The neurodevelopmental sequelae of early deprivation were examined by testing (N = 132) 8- and 9-year-old children who had endured prolonged versus brief institutionalized rearing or rearing in the natal family. Behavioral tasks included measures that permit inferences about underlying neural circuitry. Children raised in institutionalized…

The importance of eye gaze as a means of communication is indisputable. However, there is debate about whether there is a dedicated neural module, which functions as an eye gaze detector and when infants are able to use eye gaze cues in a referential way. The application of neuroscience methodologies to developmental psychology has provided new…

Classic theories of self-development suggest people define themselves in part through internalized perceptions of other people's beliefs about them, known as reflected self-appraisals. This study uses functional magnetic resonance imaging to compare the neural correlates of direct and reflected self-appraisals in adolescence (N = 12, ages 11-14…

The condition of deafness presents a developmental context that provides insight into the biological, cultural, and linguistic factors underlying the development of neural systems that impact social cognition. Studies of visual attention, behavioral regulation, language development, and face and human action perception are discussed. Visually…

Data are reported from 3 groups of children residing in Bucharest, Romania. Face recognition in currently institutionalized, previously institutionalized, and never-institutionalized children was assessed at 3 time points: preintervention (n = 121), 30 months of age (n = 99), and 42 months of age (n = 77). Children watched photographs of caregiver…

Neural correlates of social-cognition were assessed in 9- to- 17-year-olds (N = 34) using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Participants appraised how unfamiliar peers they had previously identified as being of high or low interest would evaluate them for an anticipated online chat session. Differential age- and sex-related activation…

Two major advances in developmental brain sciences have implications for understanding development: (1) neuroimaging; and (2) molecular and cellular events that give rise to the developing brain and ways in which the brain is modified by experiences. Critical, new knowledge of behavioral development can be achieved by considering the…

This study used event-related potentials (ERP) and visual preference technique to assess 6-month olds' ability to recognize their mothers' face. Results of five experiments suggested that infants can recognize their mothers' face, but the neural processes accompanying recognition depend on the difficulty with which mothers can be discriminated…

Regulatory aspects of development can best be understood by research that conceptualizes relations between cognition and emotion. The neural mechanisms associated with regulatory processes may be the same as those associated with higher order cognitive processes. Thus, from a developmental cognitive neuroscience perspective, emotion and cognition…

Observed 4-year-olds during interaction tasks, and 2-weeks later recorded brain wave functions while subject attended to a visual stimulus. Found that children who displayed social competence exhibited greater relative left frontal activation than children displaying social withdrawal during the play session, who exhibited greater relative right…

Recorded cognitive event-related potentials from maltreated and nonmaltreated children during presentations of happy, angry, or neutral facial expressions. Found that for nonmaltreated children, the average amplitude of P300 was comparable for responses to happy and neutral expressions. Maltreated children displayed larger P300 amplitude to…

This paper presents a unitary approach to emotion and emotion regulation, building on the excellent points in the lead article by Cole, Martin, and Dennis (this issue), as well as the fine commentaries that follow it. It begins by stressing how, in the real world, the processes underlying emotion and emotion regulation appear to be largely one and…

Examined performance on neuropsychological tests (tapping the medial temporal lobe and related limbic structures, and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, respectively) in relation to performance on tasks assessing autistic symptoms in young children with autism, and developmentally matched children with Down syndrome or typical development.…

Affective neuroscience and cognitive science approaches are useful for understanding the components of emotion regulation; several examples from current research are provided. Individual differences in emotion regulation and a focus on the context of emotion experience and expression provide additional tools to study emotion regulation, and its…

This study explored the structure of verbal and visuospatial short-term and working memory in children between ages 4 and 11 years. Multiple tasks measuring 4 different memory components were used to capture the cognitive processes underlying working memory. Confirmatory factor analyses indicated that the processing component of working memory…