Current lab activity The PLAY Project The Infant Lab is currently collaborating with New York University (NYU) on the Play and Learning Across a Year (PLAY) project! The PLAY project is a collaborative research initiative by 70 researchers from 50 universities across the United States and Canada. It serves as a model system for doing development science from a “big data” approach. Natural free play represents the foundation of infant learning, but we know little about how infants play, how play unfolds in real time and across development, and how individual and group differences promote infant learning and development through play. Addison in the UGA Infant Lab collected 31 mother-child dyads for this project. Addison and Meg conducted in-depth research projects using PLAY data for their Master's Projects, which were completed in 2024-2025. They are currently working with the data to further explore variables related to infant development. Addison is assessing the time-dependent relationship between maternal attention-directing behaviors and infant engagement. Meg is exploring the relations of movement and emerging social cognition in naturalistic settings! Auditory Effects Study: Our undergrads are actively collecting data on a project assessing the effects of different auditory stimuli on college student's cognitive performance. An abstract for this study was submitted to SRCD for Spring 2027! Come back for updates on this project! Future Projects: Check back soon to see updates on upcoming in-person studies! Click here to see the titles of Dr. Frick's publications
