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1. Impression Formation in the Human Infant Brain

   https://doi.org/10.1093/texcom/tgaa070  

   Krol, Kathleen M; Grossmann, Tobias (January 2020, Cerebral Cortex Communications)

   null (Ed.)

   Abstract Forming an impression of another person is an essential aspect of human social cognition linked to medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) function in adults. The current study examined the neurodevelopmental origins of impression formation by testing the hypothesis that infants rely on processes localized in mPFC when forming impressions about individuals who appear friendly or threatening. Infants’ brain responses were measured using functional near-infrared spectroscopy while watching 4 different face identities displaying either smiles or frowns directed toward or away from them (N = 77). This was followed by a looking preference test for these face identities (now displaying a neutral expression) using eyetracking. Our results show that infants’ mPFC responses distinguish between smiling and frowning faces when directed at them and that these responses predicted their subsequent person preferences. This suggests that the mPFC is involved in impression formation in human infants, attesting to the early ontogenetic emergence of brain systems supporting person perception and adaptive behavior. 

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2. Epigenetic tuning of brain signal entropy in emergent human social behavior

   https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-020-01683-x  

   Puglia, Meghan H.; Krol, Kathleen M.; Missana, Manuela; Williams, Cabell L.; Lillard, Travis S.; Morris, James P.; Connelly, Jessica J.; Grossmann, Tobias (December 2020, BMC Medicine)

   null (Ed.)

   Abstract Background How the brain develops accurate models of the external world and generates appropriate behavioral responses is a vital question of widespread multidisciplinary interest. It is increasingly understood that brain signal variability—posited to enhance perception, facilitate flexible cognitive representations, and improve behavioral outcomes—plays an important role in neural and cognitive development. The ability to perceive, interpret, and respond to complex and dynamic social information is particularly critical for the development of adaptive learning and behavior. Social perception relies on oxytocin-regulated neural networks that emerge early in development. Methods We tested the hypothesis that individual differences in the endogenous oxytocinergic system early in life may influence social behavioral outcomes by regulating variability in brain signaling during social perception. In study 1, 55 infants provided a saliva sample at 5 months of age for analysis of individual differences in the oxytocinergic system and underwent electroencephalography (EEG) while listening to human vocalizations at 8 months of age for the assessment of brain signal variability. Infant behavior was assessed via parental report. In study 2, 60 infants provided a saliva sample and underwent EEG while viewing faces and objects and listening to human speech and water sounds at 4 months of age. Infant behavior was assessed via parental report and eye tracking. Results We show in two independent infant samples that increased brain signal entropy during social perception is in part explained by an epigenetic modification to the oxytocin receptor gene ( OXTR ) and accounts for significant individual differences in social behavior in the first year of life. These results are measure-, context-, and modality-specific: entropy, not standard deviation, links OXTR methylation and infant behavior; entropy evoked during social perception specifically explains social behavior only; and only entropy evoked during social auditory perception predicts infant vocalization behavior. Conclusions Demonstrating these associations in infancy is critical for elucidating the neurobiological mechanisms accounting for individual differences in cognition and behavior relevant to neurodevelopmental disorders. Our results suggest that an epigenetic modification to the oxytocin receptor gene and brain signal entropy are useful indicators of social development and may hold potential diagnostic, therapeutic, and prognostic value. 

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3. Dorso-medial prefrontal cortex responses to social smiles predict sociability in early human development

   https://doi.org/10.1162/imag_a_00129  

   Grossmann, Tobias; Allison, Olivia (April 2024, Imaging Neuroscience)

   Abstract Dorso-medial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) plays a vital role in social cognition and behavior among humans. Enhanced responses in dmPFC when viewing social scenes predict increased levels of sociability in adults. The current longitudinal study examined the association between dmPFC response and sociability in early development. Brain responses were measured in response to social smiles and frowns using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) at 11 months. Individual differences in sociability were measured using the Early Childhood Behavior Questionnaire (ECBQ) at 18 months. Our longitudinal results show that greater engagement of the dmPFC when processing social smiles, but not frowns, at 11 months predicts higher levels of sociability at 18 months. This demonstrates that early variability in dmPFC response during positive social interactions is linked to individual differences in overtly displayed social behavior. This supports the view that dmPFC plays an important role in social cognition and behavior from early in human ontogeny. 

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4. Person Perception, Meet People Perception: Exploring the Social Vision of Groups

   https://doi.org/10.1177/17456916211017858  

   Alt, Nicholas_P; Phillips, L_Taylor (November 2021, Perspectives on Psychological Science)

   Groups, teams, and collectives —people—are incredibly important to human behavior. People live in families, work in teams, and celebrate and mourn together in groups. Despite the huge variety of human group activity and its fundamental importance to human life, social-psychological research on person perception has overwhelmingly focused on its namesake, the person, rather than expanding to consider people perception. By looking to two unexpected partners, the vision sciences and organization behavior, we find emerging work that presents a path forward, building a foundation for understanding how people perceive other people. And yet this nascent field is missing critical insights that scholars of social vision might offer: specifically, for example, the chance to connect perception to behavior through the mediators of cognition and motivational processes. Here, we review emerging work across the vision and social sciences to extract core principles of people perception: efficiency, capacity, and complexity. We then consider complexity in more detail, focusing on how people perception modifies person-perception processes and enables the perception of group emergent properties as well as group dynamics. Finally, we use these principles to discuss findings and outline areas fruitful for future work. We hope that fellow scholars take up this people-perception call. 

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5. The social self in the developing brain.

   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2025.106023  

   Grossmann, T (February 2025, Neuroscience biobehavioral reviews)

   The notion that the self is fundamentally social in nature and develops through social interactions has a long tradition in philosophy, sociology, and psychology. However, to date, the early development of the social self and its brain bases in infancy has received relatively little attention. This presents a review and synthesis of existing neuroimaging research, showing that infants recruit brain systems, involved in self-processing and social cognition in adults, when responding to self-relevant cues during social interactions. Moreover, this review draws on recent research, demonstrating the early developmental emergence and social embeddedness/dependency of the default-mode network in infancy, a brain network considered of critical importance to the sense of self and social cognition. This stands in contrast to research pointing to the relatively late ontogenetic emergence of the conceptual self, by about 18-24 months of age, as seen in the mirror-self recognition test. Based on this review and synthesis, the social self first hypothesis (SSFH) is formulated, presenting an integrated view, arguing for the early ontogenetic emergence of the social self and its brain basis. This developmental account informs and extends existing evolutionary thinking, emphasizing the primary role that social interdependence has played in the evolution of the human mind. 

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