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Dr. Margaret Moulson

Professor, Continuing Education Academic Coordinator
DepartmentPsychology
EducationPhD, University of Minnesota
OfficeJOR-908
Phone416-979-5000 ext. 552661
Areas of Expertiseinfancy; development; face perception; emotion; cognitive neuroscience
https://psychlabs.torontomu.ca/beelab/

Biography

Dr. Moulson is a Professor of Psychology and Director of the Brain and Early Experiences (BEE) Lab. She received her PhD in developmental psychology from the Institute for Child Development at the University of Minnesota and completed postdoctoral training at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The overarching goal of Dr. Moulson’s research program is to understand the mechanisms that underlie the development of social perception in both typical and atypical populations. Her research combines behavioural (head-mounted video recording, eye-tracking, looking time paradigms) and brain-based (EEG) measures to investigate face and emotion perception throughout development, with a particular focus on infancy and the role that early visual experience plays in driving developmental change. Research in the BEE Lab is supported by NSERC and SSHRC.

Some current research questions in the lab include:

  • How does variability impact infants’, children’s, and adults’ ability to recognize new faces?
  • How does one’s lifetime history of exposure to faces impact adult face processing abilities?
  • When and how do infants learn to recognize facial expressions of emotion? 
  • How is emotion perception in the first year of life related to higher-level abilities, like emotion regulation, in the second year?

 

Selected Publications

Latif, M., Sugden, N., O’Hagan, M., & Moulson, M. C. (2025). Toronto Ethnically Diverse (TED) Face Database: A multi-faceted stimulus set. Frontiers in Psychology, 16. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1541546 (external link, opens in new window) 

Segal, S., & Moulson, M. C. (2024). The effectiveness of maternal regulatory attempts in the development of infant emotion regulation. Infancy, 29, 672-692. https://doi.org/10.1111/infa.12594 (external link, opens in new window) 

Zhou, X., Mondloch, C. J., Chien, S. H., & Moulson, M. C. (2022). Multi-cultural cities reduce disadvantages in recognizing naturalistic images of other-race faces: evidence from a novel face learning task. Scientific Reports, 12(1), 8950. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-11550-9 (external link, opens in new window) 

Zhou, X., Vyas, S., Ning, J., & Moulson, M. C. (2022). Naturalistic face learning in infants and adults. Psychological Science, 33, 135-151. https://doi.org/10.1177/09567976211030630 (external link, opens in new window) 

Safar, K., & Moulson, M. C. (2020). Three-month-old infants show enhanced behavioral and neural sensitivity to fearful faces. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 42, 100759. https://doi.org/10.32920/21758282.v1 (external link, opens in new window)