Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The articles in this special section offer a sample of many cortical regions, previously unknown or little
the state of the art in an exploding new field. studied, which have apparently social functions.
Noninvasive neuroimaging techniques, including The fusiform face area (FFA) is involved in perceiv-
functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), ing human faces (Kanwisher, McDermott, & Chun,
electroencephalograms (EEG), and functional near- 1997). The extrastriate body area is involved in per-
infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), are increasingly ceiving human bodies (Downing, Jiang, Shuman, &
being used to study development in infants, chil- Kanwisher, 2001). The right posterior superior tem-
dren, adolescents, and adults. Applying these tools poral sulcus (pSTS) is involved in perceiving and
to the study of social cognitive development, in par- analyzing human actions (Pelphrey, Viola, &
ticular, is a very new development. Consequently, McCarthy, 2004). The right temporo–parietal junc-
in this commentary, we wish to step back and con- tion (RTPJ) is involved in reasoning about people’s
sider the new intersection of neuroscience and thoughts (Saxe & Kanwisher, 2003). The medial
social cognitive development. What do these new precuneus and posterior cingulate and medial pre-
fields have to offer each other, theoretically and frontal cortices are involved in other aspects of
pragmatically? What pitfalls can we expect to higher level social cognition (Amodio & Frith,
encounter along the way? 2006). With the exception of the pSTS (Perrett et al.,
Even in adults, a neuroscience of social cognition 1985), these regions were unknown from the stud-
is a new invention. Traditional neuroscientific tech- ies of nonhuman animals.
niques were applied to the brains of nonhuman ani- The discovery of these regions provides an excit-
mals, to study how brains see, hear, feel, move, and ing challenge for neuroscientists, and a role for
remember. Uniquely human cognitive capacities, developmental psychology. For neuroscientists, the
such as language and social cognition, could not be key questions are: How are high-level social func-
studied in nonhuman animals. When neuroimaging tions implemented in neurons? How do brain
techniques were first applied to human adults, the regions with these functional roles arise, phyloge-
key test of these technologies was replication, in netically and ontogenetically? Ideas, experimental
humans, of functions known from nonhuman ani- paradigms, and data from developmental psychol-
mals. Thus, early neuroimaging focused on the ogy may help to pose and to address these ques-
human homologues of known regions from other tions. For example, neuroimaging studies of action
primates: early visual cortex, the motion perception representation in the pSTS have been modeled on
region (MT), early sensory, and motor cortices. studies of infants’ action perception (Vander Wyk,
Soon, though, human neuroimaging led to fasci- Hudac, Carter, Sobel, & Pelphrey, in press); and
nating novel discoveries. The human brain contains most early studies of the RTPJ’s role in thinking
about thoughts used versions of the false belief par-
adigm originally developed for studying children
We express our deepest gratitude to the outstanding reviewers (e.g., Fletcher et al., 1995; Gallagher et al., 2000). In
who generously gave of their time in order to help us select the
articles for this special section. Kevin Pelphrey and Rebecca Saxe the future, we expect that neuroscientists will
are each supported by awards from the John Merck Scholars continue to benefit greatly from the theoretical
Fund and grants from the Simons Foundation. Additionally, a concepts and paradigms generated within develop-
Career Development Award from the National Institute of Men-
tal Health supports Kevin Pelphrey. mental psychology.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to
Rebecca Saxe, Department of Brain and Cognitive Science, MIT
46-4019, 77 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139 or to
Kevin Pelphrey, Child Study Center, Yale University, 230 South 2009, Copyright the Author(s)
Frontage Rd., New Haven, CT 06520. Electronic mail may be sent Journal Compilation 2009, Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.
to saxe@mit.edu or to kevin.pelphrey@yale.edu. All rights reserved. 0009-3920/2009/8004-0002
Developmental Social Cognitive Neuroscience 947
In turn, as neuroscientists begin to link specific false belief task if their understanding is measured
brain regions, and their interactions, to particular in terms of looking time (looking longer to un-
the same computations in the same places—but the nized in the same fashion across the observed age
young children perform the task using different range, but younger and older children would use
sizes. It also makes it more likely to detect relations or like visual cortex? The answer is a mixture of the
between different developmental changes, and thus two. Like visual cortex, rewired auditory cortex con-
critical diagnoses and ⁄ or earlier predictors of ronment. The goal of theory building is then to
long-term outcomes, including for neurodevelop- specify mechanisms through the identification of
Gottlieb, G. (1997). Synthesizing nature-nurture: Prenatal belief: Charting transitions in knowledge? Journal of
roots of instinctive behavior. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Experimental Child Psychology, 80, 201–224.
Goulven, J., & Tzourio-Mazoyer, N. (2003). Review: Sameroff, A. J., & Chandler, M. J. (1975). Reproductive