Cover Page

Minnesota Symposia on Child Psychology

Development of the Social Brain

Volume 39

 

 

Edited by

Jed T. Elison

Maria D. Sera

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title Page

Preface

The origin for what would become the Minnesota Symposia on Child Psychology, formally established in a 1966 meeting and subsequent volume the following year, can potentially be traced to an event in December 1955 organized by Dale Harris, director of the Institute of Child Development at the time. Among the participants at this meeting, and contributors to the volume published in 1957 as The Concept of Development: An Issue in the Study of Human Behavior, was T.C. Schneirla. Schnierla's theoretical and empirical contributions were rather disruptive at the time, and in some respect remain so, challenging popular notions of instincts and simplistic conceptualizations of maturational processes, among others. More relevant to our concerns, Schneirla's work consistently considered developmental change across ontogenetic and phylogenetic frames of reference. He also attempted to explicate a precise and parsimonious description of development, hence the invitation from Professor Harris.

The concept of development would remain the organizing theme for the Minnesota Symposia meetings/volumes until the first topical meeting was held in 1977 on language development. This would become the 12th volume, published in 1979. How did the concept of development fill 11 volumes from 1967 to 1978? In his contribution to the eighth volume in 1974, Irv Gottesman paraphrased Paul Meehl's paraphrase of Albert Einstein: “The trouble with The Concept of Development – the annual organizing theme of these volumes – is that it is too difficult for developmental psychologists, and further, that it is too difficult for developmental biologists.” In partial homage to Schneirla and Gottesman, we opted to embrace the complexity of ontogenetic and phylogenetic development in the current volume.

Ninety years after the founding of the Institute of Child Development, 70 years after Harris's meeting, nearly 40 years after Nicolas Humphrey's The Social Function of Intellect, 30 years since Michael Gazzaniga's The Social Brain: Discovering Networks of the Mind, and 25 years after Leslie Brothers published The Social Brain: A Project for Integrating Primate Behavior and Neurophysiology in a New Domain, we organized the 39th Minnesota Symposium on Child Psychology around the topic of the Development of the Social Brain. I had preferred the title Phylogeny and Ontogeny of the Social Brain, but as we attempt to impress on our trainees, concise writing generally represents the best course of action (although the previous sentence may betray my career stage). This topic attempts a synthesis across two distinguishable lines of research: the phylogenetic line, which focuses on identifying the factors that could possibly account for the disproportionate expansion of the primate neocortex, and a second line of research focused on characterizing the conditions by which specific neural circuits become dedicated to processing social information across ontogeny.

To this end, the primary objectives of the two-day symposium held in October of 2015 and this, the subsequent volume were fourfold:

  1. To delineate the prerequisites for the existence of neural circuitry dedicated to processing social information
  2. To consider the specialized computational features of putative social brain networks
  3. To consider shared versus unique features of social information processing strategies across species
  4. To advance a comprehensive yet parsimonious conceptualization of the necessary and sufficient features that constitute the putative social brain

Developmental social neuroscience represents an emerging field of study that attempts to identify the necessary and sufficient developmental processes that explain specialized social information processing abilities observed in young children. Of course it is easy to counter the claim of newness, especially if we broaden the search space to include examples like the work of Klüver and Bucy from 1939 or more recent work from Jocelyne Bachevalier or David Amaral. One assumption of this program of research is that the complexity of human social cognition stems from the complexity of structural and functional patterns of neural connectivity, which is shaped by both phylogenetic and ontogenetic developmental processes. Arguably, yet consistent with the phylogenetic theme of our opening chapter, much of child development, both behaviorally and at the neural level, prepares individuals to flexibly and efficiently navigate the complex dynamics of social interaction inherent to the unique cultural demands of our species. Neural circuitry within the putative social brain has proven vulnerable to abnormal function across a variety of psychiatric and neurological conditions. And as psychiatric disorders are recast as disorders of neurodevelopment (or circuit level dysfunction that accumulates over time), understanding the processes that shape brain development prior to the onset or consolidation of clinically impairing features is critical. The contributions herein largely focus on typical or normative processes but all have relevance to at-risk or clinical samples.

The primary strength of this volume is the unique collection of distinguished contributors. It is easy for developmental psychologists to find themselves in echo chambers – of course we think development is complex and that the concept of development deserves 11 consecutive published volumes. Why would we choose to spend a career tinkering about on something simple? But when you mix the right neuroscientists, neurobiologists, primatologists, and experimental psychologists in a room full of eager developmentalists, you've got a recipe with great potential.

Andrew Whiten opens the volume with a history and summary of work that culminates in his characterization of the Deep Social Mind, a distinctly human phenotype created by cumulative culture, hypercooperation, egalitarian dispositions, the capacity to use inferences about others' mental states to guide one's own behavior, and language. Next, the volume proceeds into specific comparative examples of social brain function. Sullivan and Opendak describe a body of work highlighting the maternal caregiver's capacity to buffer a rodent's stress response system at a specific time during early development. The role of the social environment is also a key element of Ghazanfar and colleague's contribution. They offer a compelling example of convergent evolution among marmosets and humans, describing the shared developmental processes that shape specialized vocal communication. Both of these chapters highlight careful explications of time, or sensitive periods for foundational social behaviors. The two subsequent chapters transition to higher-order representation in humans, drawing on evidence from a diverse suite of neuroscience methodologies implemented with developing samples. Theory of Mind (c.f. Pollard, Heyes, and Apperly) and moral cognition (Decety and Cowell) both represent “top-of-the-food-chain” constructs to some degree. Although much attention has been allocated to these areas of research in (a) traditional social neuroscience studies with adults and (b) developmental studies (sans neuroscience methods), the time is ripe for an integrative approach to these themes from a developmental social neuroscience perspective. The volume concludes with a summary by Ralph Adolphs and myself specifically crafted to motivate and inform future studies.

Many people who deserve recognition contributed to the two-day event and the generation of this volume. I want to thank my co-organizer and co-editor, Maria Sera, who was with me at each step with valuable advice and guidance. I am indebted to Melissa Koenig, Suma Jacob, Alan Love, and Michael Wilson (a psychologist, psychiatrist/neurobiologist, philosopher, and primatologist, respectively) for participating in a panel discussion to close the first day of the symposium. It is difficult to quantify the behind-the-scenes coordination for the event, but Delores Mordorski, Brittany Howell, Angela Fenoglio, Katie Ridge, Max Herzberg, Sarah Suarez, and Brandon Almy deserve special recognition. Lastly, I want to express the utmost gratitude to our speakers and contributors; Andy Whiten, Regina Sullivan, Maya Opendak, Asif Ghazanfar, Daniel Takahashi, Yisi Zhang, Jeremy Borjon, Tobias Grossmann, David Pollard, Stephanie Heyes, Ian Apperly, Jason Cowell, Jean Decety, and Ralph Adolphs. Chapters are difficult sells in our current publishing climate. Although I would predict that each contributor participated in part to disseminate their science, I suspect that each was fully aware that they were helping out an assistant professor with a crazy idea about the social brain, and for this I am grateful.

Jed Elison

List of Contributors

 

  • Ralph Adolphs, PhD
  • California Institute of Technology
  • Pasadena, CA

 

  • Ian Apperly, PhD
  • University of Birmingham
  • Birmingham, UK

 

  • Jeremy I. Borjon
  • Princeton University
  • Princeton, NJ

 

  • Jason M. Cowell, PhD
  • University of Wisconsin – Green Bay
  • Green Bay, WI

 

  • Jean Decety, PhD
  • University of Chicago
  • Chicago, IL

 

  • Jed T. Elison, PhD
  • University of Minnesota
  • Minneapolis, MN

 

  • Asif A. Ghazanfar, PhD
  • Princeton University
  • Princeton, NJ

 

  • Stephanie Burnett Heyes, PhD
  • University of Birmingham
  • Birmingham, UK

 

  • Maya Opendak, PhD
  • New York University
  • New York, NY

 

  • David Pollard
  • University of Birmingham
  • Birmingham, UK

 

  • Maria D. Sera, PhD
  • University of Minnesota
  • Minneapolis, MN

 

  • Regina M. Sullivan, PhD
  • New York University
  • New York, NY

 

  • Daniel Y. Takahashi, PhD
  • Princeton University
  • Princeton, NJ

 

  • Andrew Whiten, PhD
  • University of St. Andrews
  • St. Andrews, UK

 

  • Yisi S. Zhang, PhD
  • Princeton University
  • Princeton, NJ