Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience An Introduction

Landmark text focusing on the development of brain and behavior during infancy, childhood, and adolescence

Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience provides an accessible introduction to the main methods, theories, and empirical findings of developmental cognitive neuroscience. The focus is on human development from in utero to early adulthood, but key comparative work is also included. This new edition covers research in clinical/medical populations, educational applications and major advancements in methods and analysis, in particular with increasing longitudinal research focusing on understanding the mechanisms of cognitive development. It also contains a new chapter on global and cross-cultural perspectives outlining how developmental cognitive neuroscience has been applied in different settings and how  techniques can be successfully adapted.

The text features a variety of student-friendly features such as chapter-end discussion, applications of basic research, and introductions to key experimental methods. An accompanying related resource website for students and educators that includes a test bank of multiple choice questions is also provided.

Other sample topics covered in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience include:

• Biology of change, methods, and populations, from gene to brain, building a brain, and vision, orienting, and attention
• Perceiving and acting in a world of objects, learning, and long-term memory, language, and prefrontal cortex, working memory, and decision-making
• Perceiving and acting in the social world, educational neuroscience, interactive specialization, and integrating development cognitive neuroscience
• Mid-childhood and adolescent development, social cognition and neuroimaging, and broader cognitive neuroscience approaches and theory 

MICHELLE de HAAN, PhD is Professor in Infant and Child Development at University College London Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, UK. She is Editor of Developmental Science, and an international figure in the field of clinical and developmental social and cognitive neuroscience, with an emphasis on the early years and electrophysiological and behavioural methods.

IROISE DUMONTHEIL, PhD., is Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Birkbeck, University of London. Her research focuses on the typical development of the brain, cognition and behaviour during childhood and adolescence, in particular in the domains of social cognition and cognitive control, and on potential implications of neuroscience research for education.

MARK H. JOHNSON, FBA, PhD., is Professor of Experimental Psychology at the University of Cambridge, UK, and Professor at the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Birkbeck, University of London. A founding leader of developmental cognitive neuroscience, his research focuses on both the typical and atypical development of the brain, cognition and behaviour over the first three years postnatal.

List of Figures x

List of Tables xvii

List of Abbreviations xviii

Preface to the First Edition xx

Preface to the Fifth Edition xxii

About the Companion Website xxiii

1 The Biology of Change 1

Viewpoints on Development 1

Analyzing Development 5

Why Take a Cognitive Neuroscience Approach to Development? 6

Why Take a Developmental Approach to Cognitive Neuroscience? 7

The Cause of Developmental Change 8

Three Viewpoints on Human Functional Brain Development 10

Interactive Specialization 11

Looking Forward 12

2 Methods and Populations 14

Introduction 14

Behavioral and Cognitive Tasks 15

Assessing Brain Function in Development 16

Observing Brain Structure in Development 18

Animal Studies and Genetics 19

Neurodiversity and Developmental Disorders 20

Atypically Developing Brains 22

Sensory and Environmental Variations 25

Familial Risk Populations 26

3 From Gene to Brain 28

The History of the Gene 28

Principles of Gene Function 29

Genetics and Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience 32

The Epigenome 36

The FOXP2 Gene 36

4 Building a Brain 39

An Overview of Primate Brain Anatomy 40

Prenatal Brain Development 43

Postnatal Brain Development 46

The Development of Cortical Areas: Protomap or Protocortex? 53

Differential Development of Human Cortex 61

Postnatal Brain Development: Adolescence 64

Postnatal Brain Development: The Hippocampus and Subcortical Structures 65

Neurotransmitters and Neuromodulators 66

What Makes a Brain Human? 69

General Summary and Conclusions 70

5 Vision, Orienting, and Attention 71

The Development of Vision 71

The Development of Visual Orienting 76

Saccade Planning 86

Visual Attention 89

General Summary and Conclusions 95

6 Perceiving and Acting in a World of Objects 97

The Dorsal and Ventral Visual Pathways 98

Hidden Objects 101

Neural Oscillations and Object Processing 105

General Summary and Conclusions 106

7 Perceiving and Acting on the Social World 107

The Social Brain 107

Face Recognition 109

Brain Development and Face Recognition in Humans 113

Perceiving and Acting on the Eyes 120

Understanding and Predicting the Behavior of Others 123

The Atypical Social Brain 127

General Summary and Conclusions 131

8 Learning and Long- Term Memory 133

Development of Explicit Memory 135

Implicit Memory 143

General Summary and Conclusions 145

9 Language 147

Introduction 147

Are Some Parts of Cortex Critical for Language Acquisition? 149

Neural Basis of Speech Processing in Infants 155

Influence of Experience on Brain Language Processing 156

Neural Correlates of Typical and Atypical Language Acquisition 158

General Summary and Conclusions 161

10 Prefrontal Cortex, Executive Functions, and Decision- Making 163

Introduction 164

Prefrontal Cortex and Object Permanence 164

Prefrontal Cortex and Executive Functions Development During Adolescence 166

Social Decision- Making and Self- Regulation During Adolescence 170

Prefrontal Cortex, Skill Learning, and Interactive Specialization 173

General Summary and Conclusions 177

11 Educational Neuroscience 179

Numeracy 181

Literacy 185

Domain- General Skills: Executive Functions and Processing Speed 186

Individual Differences and Training Interventions 189

Dyscalculia and Dyslexia 192

General Summary and Conclusions 195

12 Global and Cross- Cultural Perspectives 197

Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience: Factors to Consider in Global, Cross- Cultural Settings 198

Cognitive Neurosciences Approaches to Look at Commonalities Across Global/Cultural Settings 199

Infants’ Response to Novelty 199

Social Processing 200

Numeracy and Literacy 202

Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience: Examining Factors Affecting Similarities and Differences Among Global Settings and Cultures 203

Maternal Stress, Caregiving and Education and Brain Responses to Social Stimuli 203

Interactions Between Factors Predicting Individual Differences in Neurocognition 203

Brain Responses in the Context of Global- Specific Risk 204

General Summary and Conclusions 204

13 Toward an Integrated Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience 206

Introduction 206

Three Viewpoints on Human Functional Brain Development 207

Interactive Specialization (IS) 209

Emerging Networks 213

Genes and Cognitive Development 217

Relations Between Brain Structure and Function in Development 218

Neuroconstructivism 219

Criticisms of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience 221

Applications of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience 223

Concluding Remarks 224

References 225

Index 282

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