Typical and Atypical Development of The Social Brain

Lead Research Organisation: Birkbeck, University of London
Department Name: Psychological Sciences

Abstract

Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.

Publications

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Atsushi Senju (2007) Atypical development of gaze processing in autism: An approach from developmental cognitive neuroscience.? in Shinrigaku Hyouron: Japanese Psychological Review

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Joly-Mascheroni RM (2008) Dogs catch human yawns. in Biology letters

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Senju A (2008) Is anyone looking at me? Direct gaze detection in children with and without autism. in Brain and cognition

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Senju A (2007) Absence of contagious yawning in children with autism spectrum disorder. in Biology letters

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Senju A (2008) Understanding the referential nature of looking: infants' preference for object-directed gaze. in Cognition

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Senju A (2006) The development and neural basis of referential gaze perception. in Social neuroscience

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Senju A (2008) Gaze following in human infants depends on communicative signals. in Current biology : CB

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Southgate V (2007) Action anticipation through attribution of false belief by 2-year-olds. in Psychological science

 
Description The main aim of the fellowship was the training and career development of the fellow. During the period of fellowship, I have (1) increased my publication record, (2) established a national and international network, (3) acquired an advanced level of research skills, (4) consolidated my doctoral project and (5) been accepted for a 3-year research fellowship. I have published 7 papers in international peer-reviewed journals and have 4 papers for peer-reviewed journals and 1 review chapter for a book under review. I will begin work with collaborators in the USA (Yale), Finland (U Tampere) and Japan (U Tokyo) from next year, along with an ongoing collaboration with UCL. I have acquired an advanced level of training in eye-tracking and EEG techniques, as well as extensive experience in dissemination and supervision of student projects. I have developed a theoretical review on the mechanism and development of the social brain network, on which I have built my research programme for the next 3-year Research Fellowship. Finally, based on these achievements, I have been awarded a 3-year Research Fellowship from the ESRC. Please refer to the following sections for the details of each achievement.

During this training, I have made two new findings in the field of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience. Firstly, we have found that young infants do respond to adults' intention to communicate, using a well-known phenomenon called gaze following, which is thought to be crucial for social learning from adults. The study found that infants don't always follow adult's gaze, but their gaze following was selective to the context in which adult addresses to the infants by making eye contact or speaking to the infants using charactaristic way of speech addressed to the babies, called 'infant-directed speech'. This study suggests that infants' gaze following behaviour is optimised to learn from adults who are engaging with infants using communicative cues.

Secondly, we have revealed that children with autism are less likely to catch another person's yawns than typically developing children. As contagious yawning is thought to be related to the capacity for empathy, it prompted further research to understand why autistic children do not catch yawns. In a related study, we have found that dogs catch human yawns. It is the first study to demonstrate the presence of contagious yawning in non-primate animals.
Exploitation Route Both yawning studies have been widely disseminated in national and international newspapers and magazines. They also started the debate about the nature of contagious yawning in both individuals with autism and the dogs, which has lead to a series of publication from our lab, as well as other research groups. Our study on gaze following became one of the founding data for the Natural Pedagogy theory published by Gergely Csibra and Georgy Gergely, which made a huge impact in the field of philosophy, psychology, anthropology and biology.
Sectors Education,Healthcare
 
Description Our study has mainly made a societal impact, by being featured in numbers of national and international media. I am still regularly contacted by national and international media who are making documentaries and science programs about contagious yawning. For example, our study has been featured in BBC's programme 'The Wonder of the Dogs' (2013), and I was contacted by a Dutch TV producer who is keen to feature our autism research to their 2014 'National Science Quiz' program.
First Year Of Impact 2007
Sector Communities and Social Services/Policy
Impact Types Societal