The Role of Neuroimaging in Developmental Social Psychology

The development of social cognition is defined as the behavioral patterns, feelings, attitudes, and concepts that children manifest in relation to other people, and the way in which these different functions change with age. To understand the development of social cognition, modelling based on longitudinal behavioral observation is essential. Neuroimaging techniques will aid in this process by providing the neural basis of the psychological constructs, and the constraints for the model. Here, the issue of self-recognition and self-evaluation is presented as an example. Technical advances will allow the application of functional neuroimaging techniques directly to babies and/or children, particularly under the age of 6 years old, in the near future.