Search research articles

ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

Related Concept Videos

Socioemotional Development during Infancy

Socioemotional Development during Infancy

Socio-emotional development in infancy is primarily shaped by early emotional responses and social connections, with temperament playing a central role. Temperament refers to the consistent patterns in an individual's emotional and behavioral responses, observable even in infancy. By examining temperament, researchers can better understand an infant's unique ways of interacting with the world, influencing subsequent personality and socio-emotional growth.
Primary Temperament Types
Stella Chess...

Relationship with Parents: Attachment

Relationship with Parents: Attachment

Parent-child interactions lay the foundation for how we understand relationships throughout life. These interactions are not uniform across families; instead, they are shaped by a range of environmental, emotional, and behavioral factors unique to each caregiver-child dynamic. Social psychologists study these early relationships to understand how patterns formed in infancy influence social functioning and interpersonal behavior in adulthood.Attachment Theory and Early Relational ModelsJohn...

The Nativist Approach

The Nativist Approach

The nativist approach to infant cognitive development proposes that infants are born with inherent knowledge structures that allow them to interpret the world almost immediately. This perspective contrasts with earlier developmental theories, such as those proposed by Jean Piaget, which emphasized a more gradual acquisition of cognitive abilities through interaction with the environment. One key concept in this approach is object permanence — the understanding that objects continue to exist...

Piaget's Stage 1 of Cognitive Development

Piaget's Stage 1 of Cognitive Development

The sensorimotor stage, the initial phase of Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development, spans the first two years of a child's life. During this period, infants actively engage with their surroundings, building cognitive awareness through direct interaction with the world. This interaction is primarily based on sensory perception and motor actions, allowing infants to gradually understand basic physical properties and predict how objects interact within their environment.
Exploration...

Causes of Social Behavior III: Biological and Environmental Influences

Causes of Social Behavior III: Biological and Environmental Influences

Social behavior is a complex phenomenon that arises from the interaction between biological predispositions and environmental influences. This intricate interplay shapes how individuals think, feel, and act in various social contexts. Understanding these mechanisms requires insights from psychology, neuroscience, genetics, and evolutionary theory.Environmental Influences on Social BehaviorEnvironmental factors, including temperature, odors, and visual stimuli, play a crucial role in shaping...

Attachment

Attachment

Attachment is vital for infant development, as warm social interactions support growth and well-being. In a classic 1958 study by Harry Harlow, the significance of warmth and comfort in forming attachments was examined. Harlow separated newborn monkeys from their mothers and provided two artificial "mothers": one made of cold wire and the other covered in soft cloth. Despite the wire mother offering food, the infant monkeys preferred the comfort of the cloth mother, demonstrating that physical...

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by

Same author

Domain-specific perceptual grouping of human dyads: evidence from autistic trait profiles.

Scientific reports·2026

Same author

Encapsulation of the visual perception of social events from semantic priming.

Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance·2026

Same author

Perceptual-cue-based mechanisms for recognizing social agents and their roles in social interactions.

The Behavioral and brain sciences·2026

Same author

Revisiting our primate roots in infants grooming.

Scientific reports·2026

Same author

Autistic adults prefer social touch less but engage just as much: The impact of social context, relationship type, sensory responsivity, and psychological factors.

Autism : the international journal of research and practice·2025

Same author

Relational properties as a source of variation for object representation in OTC.

Cognitive neuroscience·2025

Search research articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 16, 2026

A Within-subjects Experimental Protocol to Assess the Effects of Social Input on Infant EEG

A Within-subjects Experimental Protocol to Assess the Effects of Social Input on Infant EEG

Published on: May 3, 2017

Neural selectivity for social interactions in the infant brain.

Manuel Mello¹, Emilie Serraille¹, Jean-Rémy Hochmann¹

¹Institut des Sciences Cognitives-Marc Jeannerod, UMR5229, Centre National de La Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, 67 Bd. Pinel, 69675 Bron, France.

|June 15, 2026

Summary

Preverbal infants show brain activity in posterior superior-temporal and temporo-parietal regions when viewing social interactions. This early brain tuning may help infants learn social relationships.

Keywords:

biological sciences cognitive neuroscience developmental neuroscience health sciences human physiology medicine natural sciences neurology neuroscience pediatrics

More Related Videos

A Novel Experimental and Analytical Approach to the Multimodal Neural Decoding of Intent During Social Interaction in Freely-behaving Human Infants

A Novel Experimental and Analytical Approach to the Multimodal Neural Decoding of Intent During Social Interaction in Freely-behaving Human Infants

Published on: October 4, 2015

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Jun 16, 2026

A Within-subjects Experimental Protocol to Assess the Effects of Social Input on Infant EEG

A Within-subjects Experimental Protocol to Assess the Effects of Social Input on Infant EEG

Published on: May 3, 2017

A Novel Experimental and Analytical Approach to the Multimodal Neural Decoding of Intent During Social Interaction in Freely-behaving Human Infants

A Novel Experimental and Analytical Approach to the Multimodal Neural Decoding of Intent During Social Interaction in Freely-behaving Human Infants

Published on: October 4, 2015

Area of Science:

Developmental neuroscience
Infant cognition
Social perception

Background:

Social cognition develops in the second year of life.
Infants demonstrate sophisticated social interaction representation early.
Neural underpinnings of early social cognition are largely unknown.

Purpose of the Study:

Investigate neural mechanisms of social interaction perception in preverbal infants.
Identify brain regions involved in processing social cues in early infancy.
Differentiate neural responses to social interaction versus body motion.

Main Methods:

Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) used on preverbal infants.
Analysis of brain activity while viewing interacting vs. non-interacting individuals.
Comparison of looking times between 6- and 10-month-olds.

Main Results:

Preverbal infants show increased activity in posterior superior-temporal and temporo-parietal regions when viewing interacting individuals.
Neural effects were more widespread in 10-month-olds compared to 6-month-olds.
Brain responses to social interactions were distinct from those to body motion perception.

Conclusions:

Infants possess early neural sensitivity to social engagement cues.
This early tuning may facilitate attention to social interactions.
Supports the role of specific neural regions in early social perception and learning.