The HANDS Lab is directed by Dr. Eliza L. Nelson and housed in the Department of Psychology at Florida International University. HANDS is an interdisciplinary blend of developmental science and primatology. Our comparative research largely falls into two broad areas: laterality and motor skill. We are currently working on trajectory-based models for understanding how the hands shape development in infants and children, and characterizing how spider monkeys use their hands using motion tracking. We utilize Noldus Observer software for our human behavior research, and software from Innovision Systems and Animal Behaviour Pro for our animal behavior research.
For more information about our active studies and recent findings, please visit our Projects and Reprints pages. HANDS provides rigorous training in the collection and analysis of reaching, grasping, and manipulation in human and nonhuman primates for graduate, undergraduate, and high school students. Please visit our Team page for information about current trainees and opportunities for prospective students.
Newsfeed
07/27/2022: Kaityn Contino defended her masters thesis using infant hand preference trajectories to predict 5 year language outcomes.
07/09/2022: Kaityn Contino presented our work on cascades of manual exploration onto language outcomes at ICIS 2022.
08/23/2021: Atefeh Karimi and Kate Luger Long joined the lab as doctoral students in the FIU Developmental Science program.
03/23/2021: Incoming HANDS graduate student Atefeh Karimi was awarded the prestigious FIU Presidential Fellowship.
02/23/2021: Our chapter on developmental primate cognition was accepted for Primate Cognitive Studies (book under contract with Cambridge University Press).
