Inge-Marie Eigsti

Professor

Psychological Sciences

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Education

Ph.D., 2001, University of Rochester

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Research Interests

Dr. Eigsti’s research addresses a fundamental challenge in ASD: how to map complex behavioral constructs, such as social communication deficits, onto mechanistic processes in the brain. She primarily targets low-level (and particularly non-social) cognitive processes, such as working memory and auditory processing, that may not be specific to the ASD diagnosis, but that can be linked to genetic, neurophysiological or neuroanatomical domains, and that impact socio-communicative behavior. The aim is to better understand the pathology of ASD by linking research at the molecular level (genetics), at the neurofunctional level (brain imaging), and at the behavioral level (symptomatology): Her and her team aim to connect complex behaviors to underlying genetic mechanisms. Other interest include: 

• Psycholinguistics in autism spectrum disorders
• optimal outcomes in ASD
• hyperlexia
• savant musical skills
• functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)

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Teaching

Undergraduate 

• Abnormal Psychology (2300)
• Autism and Developmental Disorders (3202)

Graduate 

• Cognitive Assessment (5301)
• Language Acquisition and Cognitive Development in Language Pathologies (5470)

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Publications

Recent

Brynskov, C., Eigsti, I. M., J¸rgensen, M., Lemcke, S., Bohn, O.-S., & Kr¸jgaard, P. (2017). Syntax and morphology in Danish-speaking children with autism spectrum disorder. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 47(2), 373-383. doi:10.1007/s10803-016-2962-7

De Marchena, A., & Eigsti, I. M. (2014). Context counts: The impact of social context on gesture rate in verbally fluent adolescents with autism spectrum disorder. Gesture, 14(3), 375€“93. doi:10.1075/gest.14.3.05mar

Eigsti, I. M., Stevens, M., Schultz, R., Barton, M., Kelley, E., Naigles, L. R., . . . Fein, D. A. (2016). Language comprehension and brain function in individuals with optimal outcomes from autism. NeuroImage: Clinical, 10, 182-91. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nicl.2015.11.014

Hall, M. L., Eigsti, I. M., Bortfeld, H., & Lillo-Martin, D. (in press). Auditory access, language access, and implicit sequence learning in Deaf children. Developmental Science.

Schuh, J. M., Eigsti, I. M., & Mirman, D. (2016). Referential communication in autism spectrum disorder: The roles of working memory and theory of mind. Autism Research. doi:10.1002/aur.1632

Representative

Eigsti, I. M., Stevens, M., Schultz, R., Barton, M., Kelley, E., Naigles, L. R., . . . Fein, D. A. (in press). Language comprehension and brain function in individuals with optimal outcomes from autism. NeuroImage: Clinical.

Eigsti, I. M., Rosset, D., Col Cozzari, G., da Fonseca, D., & Deruelle, C. (2015). Effects of motor action on affective preferences in autism spectrum disorders: different influences of embodiment. Developmental Science. doi:10.1111/desc.12278

Eigsti, I. M., & Fein, D. A. (2013). More is less: pitch discrimination and language delays in children with optimal outcomes from autism. Autism Research, 6(6), 605-613. doi: 610.1002/aur.1324. Epub 2013 Aug 1008.

Eigsti, I. M. (2013). A review of embodiment in autism spectrum disorders. Frontiers in psychology, 4:224.(doi), 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00224. eCollection 02013.

Mayo, J., & Eigsti, I. M. (2012). A comparison of statistical learning in school-aged children with high functioning autism and typically developing peers. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 42, 2476-2485. doi: 10.1007/s10803-012-1493-0