Eric Pakulak Associate Professor
Contact
Name and title: Eric PakulakAssociate Professor
Workplace: Department of Psychology Länk till annan webbplats.
Visiting address Room 315Albanovägen 12
Postal address Psykologiska institutionen106 91 Stockholm
About me
I am an Associate Professor and researcher in the Psychology Department. I moved to Sweden in 2018 from the University of Oregon in the US, where I was at the Brain Development Lab for many years. One of my primary research interests is the neuroplasticity of brain systems important for early learning, including language, attention, and self-regulation. A related research interest is intervention science, and specifically the development, implementation, and assessment of evidence-based training programs that simultaneously target at-risk children and their parents (two-generation approaches), as well as the cultural adaptation of such programs in different national and sociocultural contexts.
I am co-course leader for two courses in the psychologist training program: Adult Development and Aging and Community Psychology. I also do guest lectures/seminars in several courses at the undergraduate and graduate level.
Ongoing research projects include:
- Cultural adaptation of a two-generation intervention targeting at-risk families in Australia and France. Funding: Griffiths University, Australia; Université Paris 8, France
- Chronic stress and acquisition of Swedish in immigrant children and their parents. PI: Sayehli. Funding: Marcus and Amalia Wallenberg Foundation https://www.su.se/forskning/forskningskatalog/forskningsprojekt/9/calm---kronisk-stress-och-andraspraksinlarning-hos-invandrarbarn-och-dess-foraldrar
- Improving student learning via AI-generated practice multiple-choice questions. Funding: Stockholm University Dean’s grant for quality development of education
- Nordic Evidence-Based High Quality Early Childhood Education and Care Research Network for Social Justice. PI S. Frankenberg. Funding: Swedish Research Council
- Life course psychosocial factors and early signs of Alzheimer's Disease and elated dementias. PI: Wang. Funding: Swedish Research Council
- Promoting the psychosocial health of children of incarcerated parents and their non-incarcerated caregivers through the development and assessment of an intervention. PI: Å. Norman. Funding: Forte
Selected publications
Garvis, S., Pakulak, E., & Madanipour, P. (in press). The health and wellbeing of early childhood teachers in Sweden. In Harju-Luukkainen, Maunula, Knudsmoen, and Faldet (Eds.), A Nordic Perspective on Teacher Well-being in Educational Contexts.. London: Routledge Press.
Lindfors, H., Hansson, K., Pakulak, E., Cohn, N., & Andersson, A. (2023). Semantic processing of verbal narratives compared to semantic processing of visual narratives: an ERP study of school-aged children. Frontiers in Psychology, 14.
Hoyer, R. S., Pakulak, E., Bidet-Caulet, A., & Karns, C. M. (2023). Relationships among age, socioeconomic status, and distractibility in preschoolers as assessed by the Competitive Attention Test. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 227, 105584.
Pakulak, E. & Stevens, C. (2023). Changing brains for social justice. In A. Newman and G. Grossi (Eds.), Changing Brains: Essays on Neuroplasticity in Honor of Helen Neville. Abingdon: Routledge Press.
Pakulak, E. & Lipina, S.L. (2021). Neuroscientific approaches to optimize self-regulatory skills in children from backgrounds of poverty in different cultural contexts. In S. Garvis and H. Lenz Taguchi (Eds.), Quality Improvement in Early Childhood Education and Care. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Pakulak, E. & Stevens, C. (2020). Applying neuroscience research to interventions addressing poverty . In C. Stevens, E. Pakulak, S.L. Lipina, and M.S. Segretin (Eds.), Neuroscientific Perspectives on Poverty. Erice, Italy: International School on Mind, Brain, and Education.
O’Neill, L., Pakulak, E., Stevens, C. Bell, T., Fanning, J., Gaston, M., Gomsrud, M., Hampton Wray, A., Holmes, K., Klein, S., Longoria, Z., Reynolds, M., Snell, K., Soto, A., & Neville, H. (2019). Creating Connections between researchers and educators. Journal of Cognition and Development, 20(2), 110-133.
Giuliano, R., Karns, C., Bell, T., Petersen, S., Skowron, E., Neville, H., & Pakulak, E. (2018). Parasympathetic and sympathetic activity are associated with individual
differences in neural indices of selective attention in adults. Psychophysiology, 55(8), e13079.
Giuliano, R., Karns, C., Roos, L., Bell, T., Petersen, S., Skowron, E., Neville, H., & Pakulak, E. (2018). Effects of early adversity on neural mechanisms
of distractor suppression are mediated by sympathetic nervous system activity in preschool-aged children. Developmental Psychology, 54(9), 1674.
Pakulak, E., Stevens, C., & Neville, H. (2018). Neuro-, cardio-, and
immunoplasticity: effects of early adversity. Annual Review of Psychology, 69.
Pakulak, E., Hampton Wray, A., Longoria, Z., Garcia Isaza, A., Stevens, C., Bell,
T., Burlingame, S., Klein, S., Berlinski, S., Attanasio, O., & Neville, H. (2017). Cultural
adaptation of a neurobiologically-informed intervention in local and international contexts. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 158, 81-92
Isbell, E., Stevens, C., Pakulak, E., Hampton Wray, A., Bell, T. A., & Neville, H. J. (2017). Neuroplasticity of selective attention: Research foundations and preliminary evidence for a gene by intervention interaction. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(35), 9247-9254.
Hampton Wray, A., Stevens, C., Pakulak, E., Isbell, E., Bell, T., & Neville, H. (2017).
Development of selective attention in preschool-age children from lower socioeconomic status backgrounds. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 26, 101-111.
Pakulak, E., Gomsrud, M., Reynolds, M., Bell, T., Giuliano, R., Karns, C., Klein, S., Longoria, Z., O’Neill, L., & Neville, H. (2017). Focusing on families: A two-generation model for reducing parents’ stress and boosting preschoolers’ self-regulation and attention. Young Children, 72(2), 25-37.
Neville, H., Pakulak, E., & Stevens, C. (2015). Family-based training to improve cognitive outcomes for children from lower socioeconomic status backgrounds: emerging themes and challenges. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 4, 166-170.
Neville, H.J., Stevens, C., Pakulak, E., Bell, T., Fanning, J., Klein, S., & Isbell, E. (2013).
Family-based training program improves brain function, cognition and behavior in lower socioeconomic status preschoolers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110(29), 12138-12143.
Neville, H., Stevens, C., Pakulak, E., & Bell, T.A. (2013). Commentary: Neuroocognitive consequences of socioeconomic disparities. Child Development 16(5), 708-712.
Pakulak, E. (2012). Individual differences in native speakers and the broader picture: socioeconomic status and neuroplasticity. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 2(3), 277-280.
Pakulak, E., & Neville, H.J. (2011). Maturational constraints on the recruitment of early processes for syntactic processing. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 23(10), 2752–2765.
Pakulak, E., & Neville, H.J. (2010). Proficiency differences in syntactic processing of native speakers indexed by event-related potentials. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 22(12), 2728-2744.
Forskningsprojekt