psychology, 58(8), 1413-1428. doi:10.1037/dev0001375
Eschman, B., Todd, J. T., Sarafraz, A., Edgar, E. V., Petrulla, V., McNew, M., & Bahrick, L. E. (2022). Remote data collection during a pandemic: A new approach for assessing and coding multisensory attention skills in infants and young children. Frontiers in Psychology, 12. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.731618
Lectures and Presentations
Edgar, E. V. (2025). The Avoidant Brain: Neural Signatures of Risk Avoidance in Adolescence. Talk presented at the Yale Child Study Center Grand Rounds, New Haven, CT.
Honors/Awards
2022 – Excellence in Research Award. Florida International University Department of Psychology.
2022 – Dissertation Year Fellowship. Florida International University Graduate School.
2020 – Best Thesis Award (2020). Florida International University College of Arts, Sciences, and Education.
Professional Affiliations
