Adolescence Flashcards
What is social cognition?
Social cognition is the ability to make sense of the world through processing signals generated by members of the same species (Frith, 2008).
Social cognitive processes include:
- face processing
- biological motion detection
- understanding others’ mental states
- social emotional processing
- negotiating complex interpersonal decisions
**Neuroimaging and behavioural studies have shown that these skills continue to develop past childhood and throughout adolescence.
Structural development of the social brain - greu matter volume
There is a decline in the amount of grey matter in each part of the brain during aging (mBA10, TPJ, pSTS, ATC).
Pubertal dip in face perception
There is possible evidence for a pubertal dip.
However, Diamond et al 1983: regardless of age girls going through puberty performed poorly.
Face perception: the encoding switch hypothesis
Young children may use ‘featural processing’.
In adolesence ‘configural processing’ develops.
