Social Cognitive Development Research Articles

Infants’ interoception is associated with eye contact in dyadic social interactions

Interoception, that is, the perception of visceral stimuli, is the basis of socio-emotional development. However, no studies have demonstrated the relationship between the two in infants. This study aimed to elucidate the relationship between interoception and social behavior in infants and mothers. Visual preference for cardio-visual synchronous and asynchronous stimuli was assessed using a preferential-looking paradigm in 6-month infants and their mothers. The infant–mother interaction was also measured to assess social behavior, such as eye contact and positive facial expressions. The results showed that infants looked at asynchronous cardio-visual stimuli longer than synchronous cardio-visual stimuli, whereas mothers looked at synchronous cardio-visual stimuli longer than asynchronous cardio-visual stimuli. The proportion of looking time toward asynchronous cardio-visual stimuli in infants was positively correlated with infant–mother gaze and affect (positive facial expression) synchrony. Furthermore, mediation analyses showed that the relationship between infants’ interoception and eye contact behavior is attributable to mother’s positive facial expression. Our findings suggest that in infant–mother interactions, infants’ interoception may play a role in eye contact behavior through the mother's positive facial expression, highlighting the importance of infants’ interoception on social cognitive development.

On the importance of infant carrying for social learning and the development of social cognition

ABSTRACT Infant carrying provides an important context for cognitive development and social learning in the first year of life. It enables children to perceive the world from a perspective similar to that of their parents. Lateral carrying provides children with new experiences because it gives them access to a broader range of objects. It also gives them better access to socially significant stimuli and aspects of the environment that are relevant to their parents. Thus, it can significantly contribute to learning about objects and their affordances as well as agents, their actions, and mental states. The paper argues that lateral carrying not only contributes to the development of skills related to the emergence of shared intentionality but may also play an important role in the development of the understanding of the we-mode and perhaps also in the formation of associations in the mirror neuron system. The final sections of the article offer suggestions for further research.

Growing up laughing: Laughables and pragmatic functions between 12 and 36 months

Laughter serves a wide variety of functions in adult interaction, some of which are quite sophisticated from a pragmatic perspective. Nevertheless, it is a vocalization that emerges very early in ontogeny. We present a longitudinal semantic and pragmatic study of laughter among four American English mother-child dyads interacting freely at home from 12 to 36 months of age. Our data show differences in child laughter-use compared to mothers and a developmental trajectory in terms of the entities the laughter is related to, of laughter pragmatic functions, and in the amount of shared attention on the object of mothers’ laughter. We observe differences in mother laughter-use by comparison to patterns observed in adult-adult interaction. This suggests that laughter production, conveying meaning in a manner akin to speech, gets modulated in child directed interactions similarly to spoken utterances. Our data show that laughter-use can be informative about the neuro-psychological development of babies very early on: mirroring acquisition of physical world knowledge, development of social cognition, linguistic and pragmatic abilities. Our results constitute the basis for hypotheses about the co-option trajectory of laughter in humans and suggest that laughter production in interaction is a valuable resource for early pragmatic development evaluations.

Direct Assessments of Social Skills Can Complement Teacher Ratings in Predicting Children’s Academic Achievement

ABSTRACT The present research evaluated whether behavioral tasks (“direct assessments”) commonly used to assess young children’s social cognitive development in laboratory studies could have utility for measuring and predicting U.S. children’s outcomes in educational contexts. To do so, children (N = 95; 49 boys, 46 girls; 41.05% White, 16.84% Hispanic, 14.74% Black, 13.68% Asian, 11.58% Multiracial, 2.11% American Indian/Alaska Native) in a publicly funded pre-kindergarten (4K) program in the United States completed 9 direct assessments that capture important skills in early childhood (e.g., task switching, group conformity preference, theory of mind). The school district also provided children’s 4K and kindergarten grades (assessed through teacher ratings of children) to evaluate whether direct assessments had additional explanatory power over-and-above existing metrics of children’s aptitude. Across the direct assessments, children’s group conformity preferences (i.e., the extent to which children preferred members of the same group to behave in the same way) were most reliably correlated with concurrent (4K) and predictive of future (kindergarten) grades, even when controlling for teacher ratings of children’s concurrent performance. Interestingly, teacher ratings of children on each assessment loaded onto a single factor despite the intention to capture theoretically distinct components of children’s school performance. Discussion focuses on the implications of direct assessments in educational contexts and critical areas for future research at the interface of psychology and education.

Influence of blood phenylalanine level variations on the development of executive functions and social cognition in children with phenylketonuria

ObjectiveTo investigate the performance of 27 children with phenylketonuria (PKU) in tests of Executive Functions (EF) and Social Cognition (SC), and their associations with metabolic control inferred by phenylalanine (Phe) levels. MethodsThe PKU group was dichotomized according to baseline Phe-levels into; "classical PKU"(n = 14), with Phe-levels above 1200 μmol/L (> 20 mg/dL); and "mild PKU" (n = 13) with Phe-between 360 and 1200 μmol/L (6–20 mg/dL). The neuropsychological assessment focused on the EF and SC subtests of the NEPSY-II battery and intellectual performance. Children were compared to age-matched healthy participants. ResultsParticipants with PKU presented significantly lower Intellectual Quotient (IQ) compared to controls (p = 0.001). Regarding EF analysis adjusted by age and IQ, significant differences between groups were observed only in the executive attention subtests (p = 0.029). The SC set of variables was significantly different between groups (p = 0.003), as in the affective recognition task (p < 0.001). In the PKU group, the relative variation of Phe-achieved 32.1 ± 21.0%. Relative Phe-variation was correlated only with measures of Working Memory (p < 0.001), Verbal Fluency (p = 0.004), Inhibitory Control (p = 0.035) and Theory of Mind (p = 0.003). ConclusionsPhonological Verbal Fluency, Working Memory, Inhibitory Control, and Theory of Mind were shown to be most vulnerable when there is non-ideal metabolic control. Variations in the level of Phe-may have a selective negative effect on Executive Functions and Social Cognition, but not on intellectual performance.

Atypical gaze-following behaviour in infants with congenital heart disease

BackgroundNeurodevelopmental impairments are the most prevalent non-cardiac long-term sequelae in children with complex congenital heart disease (CHD). Deficits include the social-emotional and social-cognitive domains. Little is known about the predecessors of social-cognitive development in infants with CHD during the first year of life. Gaze-following behaviour can be used to measure early social-cognitive abilities. AimsTo assess gaze-following development in infants with CHD compared to healthy controls. Study designProspective cohort study. ParticipantsTwenty-three infants who underwent neonatal correction for CHD and 84 healthy controls. Outcome measuresGaze-following behaviour was assessed by eye tracking at 6 and 12 months. Difference scores for first fixation, fixation frequency and fixation duration towards the gaze-cued object were calculated across 6 trials and compared between groups at both testing time points while adjusting for known confounders. Linear mixed models were calculated to assess the longitudinal trajectory of gaze-following development while accounting for the nested and dependent data structure. ResultsAt 6 months, no difference in gaze-following behaviour between CHD and healthy controls was found. At 12 months, fixation frequency towards the gaze-cued was lower and looking duration was shorter in CHD compared to controls (p = 0.0077; p = 0.0068). Infants with CHD showed less increase with age in the fixation frequency towards the congruent object (p = 0.041) compared to controls. ConclusionDuring the first year of life, gaze-following development diverges in infants with CHD compared to healthy controls. Further research is needed to investigate the clinical relevance of these findings and the association with later social-cognitive development.

Hubungan Antara Pola Asuh Ibu Bekerja dengan Kemampuan Penyesuaian Sosial dan Perkembangan Kognitif Anak Usia Prasekolah (4-5 Tahun)

Background: The parenting style is chosen to educate children so that they have a mindset and behavior that are in line with community standards. Mothers have an important role in educating and nurturing children according to their stage of development. Today, many mothers have dual roles as caregivers and workers. This will certainly affect development because of the limited interaction between mother and child. Objective: This study aims to prove whether the ability to socially adjust and the cognitive development of children have a relationship with the parenting style used by working mothers for children aged four to five years at Posyandu, Kaliboto Village. Method: A cross-sectional analytic study design was used in this study with a sample of 76 respondents using a total sampling technique. Result: Most of the parenting applied by working mothers is democratic (82.9%), children's social adjustment is in the high category, as much as 7.9%, and children's cognitive development shows results in the good category, as much as 73.7%. The Chi-square test results showed a relationship between the parenting style of working mothers with social adjustment and the child's cognitive development (p-value = 0.000). Conclusion: Parenting applied by working mothers determines children's social adjustment ability and cognitive development. Keywords: parenting style, social adjustment, cognitive development.

Research on social attention in autism and the challenges of the research domain criteria (RDoC) framework.

The fuzzy nature of categories of psychopathology, such as autism, leads to significant research challenges. Alternatively, focusing research on the study of a common set of important and well-defined psychological constructs across psychiatric conditions may make the fundamental etiological processes of psychopathology easier to discern and treat (Cuthbert, 2022). The development of the research domain criteria (RDoC) framework is designed to guide this new research approach (Insel et al., 2010). However, progress in research may be expected to continually refine and reorganize the understanding of the specifics of these mental processes (Cuthbert & Insel, 2013). Moreover, knowledge gleaned from the study of both normative and atypical development can be mutually informative in the evolution of our understanding of these fundamental processes. A case in point is the study of social attention. This Autism 101 commentary provides an educational summary of research over the last few decades indicates that social attention is major construct in the study of human social-cognitive development, autism and other forms of psychopathology. The commentary also describes how this research can inform the Social Process dimension of the RDoC framework.

Neurocognitive and behavioral development in young children (1-7 years) with sex chromosome trisomy.

Investigating sex chromosome trisomies (SCTs) may help in understanding neurodevelopmental pathways underlying the risk for neurobehavioral problems and psychopathology. Knowledge about the neurobehavioral phenotype is needed to improve clinical care and early intervention for children with SCT. This is especially relevant considering the increasing number of early diagnosed children with the recent introduction of noninvasive prenatal screening. The TRIXY Early Childhood Study is a longitudinal study designed to identify early neurodevelopmental risks in children with SCT, aged 1-7 years. This review summarizes the results from the TRIXY Early Childhood Study, focusing on early behavioral symptoms in areas of autism spectrum disorder, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and communication disorders, and underlying neurocognitive mechanisms in domains of language, emotion regulation, executive functioning, and social cognition. Behavioral symptoms were assessed through structured behavior observation and parental questionnaires. Neurocognition was measured using performance tests, eyetracking, and psychophysiological measures of arousal. In total, 209 children aged 1-7 years were included: 107 children with SCT (33 XXX, 50 XXY, and 24 XYY) and 102 age-matched population controls. Study outcomes showed early behavioral symptoms in young children with SCT, and neurocognitive vulnerabilities, already from an early age onward. Neurobehavioral and neurocognitive difficulties tended to become more pronounced with increasing age and were rather robust, independent of specific karyotype, pre/postnatal diagnosis, or ascertainment strategy. A more longitudinal perspective on neurodevelopmental 'at-risk' pathways is warranted, also including studies assessing the effectiveness of targeted early interventions. Neurocognitive markers that signal differences in neurodevelopment may prove to be helpful in this. Focusing on early development of language, social cognition, emotion regulation, and executive functioning may help in uncovering early essential mechanisms of (later) neurobehavioral outcome, allowing for more targeted support and early intervention.

The role of single nucleotide polymorphisms within genes for oxytocin and vasopressin receptors in the presentation and severity of autistic traits

IntroductionAutism spectrum disorder is a heterogeneous group of disorders that affects virtually every population, regardless of their ethnic or socioeconomic origin. The pathogenesis of ASD is probably multifactorial, based on interactions between genetic and environmental factors. Their key elements are disorders in the field of social communication, establishing and maintaining relationships and the so-called stereotypical and repetitive patterns of interests and activities. However, of the above- mentioned symptoms, the most important are communication disorders, which are the basis for many of the functional difficulties observed in these patients.ObjectivesThe aim of the presented study was to analyze the clinical picture of social cognition deficits in males with autism spectrum disorders, and to link its elements with the frequency of alleles of selected polymorphisms within the OXTR and AVPR1A genes.MethodsThe study included 132 people, 77.5% of whom were male (n = 100). 113 participants (85.6%) were diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders confirmed by the ADOS-2 test conducted by a certified diagnostician. In this group, men constituted 76.1% of the population (n = 77). The remaining 28 people did not have a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorders, and in the ADOS-2 study they obtained the result below the cut-off level. The mean age in the whole group was 14.4 years (95% CI: 13.92-14.93).ResultsA higher frequency of the rs53576 A allele and the rs10877969 C allele could be observed than expected on the basis of the European / world population. In the case of the rs7294536 and rs2254298 polymorphisms, no differences in the distribution of alleles in relation to the expected values were observed. In the network analysis reference allele (T) of SNPs rs10877969 was linked to the higher outcome of the “social affect” domain of ADOS-2 and through it influenced ADOS-2 outcome. All other SNPs did not significantly affect neither domain of ADOS-2. Reference allele (A) of rs53576 was linked with higher odds ratio of clinical diagnosis of ASD in logistic regression. Similarly the rs10877969 polymorphism within the AVPR1a gene significantly shaped the risk of autism spectrum disorders, while in the combined analysis with rs7294536 within the haplotype, the observed effect was significantly stronger.ConclusionsThe studied polymorphisms may constitute an element of larger haplotypes which, depending on the number of mutated alleles, may determine the severity of autism spectrum traits, from the neurotypical population, through people with a broad autism phenotype, to people diagnosed with ASD. Further research is required on the potential clinical application of genotype analysis of the studied polymorphisms and on the exact mechanism of their impact on the risk of ASD and the development of social cognition disorders.Disclosure of InterestNone Declared

Pattern of acquisition of theory of mind in pre-schoolers: A cross-sectional study from South India.

Theory of Mind (ToM) is an important part of children's social cognitive development. The pattern of ToM acquisition depends on many factors including culture, the number of family members, and siblings. This study aimed to examine the pattern of ToM acquisition in Indian culture. We conducted a cross-sectional study among preschool children (three to six years) (N=118) from rural and urban backgrounds. ToM development was assessed using the Wellman and Liu Theory of Mind Scale and the Children's Social Understanding Scale (parent report). The order of acquisition of ToM in Indian children was as follows: diverse desire>diverse belief>knowledge access>explicit false belief>content false belief>hidden emotion. The number of siblings positively correlated with the total ToM task score, and the number of adults in the family did not show any positive correlation. Although India is a collectivistic country, the acquisition pattern of ToM in our population was like that of individualistic countries such as the United States.

Children show neural sensitivity to facial trustworthiness as measured by fast periodic visual stimulation

Adults exhibit neural responses over the visual occipito-temporal area in response to faces that vary in how trustworthy they appear. However, it is not yet known when a mature pattern of neural sensitivity can be seen in children. Using a fast periodic visual stimulation (FPVS) paradigm, face images were presented to 8-to-9-year-old children (an age group which shows development of trust impressions; N = 31) and adult (N = 33) participants at a rate of 6 Hz (6 face images per second). Within this sequence, an ‘oddball’ face differing in the level of facial trustworthiness compared to the other faces, was presented at a rate of 1 Hz (once per second). Children were sensitive to variations in facial trustworthiness, showing reliable and significant neural responses at 1 Hz in the absence of instructions to respond to facial trustworthiness. Additionally, the magnitude of children's and adults' neural responses was similar, with strong Bayesian evidence that implicit neural responses to facial trustworthiness did not differ across the groups, and therefore, that visual sensitivity to differences in facial trustworthiness can show mature patterns by this age. Thus, nine or less years of social experience, perceptual and/or cognitive development may be sufficient for adult-like neural sensitivity to facial trustworthiness to emerge. We also validate the use of the FPVS methodology to examine children's implicit face-based trust processing for the first time, which is especially valuable in developmental research because this paradigm requires no explicit instructions or responses from participants.

Understanding pretense as causal inference

There is a long-standing interest in the role that children’s understanding of pretense plays in their more general theory of mind development. Some argue that children understand pretense as a mental state, and the capacity to pretend is indicative of children possessing the capacity for mental representations. Others argue that children understand pretense in terms of actions and appearances, and an understanding of the mental states involved in pretending has a prolonged developmental trajectory. The goal of this paper is to integrate these ideas by positing that children understand pretense as a form of causal inference, which is based on both their general causal reasoning capacities and specific knowledge of mental states. I will first review literature on children’s understanding of pretense, and how such understanding can be conceptualized as integrating with children’s causal reasoning ability. I will then consider how children’s causal knowledge affects the ways they make inferences about others’ pretense. Next, I will consider the role of causal knowledge more broadly in children’s reasoning about pretense worlds, judgments of possibility, and counterfactual reasoning. Taken together the goal of this review is to synthesize how children understand pretending into a rational constructivist framework for understanding social cognitive development in a more integrative manner.

Os efeitos da leitura e filmes de ficção no desenvolvimento da cognição social: uma revisão sistemática

ABSTRACT Social cognition is an umbrella term used to address the set of neurocognitive processes involved in effective social interaction, such as Theory of Mind and empathy, and is important for understanding of others’ intentions and actions and decision making. Narratives can serve as tools for learning social norms and understanding other people, as they involve mental simulations of social interactions. This review aimed to gather the results of current studies on the effects of reading and watching fiction movies on the development of social cognition. We included 16 publications, all of which were empirical studies. The results showed that, depending on individual factors, as well as on the specifics of the intervention, both reading and watching movies seem to influence the processes of development of social cognition, especially if associated with concomitant or subsequent activities, such as discussions. More research is needed to understand the specific details of this relationship.

Socijalna kognicija kod odraslih osoba s lakom intelektualnom ometenošću, dualnim dijagnozama i osoba tipičnog razvoja

Introduction. Social cognition is a multidimensional construct that encompasses higher-order cognitive processes used to process and interpret social information and successfully communicate with others. These processes include cognitive theory of mind, affective theory of mind, understanding of social norms, moral judgment and empathy. Objective. The aim of our study was to determine the differences in social cognition in adults with mild intellectual disability, dual diagnoses, and typical development paired chronologically, and to determine the relationship between age, gender and socio-cognitive abilities in all three groups. Methods. Our study included 122 participants, of whom 32 were with intellectual disability, 30 had dual diagnoses, and 60 were typically developing adults. The Edinburgh Social Cognition Test - ESCoT was used to assess social cognition, while the Mini Psychiatric Assessment Scale for Adults with Developmental Disorders, MINI PAS - ADD was used to confirm the presence of psychiatric symptoms in adults with developmental disabilities. Results. The obtained results showed that adults with mild intellectual disability had better performance in social cognition than adults with dual diagnoses, but worse than typically developing adults. Also, the research showed that in the subsample of typically developing participants, these abilities decreased with age, the abilities of affective theory of mind decreased with age in persons with intellectual disabilities, while no correlation was found between younger and older respondents in persons with dual diagnoses. Our research has not confirmed the relationship between gender and social cognition. Conclusion. By determining the development of social cognition in adults with intellectual disability and dual diagnoses, we gain insight into their adaptive functioning in everyday social interactions.

Research Trends in Young Children’s Theory of Mind using Keyword Network Analysis

This study aims to investigate the trends in research and find implications for future research to understand the characteristics of young children’s theory of mind from 1997 to 2021. Out of the research papers published in journals in the field of early childhood education, 175 articles that fit the purpose of this study were analyzed using network analysis methods. The summary of the analysis results was as follows: First, in the study of young children’s theory of mind, “theory of mind”, “false belief”, “pretend play”, “emotion”, “executive function”, “social ability”, “story”, “young children”, “peer competence”, and “picturebook” showed high frequency. Second, it can be seen that the network structure for each period gradually changes from the first to the third periods. This demonstrated that while the research of theory of mind was somewhat slow but steadily active, the keywords identified in the early childhood theory of mind study evolved into a broad and rich array. Based on the results of this study, this study suggests diversification of the theory of mind research to perspectives of social cognition development of young children.

Alpha and theta brain activity in 9-month-old infants during a live referential gaze paradigm.

The ability to establish a connection between the direction of the other's gaze and the object that is observed has important implications in the development of social cognition and learning. In this study, we analyzed alpha and theta band oscillations in one group of 9-month-old infants by implementing a face-to-face live paradigm, which presented the infants with a triadic social interaction with a real human being. We compared neural activations in two experimental conditions: Congruent and Incongruent gaze shift following the appearance of an object. In the Incongruent object-gaze shift condition, we observed an increase of the theta power in comparison with the Congruent condition. We also found an enhancement of the alpha activity during the Congruent versus the Incongruent object-gaze condition. These findings confirm the involvement of the theta and alpha band activity in the detection of the gaze of others when it shifts toward a referential target. We consider that the theta band modulation could be associated with the processing of unexpected events. Furthermore, the increase of the alpha band activity during the Congruent object-gaze condition seems to be in agreement with prior findings on the mechanisms of internally controlled attention that emerge before the first year of life. The implementation of a live paradigm elicited a partially different oscillatory pattern in comparison with non-live standard paradigms, supporting the importance of an ecological set-up reproducing real-life conditions to study the development of social cognition.

Children's use of pragmatic inference to learn about the social world.

Young children often endorse stereotypes-such as "girls are bad at math." We explore one mechanism through which these beliefs may be transmitted: via pragmatic inference. Specifically, we ask whether preschoolers and adults can learn about an unmentioned social group from what is said about another group, and if this inferential process is sensitive to the context of the utterance. Sixty-three- to five-year-old children and fifty-five adults were introduced to two novel social groups-Stripeys and Dotties-and witnessed a speaker praising abilities of one group (e.g., "the Stripeys are good at building chairs"). To examine the effect of context, we compared situations where the speaker was knowledgeable about the abilities of both groups, and had been queried about the performance of both groups (broad context), versus situations where the speaker was only knowledgeable about one group and was only asked about that group (narrow context). Both preschoolers and adults were sensitive to context: they were more likely to infer that the group not mentioned by the speaker was relatively unskilled, and were more confident about it, in the broad context condition. Our work integrates research in language development and social cognitive development and demonstrates that even young children can "read between the lines," utilizing subtle contextual cues to pick up negative evaluative messages about social groups even from statements that ostensibly do not mention them at all. HIGHLIGHTS: After hearing a speaker praise one group's skill, preschoolers and adults infer that an unmentioned group is relatively less skilled across a range of measures. These inferences are context-sensitive and are stronger when the speaker is knowledgeable of and asked about both groups' skill level. These results shed light on how children may indirectly learn negative stereotypes, especially ones that adults are unlikely to state explicitly. This work extends previous research on children's developing pragmatic ability, as well as their ability to learn about the social world from language.

Associations Between Childhood Trauma Characteristics and Theory of Mind in Adults: Results From a Large, Diverse Sample.

Theory of mind (ToM) is an essential social cognitive process encompassing abilities to represent and understand others' mental states. Although previous reports linked childhood trauma to social cognitive deficits, how characteristics of trauma exposure, such as subtype or timing, affect ToM remains unaddressed. Using data from a diverse adult sample (n = 2200), we tested whether exposure type and first exposure timing of common childhood trauma associated with ToM. Neither interpersonal loss (β = -0.25, p = 0.170, [-0.61, 0.10]) nor child maltreatment (β = -0.21, p = 0.369, [-0.66, 0.25]) was associated with lower ToM. There was no effect of timing of age at which trauma was experienced (F = 2.19, p = 0.087). While we did not identify age-dependent effects, future studies should examine links between timing or chronicity of prospectively reported childhood trauma and social cognition. Understanding of how childhood experiences shape ToM could reveal mechanisms underlying social cognition development and inform prevention efforts.

School Readiness of Early Childhood Age 5-6 Years Based on The Nijmeegse Schoolbekwaamheid Test (NST)

School readiness is the achievement of children’s maturity in aspect of development which include physical and motor development, social emotional development, cognitive development, language and communication development, and motivation and work attitude so that they can continue their education to the elementary school level. This study aimed to know the school readiness of early childhood age 5-6 years based on the Nijmeegse Schoolbekwaamheid Test (NST). This study uses quantitative research using a survey method with a target of number 43 early childhood age 5-6 years from 3 different kindergartens of Malang. The instrument using in this study is the Nijmeegse Schoolbekwaamheid Test (NST) which the result test is divided into 3 stages of school readiness called mature, hesitant, and immature. The findings from this study are that early childhood age 5-6 years in Malang kindergartens have school readiness to continue to elementary school level based in the results of the the Nijmeegse Schoolbekwaamheid Test (NST).