EP Language & Development Seminar: Development of social behaviour – from mechanisms to interventions
Dr Nikolaus Steinbeis (UCL)
Tuesday, 05 December 2017, 3pm to 4pm
Hosted by Dr Geoff Bird
Social behaviour undergoes critical changes during childhood. My work explores the underlying neurocognitive and developmental mechanisms of social skills (i.e. empathy and theory of mind) and behaviour (i.e. sharing and helping). I show that higher-order control processes are critical to the development of both. I propose that these insights can be leveraged for devising interventions, which seek to a) establish a causal role of specific mechanisms, b) improve skills critical for forming social-bonds and c) provide an assay for studying sensitive periods.