behavioural developmentlong-term psycholog-ical consequences of childhood frontal lobe lesion in...

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF BEHAVIOURAL DEVELOPMENTNewsletter

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ContentsISSBD SPECIAL SECTIONTHE BRAIN FACTOR IN UNDERSTANDING PSYCHOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT

Associate Editor

Xinyin Chen

ISSBD NewsletterDepartment of Psychology,University of Western OntarioLondon, Ontario, Canada N6A 5C2email: [email protected]

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Editor

Joan G. Miller

ISSBD NewsletterInstitute for Social Research, RCGDUniversity of MichiganAnn Arbor, Michigan, USA 48106–1248email: [email protected]

Number 1 Serial No. 43

Supplement to International Journal of Behavioral Development Volume 27 Issue 3 May, 2003

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Commentary: Good Reasons for IntegratingNeuroscience and Developmental PsychologyNathan A. Fox

Commentary: Challenges and Contributions ofNeuroscience in Developmental PsychologyJoan G. Miller

Notes from The President

18th Biennial ISSBD Meetings: Ghent, 2004

Call for Papers

ISSBD Asian Regional Workshop

Major Conferences of Interest

2003 Membership Renewal

2003 New Member Application

The Brain Factor in Understanding PsychologicalDevelopment: An IntroductionSidney J. Segalowitz

The Concept of Constructivism inDevelopmental Psychology and NeuroscienceSidney J. Segalowitz

Cortisol Measures in Studies of ChildrenMegan R. Gunnar and Elise L.Townsend

Shyness and Sociability: A DangerousCombination for PreschoolersLouis A. Schmidt

Assessing the Development of ExecutiveFunctionsChristoph Klein

Commentary: An Integration of Neuroscienceinto the Study of Child DevelopmentXiaolin Zhou

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2003 NEWSLETTER Number 1 Serial No. 43

These issues have implications for temperament, sociabilityand internalizing and externalizing disorders (Schmidtessay). Throughout all discussions of child development, aspecial focus is always on the chronology of development,and this has been especially prominent in discussions of theprefrontal cortex and the fact that it continues to mature andchange much later than other regions. Measuring this non-invasively in children is difficult, and the promising newmeasure that is presented here has been related to ADHD,long associated with disturbed development of theprefrontal regions (Klein essay).

These essays are meant to touch on just some of theways that neuroscience and developmental psychology findinterfaces. With this very different level of explanation,neuroscience data can provide important convergentvalidity for our measures and constructs in developmentalpsychology.

There are of course many topics we could cover, topicslinking developmental neuropsychology to issues as diver-gent as the understanding of social deviance, learningdisabilities, and various behavioural disorders. Sometimesthis perspective informs us as to new therapeutic strategies,and sometimes we gain only another larger perspective onthe complexity of child psychology that will hopefully trans-late into a useful service for children someday. One partic-ular complexity is our attempts to understand the outcomeafter early brain injury has damaged some critical func-tional component early in development. Without thiscomponent, the entire trajectory of maturation is altered ina major way. Such a major abnormality in the brain alters theflow of information processing. For example, in adults thereare quite striking losses after damage to ventromedialprefrontal cortex (the middle and underside of the frontallobe) – including the ability to read facial affect, especiallyfor negative affect expressions, and occasionally loss of affec-

tive mirroring response, i.e., empathy. From a develop-mental perspective, the situation is more complex, for whatwould development be like without such information beingavailable to the child? Some cases have suggested this canlead to classic sociopathy and lack of moral cognitions in thenormal sense (Anderson, Bechara, Damasio, Tranel, &Damasio, 1999). In other cases, there develop extremelystrange social behaviors as the child copes with the loss(Ackerly, 1986), or simply social irresponsibility (Gratton &Eslinger, 1992). Other forms of perinatal damage can lead toa developmental episodic memory disturbance (arising fromdamage to the hippocampal formation), which may be asso-ciated with certain forms of autism (Delong, 2003).

Taking a developmental perspective on brain models ofinformation processing forces us to imagine development ina different perspective. However, besides being relevant toclinical syndromes, developmental neuroscience also relatesto normative development, and our essays here focusprimarily on that perspective.

ReferencesAckerly, S. S. (1986). A case of paranatal bilateral frontal lobe

defect observed for thirty years. In J. M. Warren & K.Ackert (Eds.), The frontal granular cortex and behavior (pp.192-218). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Anderson, S. W., Bechara, A., Damasio, H., Tranel, D., &Damasio, A. R. (1999). Impairment of social and moralbehavior related to early damage in human prefrontalcortex. Nature Neuroscience, 2(11), 1032–1037.

DeLong, G.R. (2003). Disorders of memory in childhood witha focus on temporal lobe disease and autism. In S.J.Segalowitz & I.Rapin (Eds.), Handbook of neuropsychology,Vol 8, part 2: Child Neuropsychology (pp. 315–355).Amsterdam: Elsevier.

Grattan, L. M., & Eslinger, P. J. (1992). Long-term psycholog-ical consequences of childhood frontal lobe lesion inpatient DT. Brain and Cognition, 20(1), 185–195.

The Brain Factor inUnderstanding PsychologicalDevelopment: An Introduction

Sidney J. SegalowitzDepartment of Psychology, Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canadae-mail: [email protected]

Developmental neuroscience has traditionally focused on questions of brain plasticity and the devel-opment of neuronal connections. While these can be dry topics of little direct relevance to develop-mental psychology, the two fields are quickly finding common ground. The concept of plasticity turnsout to be the complex answer to the nature-nurture question; the pattern of neuronal developmentaddresses major issues in both general child development and individual differences. The discoveriesof how the brain builds itself speak to some of the basic theoretical constructs of developmentalpsychology (Segalowitz essay). The plasticity issue is at the core of social development, especially asone tries to trace the growth and implications of the stress response and the mechanisms of emotionalself-regulation (Gunnar & Townsend essay).

* Sidney Segalowitz served as Guest Editor for this issue.

International Society for the Study of Behavioural Development

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The Concept of Constructivism inDevelopmental Psychology andNeuroscience

Sidney J. SegalowitzDepartment of Psychology,Brock University, St. Catharines, ON, Canadaemail: [email protected]

One of the major theoretical dilemmas of developmentalpsychology has been the issue of determinism, i.e., how cana person not be a deterministic sum of biological backgroundand environmental experiences? Developmental neuro-science has traditionally been associated with thisreductionist-determinist view of development. In oppositionto this position is the concept of constructivism, i.e., the notionthat a person can influence his or her own psychologicalgrowth. This essay outlines how times have changed, andhow developmental neuroscience now provides the bestevidence in favor of the notion of constructivism indevelopmental psychology.

This theme through much of the 20th century wasexemplified in the tension between two schools of thoughtabout the nature of the developmentalprocess. One school argued thatpsychological development proceedssomewhat mechanically in terms ofenvironmental influences shaping thebehavioral repertoire, and by extension, therepertoire of thoughts. Of course, the maininspiration was a behaviorist perspective, butin fact this tradition also had a long historyoutside of psychology in predeterministic embryology,where the path of development was seen to be mechanisticwith respect to biological signals. The other school arguedthat children are active players in their own development,and pointed to the impoverishment of the concepts of themechanical school, and replaced them with constructs of

self-discovery and equilibration from Piaget’s theory.Especially attractive was the construct of constructivism,whereby the child is seen as psychologically directing his orher own development, and has its inspiration in the traditionof probabilistic epigenetic embryology. (Of course, theseconstructs were seen as circular and undefined by adherentsto the behaviorist school who complained that “self-directing” was often defined by the outcome; similarly,arguing that prediction is impossible because probabilisticepigenesis is in fact probabilistic did not convince skeptics,and thus direct debates were rather inconclusive). That boththese traditions found scientific foundations in the earlybiological growth of the nervous system is interesting, butdrawing the link to psychological development has provedsomewhat tenuous, or at least, was only convincing to thosealready firmly within the fold. As we are all well aware, thetwo perspectives have somewhat different implications forpolicy in child rearing, models of education, and the idea ofhuman rights and responsibilities, and therefore the debatehas serious repercussions. The mechanistic approach wasassociated with a perspective limiting the breadth ofimportant psychological states such as intention and free will.For reasons that are more ironic than historically accurate, theneuroscience influence in developmental psychology was

often seen to be favoring the mechanistic school. Itis perhaps for this reason that an approach in childpsychology that emphasizes brain growth andbrain processes has met with considerableresistance at times in the fields of cognitive andsocial development. The underlying problem isthat there has been a widely held assumption thatan appreciation of a biological perspectivenecessarily implies a form of reductionism thatnecessarily entails strict determinism, i.e., that a

neuroscience perspective on development necessarily leadsto a deterministic view of the person. This view is now out ofdate and, more importantly, concrete evidence for theconstructivism of mind comes from contemporaryneuroscience.

The Problem of Constructivism and theBiological Reality of the Brain The notion that we construct our own reality is well acceptedin the post-modern existentialist world, and to deny thepossibility of being involved in our own developmentappears to denigrate human initiative and dignity. It alsoleads to serious societal and legal problems, because at leastin the West, our sense of justice is predicated on free will andintention. The problem in psychological science has alwaysbeen that the mechanistic view appears sensible because ourideas of how systems work come from watching mechanicalobjects that we have around us. Most people saw this ascompatible with a biological emphasis in child develop-mental psychology. However, there has been a revolution inneuroscience in the last decades. The new view is thatbiological systems certainly provide structure, but that thisstructure is tailored for flexibility, that brain growth is thebasis for individuality, and even that there are genes foradaptability. The notion that the brain is a fixed entity frombirth is wrong (although that was accepted as fact whenPiaget developed his theory); it is instead a dynamicallygrowing organ in which we can see the evidence for the self-

“tension betweentwo schools ofthought about thenature of thedevelopmentalprocess”

Eight-year-old girl with the 40-electrodes cap for EEG testing.(Photo supplied by Christoph Klein).

constructivist principle in child development. As long as weaccept that mental structures are stored in the brain, theconstructivist principle requires that one’s actions andthoughts must influence the brain structuring related tothem.

Building Blocks of ConstructivismWhat does one need in order to have a system that is involvedin its own construction? There are three key components orprinciples: (1) Experience must influence the maturationalpath of the brain; (2) the period of this influence must coverthe entire developmental period of the brain (essentiallylifelong); and (3) these influences must be accessible to mentalmanipulation by the individual by means of consciouschoices. This last component is critical, since without it weare still left with a deterministic system that the individualdoes not direct. [In describing a constructivist vs. selectionistmodel of cortical maturation, Quartz and Sejnowski (1997)present much of the neuroscientific details for the first twopoints, but omit this last essential psychological component.]

The first principle – the notion that experienceinfluences brain structure – is now well establishedempirically (besides being a logical necessity for learningto occur). Early work beginning in the 1960sestablished that dendritic spread andsynaptic growth varies as a function ofstimulative experience, that experience-deprivation can dramatically reduce thisgrowth, and that continued stimulationhelps ward off the reductions expected withaging. It also showed that specifically whichneural networks become dominant is afunction of which get stimulated (welldocumented in the visual system, but relevant for othermodalities as well). This work has continued todocument, for example, how a second language learnedfluently after childhood has a different neural base thanone learned as a young child, and so on.

The second component involves relatively recentdiscoveries. The connectivity of the brain is a constantlydynamic process, made especially so by the proliferation ofconnections that later need to be pruned back. Recent reportsindicate that there is continual birth of new neurons in thehippocampus, a key structure for memory and learning, andthe fate of these new neurons is affected by stressors, bothpsychological and physical. The pattern of growth ofdendrites and synapses generally, and hippocampal neuronsspecifically, extends well past childhood, and therefore thereis plenty of time for the brain to be affected by experience,even that generated by the individual in question.

The third component has an obvious psychologicalcorollary: For experience to influence the growth of skills,one must be mentally active in it. This was shown forperceptual-motor learning by Held and Hein’s (1963) classicstudy with kittens (where an active kitten that explores theenvironment develops normally while one yoked topassively experience the same perceptions as the active onedoes not develop well), and we all know that children’sspontaneous engagement in a learning activity increases thelikelihood of success. In other words, attention is a majorcatalyst for learning. How this works at the neurologicallevel involves the basic principle of top-down control,

whereby attending to a certain aspect of one’s experienceover others increases the neural activation associated withthe experience. For example, while experiencing a visualinput certainly activates the visual cortex, covertly attendingto one side (while maintaining a straight-ahead gaze)increases the cortical activation on the side to which themore-attended input arrives. Similarly, when a visualdisplay containing both moving and stationary dots ispresented to someone, the visual-movement region of thecortex (area V5) increases or decreases in activationdepending on which set of dots are attended. In the sameway, attending to a vibratory stimulus increases activationin the somatosensory cortex. Thus, thinking about an activityactivates tissue and fine-tunes the primary cortex at the mostbasic level, not developing circuits only at the abstract levelof planning the activity. Practicing a task that requires oneto identify the visual orientation of objects improves codingin the primary visual cortex, even in adult brains.

This top-down effect is, of course, critical for learningwhat one wants to learn, and may be linked through the basicreward system. When dopaminergic neurons in an areacritical for processing unexpected stimuli and rewards (theventral tegmental area) are stimulated following an auditorystimulus, the cortical representation of that sound is

increased and the representation of nearby soundfrequencies is reduced. The overall effect of thistop-down effect is to increase neuronal activationin certain areas by voluntarily shifting attention; asindicated in the first component discussed,increased activation leads to increased con-nectivity in the tissue involved. Therefore simplyattending to particular input, i.e., being interestedin a certain way, ultimately has a role in shapingthe growth of the cortex. This component

contributes more critically to the developmental notion ofconstructivism than simply arguing for reorganization on thebasis of activity, although clearly it is related. Learningtheories of development capture the concept (if not themechanisms) of experience acting to reorganize associationistnetworks. But we now know that maturational changes inthe child’s brain involve more than simply raising andlowering the strengths of connections. There is majorpostnatal growth in the cortex, visible with various imagingtechnologies, which can be guided by activation. Now weknow this activation can be covert and self-directed throughattentional control. Some of this growth is inherently linkedto a schedule of nervous system development and wouldtherefore encompass what Greenough termed “experience-expectant” circuits (Greenough & Black, 1987). The“experience-dependent” circuits are a function of thecontinual lifespan readjustment. Both types of circuits wouldbe fine-tuned and directed to some extent by this aspect ofconsciousness – the person’s motivated attention to someaspects of mental life over others. This does not remove, ofcourse, the basic questions surrounding the sources of one’smotivations (e.g., what are the factors that prompt one childto self-direct to music and another to entomology).

While the construct of attention has been considered amystery since at least William James’ time, we are starting tounderstand at least some of the details. For example,increased attention synchronizes neural firing, and the morechallenging the task, the greater is the increase insynchronized firing. No doubt there are many more

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fundamental mechanisms involved in the process, and whenwe are able to measure such neuronal coordinationnoninvasively, we will be much closer to understanding thefundamental deficit in children with attentional difficulties.

Given these three principles of growth and functioning,the child’s decision to focus on one aspect of their multi-modal experience over another shapes their brain to have thecapacity to better deal with that aspect. This is a positivefeedback loop, one that is highly adaptive in a complexenvironment. Brain circuits keep changing physically bygrowing connections, and the functioning of the brain altersthe degree to which regions become activated, therebyfeeding back on the growth pattern. In this way, earlypropensities and interests lead to later talents. The system isbuilt to take advantage of the experiences available, so thatexpertise is efficiently developed to deal with the world. Asmany developmental psychologists have noted, the playbehavior of the child is serious business indeed, being themethod for the self-construction of hardware with which theworld will be challenged. Contemporary developmentalneuroscience is supplying the concrete details of, andtherefore the basic justification for, this fundamental tenet ofchild development.

ReferencesGreenough, W.T., Black, J. E., & Wallace, C. S. (1987).

Experience and brain development. Child Development,58, 539–559.

Held, R., & Hein, A. (1963). Movement-produced stimulationin the development of visually guided behavior. Journalof Comparative & Physiological Psychology, 56(5), 872–876.

Recommended ReadingsFor a discussion of the political issues in a developmentalneuropsychology, see Segalowitz, S. J., & Rose-Krasnor, L.(1992). The construct of brain maturation in theories of childdevelopment. Brain and Cognition, 20, 1–7.

For a further development of these issues and references,see Segalowitz, S. J., & Hiscock, M. (2002). The emergence ofa neuropsychology of normal development: Developmentalneuroscience and a new constructivism. In S. J. Segalowitz &I. R. Rapin (Eds.), Child neuropsychology, Part 1 (in F. Boller &J. Grafman (series editors), Handbook of Neuropsychology) (pp.7–27). Amsterdam: Elsevier.

For a classic presentation of epigenetic behavioralembryology, see Gottlieb, G. (1976). Conceptions of prenataldevelopment: Behavioral embryology. Psychological Review,83, 215–234. See also Gottlieb, G. (2003). Probabilisticepigenesis of development. In J. Valsiner & K. Connolly(Eds.), Handbook of developmental psychology (pp. 3–17).London: Sage.

For a current summary of cortical growth patterns, seevarious chapters in Nelson, C. A., & Luciana, M. (Eds.).(2001). Handbook of developmental cognitive neuroscience.Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; and Cynader, M. S., & Frost, B.J. (1999). Mechanisms of brain development: Neuronalsculpting by the physical and social environment. In D. P.Keating & C. Hertzman (Eds.), Developmental health and thewealth of nations: Social, biological, and educational dynamics (pp.153–184). New York: Guilford.

For a strong statement on the links between a slightlydifferent view of constructivism and neuronal development,see Quartz, S., & Sejnowski, T. J. (1997). The neural basis of

cognitive development: Aconstructivist manifesto. Behavioral& Brain Sciences, 20(4), 537–596.

Cortisol Measures in Studiesof Children

Megan R. GunnarInstitute of Child Development,University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota,USAemail: [email protected]

and

Elise L. TownsendInstitute of Child Development,University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota,USAemail: [email protected]

Psychological experience affects the central nervous systemnot only in terms of cognitive content, but also withrespect to affective arousal. The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) system is one system through whichthese effects may operate. Cortisol, a steroid hormoneproduced by the HPA system, is now a common measure instudies of child development. However, confusion existsregarding what this measure reveals about the stress, healthand well-being of children. This brief essay will not eliminateall confusion, but will offer a beginner’s guide, explainingwhy salivary cortisol is not a simple index of stress andsummarizing evidence that in humans, as in other mammals,activity of the HPA system is strongly regulated by earlysocial relationships.

Why Cortisol Findings areDifficult to InterpretWhen measuring the HPAand other stress-sensitive systems,we often do so to index stress, or the extent to which demandsoutweigh the child’s coping resources. Larger responses areviewed as indicative of failed coping and/or greater stress.This interpretation of salivary cortisol measures is not wrong,but incomplete. The index approach leaves us puzzling whenhigher cortisol levels correlate with positive child orenvironment characteristics or, very commonly, whencortisol is highest at the beginning of our experiment anddecreases as we expose the child to our laboratory stressor.Clearly, stress-sensitive neurobiological systems did notevolve as research tools, nor did they evolve as a means fornature to damage the brain and body. They evolved to fostersurvival. Only through understanding the complex rolestress physiology plays in survival can we come tounderstand how its activity may contribute to physical andmental health and disorder.

Unfortunately, summarizing the role of the HPA systemin survival is not trivial; no one has yet been able to do sosatisfactorily. Cortisol and other glucocorticoids affect nearlyevery organ and tissue in the body. Cortisol levels increase inresponse to threat or challenge, but require nearly 30 minutesto reach a peak in circulation. Because cortisol operatesthrough regulating genes, hours are required for brain andbody effects to be realized. In contrast, the other major stress-

sensitive neuroendocrine system, the adrenaline-producing,sympathetic adrenomedullary (SAM) system, has activationon the order of seconds and produces effects through cellularprocesses that take moments to actualize. The role ofadrenaline is straightforward: it is a mobilization hormonethat rapidly prepares the body for fight or flight. Therefore,if a research question is based on an assessment of rapidlychanging states of mobilization, adrenaline (or its effects onorgans such as the heart) is probably the preferred measure.Unfortunately, SAM system activity is sensitive to children’sactivity levels. Thus, to assess variations related topsychological (rather than motor) activity, children mustremain still: a problem in research with young children.

Cortisol is readily measured in saliva, is notaffected by low intensity, non-aerobic exercise, andcan accurately be assessed without constraining achild’s activity. However, this hormone playsmultiple and sometimes conflicting roles inpromoting survival. It serves permissive functions,allowing the actions of other stress-sensitivesystems to occur. Basal or pre-stress levels ofcortisol influence whether or not an organism canmount an effective fight-or-flight response. It servessuppressive functions, restraining the activity of other stress-sensitive systems. Chronic failure to exhibit physiologically-potent elevations in cortisol to stimuli that activatesympathetic and immune responses may promote damagefrom inadequate restraint of these systems; whereas, chronichyper-activation may promote damage due to over-constraint. It serves mobilization functions, increasing theenergy available to sustain body functioning in the face oflong-term stressors. Finally, it serves preparatory functions,fostering retention of information at many levels, thusallowing rapid reactions to repeated encounters with similarstressors. Because of cortisol’s myriad functions, both hyper-and hypo-responsivity are associated with mental andphysical disorder.

The Neurobiology of StressThe neurobiology of stress centers around regulation of twoendocrine systems, the HPA and SAM systems, inconjunction with the complex weave of emotional, cognitive,and motor action systems that allow us to approach, avoid,and retain information about threat. Activation of thesesystems involves stressor specific pathways resulting indifferent patterns of responses depending on the stressor. Itshould come as no surprise that physiological measures ofstress are not highly intercorrelated. Regulation of the HPAand SAM systems involves pathways that converge on nucleiin the hypothalamus (HPA) and brainstem (SAM).Psychologists are primarily interested in distributed neuralpathways in limbic-cortical regions of the brain that processperceptions of threat and transduce these perceptions intoemotional, cognitive, and motor responses. The amygdalaclearly plays a critical role. Pathways from the amygdala areintegral to activation of the HPA and SAM systems inresponse to psychosocial stressors. These pathways are notdirect. They are multi-synaptic, allowing integration andmodulation of HPA and SAM activity based on informationabout the current state of the body, recent activity of thesepathways, dampening activity in other brain regions (e.g.,hippocampus and cingulate cortex), and so on. Therefore,whether and to what extent increases in HPA and SAM

system activity occur reflects an integration of highlyprocessed information converging from many regions ofbrain and body.

CRH (corticotropic releasing hormone) and its family ofreceptors may play a central role in orchestrating responsesto psychological stressors. CRH is the principal neuropeptidethat stimulates the cascade of neurochemical events in theHPA system resulting in cortisol production. Neurons thatproduce CRH are widely distributed in the brain. The centralnucleus of the amygdala is rich in CRH-producing neurons.Dysregulation of the amygdala-CRH system is argued to playa principal role in affective disorders. The amygdala-CRHand hypothalamic-CRH systems are distinct, albeit mutually

influencing. Measuring cortisol does notpermit inference about the amygdala-CRHsystem, the system that is likely more closelyaligned with negative emotionality.

We suspect that the reader, at this point,may be prepared to abandon any thought ofdelving into the literature on the HPA system,or assessing cortisol as part of a research study.This was not our goal. Rather, our aim was to

encourage researchers to be physiologically sophisticated intheir use and interpretation of cortisol data. Armed with thisawareness, cortisol measures can tell us much about thenature and regulation of stress during human development.

Developmental Changes in ResponsivityThe HPAsystem begins to produce cortisol prenatally by thesecond trimester. Animal models demonstrate that mother’scortisol levels influence the development of the fetal brainin ways that affect later reactivity and regulation of the HPAsystem. Human and animal studies link maternalexperiences of stress with fetal vulnerability such as lowbirthweight and prematurity. At birth, the HPA activity of afull term infant sensitizes to repetitive painful experienceslike heel sticks, yet habituates to repeated mild stressors,such as physical examinations. This early responsiveness ofthe HPA system appears to decline around 3 months of agefor most infants, and again more markedly between 6 and12 months.

The marked decrease in cortisol elevations to stressorsbetween 6 and 12 months suggests that children, like theinfant rodent, enter a period of relative stress (or moreaccurately glucocorticoid) hypo-responsivity as they neartheir first birthday. In rodents, highly specific forms of contactwith the mother regulate responsiveness during this period.In non-human primates, contact and proximity to theattachment figure serves as a powerful buffer of the HPAsystem to stimuli that elicit infant distress and contactseeking. In humans, it also appears that social relationshipsbecome powerful regulators of cortisol activity over the firstyear of life. Separation from attachment figures provokesincreases in cortisol; however, the magnitude of elevationdepends on the context of the separation. When an infant ortoddler finds supportive care from a substitute care provider,the cortisol response is dampened or prevented, even if thechild protests the separation. When separations areprolonged, as in full-day childcare, cortisol levels tend to riseover the day, in contrast to the typical diurnal pattern.However, again, the nature of the context matters. Increasingcortisol values are more likely and larger as standard qualityindices of childcare decrease, and are more likely in childcare

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centers with larger groups of children and less individualizedcare than in smaller family-based child care contexts whenthey are of high quality. The likelihood and magnitude ofincreases over the childcare day vary with age. In cross-sectional studies, larger increases are observed amongtoddlers compared to preschoolers. By school age, a dayaway from home in the company of other children and careproviders does not result, on average, in rising levels ofcortisol as the day progresses.

The consequences of physiologically small, butstatistically significant increases in cortisol over the childcareday are unclear. These consequences likely depend on theneurobiological context as reflected in dispositionalcharacteristics of the child. Shyness and social reticence havebeen associated with rising childcare cortisol levels amongtoddlers and preschool boys. Extreme shyness has also beenassociated with higher early wakeup levels of basal cortisol,and has been prospectively correlated with higher levels oflate afternoon cortisol measured in the home. The impact ofcortisol on the developing brain may differ when co-occurring with heightened activity in the neurobiologicalcircuits supporting fearful, anxious, inhibited behavior thanwhen co-occurring with neural activity supporting angry,aggressive, under-controlled behavior. The latterdispositional pattern is also associated with increasingcortisol levels in group-care situations. Indeed, someevidence exists that higher cortisol concentrations for angry,aggressive, under-controlled children may partly bemediated by social relationships, specifically peer rejection.

Qualities of the relationship between parent and childalso appear to affect and, perhaps, help organize activity ofthe HPA system. Secure attachment relationships seem toprovide more powerful buffers of the HPAsystem in toddlersthan do insecure attachment relationships. Family stress anddiscord during the first years of life and maternal depressionin the child’s first year predict higher baseline cortisol activityin children several years later. Conflict between parent andchild activates the HPA axis in adolescence. These samefamily and parent-child factors influence the child’s abilityto form and maintain supportive, equitablerelationships with children and careproviders, suggesting that difficulties inregulating HPA activity may developthrough multiple, intersecting psychosocialprocesses that affect children’s socialcompetence, ability to recruit and use socialsupport systems, and their capacity forbehavior and emotion regulation. Notsurprisingly, increasing evidence suggests that catastrophicfailure of the caregiving environment during development,as in cases of neglect, frequent relationship disruptions, andphysical or sexual maltreatment, produces changes in theactivity of the HPA axis and other stress-sensitive systems.The nature of these effects and their implications for humandevelopment are just beginning to be explored and arebeyond the scope of this brief essay.

ConclusionsPsychobiological studies of the HPAsystem in children striveto broaden our understanding of how social and emotionalprocesses influence stress neurobiology and how the biologyof stress impacts human adaptation. In order to usefullymeasure and interpret HPA system data in developmental

studies, we must move beyond an index approach andattain a physiologically sophisticated understanding ofthe role of the HPA system in human survival andfunctioning. Nevertheless, continued interest in the HPAsystem in human development research is encouraged byevidence that facets of social relationships influencing socialand emotional competence also strongly regulate cortisolactivity.

ReferencesGranger, D. A., Serbin, L. A., Schwartzman, A., Lehoux, P.,

Cooperman, J., & Ikeda, S. (1998). Children’s salivarycortisol, internalizing behaviour problems, and familyenvironment: Results from the Concordia longitudinalrisk project. International Journal of Behavioral Development,22(4), 707-728.

Gunnar, M., & Davis, E. P. (2003). Stress and emotion in earlychildhood. In R. M. Lerner, M. A. Easterbrooks & J. Mistry(Eds.), Handbook of Psychology, Vol 6, DevelopmentalPsychology, (pp. 113–134). New York: Wiley.

Sapolsky, R. M., Romero, L. M., & Munck, A. U. (2000). Howdo glucocorticoids influence stress responses? Integratingpermissive, suppressive, stimulatory, and preparativeactions. Endocrine Reviews, 21, 55-89.

Smider, N. S., Essex, M. J., Kalin, N. H., Buss, K. A., Klein, M.H., Davidson, R. J., & Goldsmith, H. H. (2002). Salivarycortisol as a predictor of socioemotional adjustmentduring kindergarten: A prospective study. ChildDevelopment, 73, 75-92.

Shyness and Sociability: A DangerousCombination for Preschoolers

Louis A. SchmidtDepartment of PsychologyMcMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canadaemail: [email protected]

Although there has been considerable researchattention directed toward the study of childhoodinhibition and shyness over the last two decades(see, e.g., Kagan, 1994 for a review), there hasbeen relatively little focus devoted toward thestudy of individual differences in shyness. Aswell, there has been scant discussion on how theemergence of different types of shyness may berisk factors for developing internalizing and

externalizing-related problems during the preschool andearly school age years. This is now changing.

Some 20 years ago, Cheek and Buss (1981) attempted tounderstand the origins of individual differences in shynessby examining the role of sociability. They noted that somepeople appear quiet and reserved in social situations. Cheekand Buss then asked: Are these people shy and reservedbecause they feel anxious and inhibited in social situations(i.e., they are shy) or are these people quiet and reservedbecause they have little need to affiliate with others (i.e., theyare introverted)? Cheek and Buss then developed short self-report measures of shyness and sociability, noting that thetwo were only modestly inversely related and suggested thatthe two dimensions were essentially orthogonal. Theyselected young adults who were high and low on self-report

“Conflict betweenparent and childactivates theHPA axis inadolescence”

measures of shyness and sociability and had them interact inunfamiliar dyads in order to see if sociability moderatedshyness. They found that individuals who were shy and socialexhibited significantly more behavioral anxiety in theunfamiliar social encounter compared with adults whodiffered on other combinations of shyness. Shy and socialadults appeared conflicted in their behavioral reactions tonovel social situations. Similar patterns of behavioralresponses have been noted in children who are both shy andsocial during social encounters.

Are Children Who Are Shy and Socialat Risk for Problems?The answer to this question appears to be yes. Children whoare shy and social (i.e., conflicted) may be on a pathway fordeveloping both internalizing and externalizing-relatedproblems during the preschool and early school age years.Conceptually, the origins and maintenance of the conflictedchild’s behavior is thought to be due topsychological conflict in approach-avoidancetendencies. Behaviorally, conflicted childrenexhibit high amounts of unoccupied-onlookingand anxious behaviors during group playinvolving unfamiliar peers. They have problemsjoining the playgroup even though they have ahigh desire to be a part of the group. Conflictedchildren are likely to be rejected by their peers and at risk forinternalizing problems such as anxiety, social withdrawaland depression. Physiologically, conflicted children exhibitdistinct patterns of frontal brain electrical activity (describedbelow).

Recent research also suggests that conflicted childrenmay be at risk for externalizing-related problems. There is anemerging literature from studies of adolescents and youngadults that suggests that people who are both shy and socialare likely to engage in risky behaviors as a means by whichto cope with the ongoing psychological conflict that theyexperience in social situations or anticipation of socialinteractions. For instance, teenagers (Page, 1990) andundergraduates (Santesso, Schmidt, & Fox, 2002) who are shyand social are more likely than shy and low social and non-shy people to engage in illicit drug use and are likely to useand abuse alcohol as a means by which to cope with theirstress in social situations. It seems reasonable to speculatethen that children who are shy and social may be at risk fordeveloping externalizing problems during the early schoolage years because they are likely to engage in risky andantisocial behaviors in order to cope with the stress of beingrejected by their peers. These risky behaviors can take manyforms, including early substance use and abuse, aggression,and bullying just to name a few. In addition to helping withthe stress of rejection, these antisocial behaviors may bereinforced by some peer groups and may thus serve as anavenue for the conflict child to be accepted in less than“optimal” peer groups.

Are There Temperamental or BiologicalAntecedents of the Conflicted Child? One line of our research program is focused on this veryquestion. There do indeed appear to be temperamentalpredictors of shyness and sociability that are identifiable

during the opening months of post-natal life. For example,infants’ reactions to the presentation of novel stimuli duringthe first half of the first year of post-natal life are known topredict timidity and boldness during the preschool years.Infants who exhibit a high degree of distress and negativeaffect in response to these stimuli are likely to be shypreschoolers; infants who display little reluctance toapproach these same stimuli and high degrees of positiveaffect are likely to be social and outgoing children. In additionto these temperamental predictors, we have noted differenceson psychophysiological measures during baseline and inresponse to social stress in people who are shy and social. Forexample, we have noted a distinct pattern of resting frontalEEG activation in people who are shy and social (Schmidt,1999). We found that adults who self-reported high shynessand high sociability exhibited greater relative right frontalEEG activity that was characterized by increased activity inboth the left and right frontal brain regions during restingconditions compared with adults self-reporting other

combinations of shyness and sociability. Wespeculated that the pattern of heightenedactivity in both the left and right frontal regionduring resting conditions may have reflecteda predisposition to experience heightenedpositive and negative affect, resulting in anapproach-avoidance conflict (i.e., a conflictbetween an individual’s desire to affiliate with

others, but also the experience of fear in doing so) assuggested by Cheek and Buss (1981). We have also noted thatshy and social people exhibit a distinct pattern of autonomicactivity in response to social challenge (Schmidt & Fox, 1994).Interestingly, heightened autonomic activity has also beennoted in shy and sociable children in their everydayenvironments (e.g., Asendorpf & Meier, 1993).

Is a Model Emerging That May HelpUs Understand the Origins of theConflicted Child?We have been developing a model that may help tounderstand the conflicted child. This model includes acomplex interaction among environmental factors, thefrontal cortex, forebrain limbic structures (e.g., theamygdala), and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical(HPA) and serotonergic systems, all areas and systemsknown to comprise the fear circuit. The frontal cortex isthought to play a regulatory role particularly with regard tocontrolling the action of psychological processes related toforebrain areas such as the amygdala and HPA system. Wealso speculate that genes that code for the transportation ofserotonin may play an important role in the regulation ofsome components of the fear system. Serotonin has beenimplicated as a major neurotransmitter involved in anxietyand withdrawal. It is possible that some temperamentally shyindividuals may possess genetic polymorphisms thatcontribute to a reduced efficiency of the transportation and/or regulation of serotonin. Such a genetic polymorphism hasbeen noted in adults who score high on measures ofneuroticism, a major feature of shyness. The action of reducedserotonin expression may be particularly evident in theforebrain limbic and frontal cortex where there are denseconcentrations of serotonin receptors. It is possible that thereduction of serotonin may play an important role in

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“Conflictedchildren are likelyto be rejected bytheir peers”


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regulating the amygdala and HPA system: “normal”serotonin concentrations may serve to inhibit (or regulate)the action of amygdaloid firing and activation of the HPAsystem. The reduction of serotonin contributes to a release ofchronic overactivity of the amygdala and the HPA system insome individuals. An overactive amygdala may stimulate theHPAsystem and the release of increased cortisol. The increasein cortisol may contribute to the pattern of frontal EEGactivity noted early between shyness subtypes. The frontalcortex is rich in corticosteroid receptors and has beenimplicated in regulating the HPA system in other mammals.The overactive amygdala and dysregulated HPA systemperhaps lead to the increased activity noted on restingpsychophysiological and neuroendocrine measures thatindex forebrain and frontal cortical functioning.(Interestingly, the startle response, autonomic, and frontalEEG measures are all known to be sensitive to themanipulation of cortisol and have been linked to emotiondysregulation). Accordingly, it may not be a coincidence thatsome temperamentally shy children are characterized byelevated basal cortisol levels, high and stable resting heartrate, exaggerated baseline startle, and greater relative restingright frontal EEG activity. Resting EEG and heart ratemeasures may be “by-products” not casual agents of adysregulated fear system. The left frontal area may have amore dense collection of glucocorticoidreceptors or a greater binding affinity forcortisol in shy and social people (i.e., theconflicted) compared with people who are shyand low in sociability, hence the pattern ofgreater activity in the left than right frontalarea as noted earlier. Thus, it is at the level ofthe frontal cortex that we observe individualdifferences in shyness. It is important to pointout, however, that there are a number ofenvironmental factors that contribute to socialstress, including parenting style, peer relations, schoolenvironment, and familial and extra-familial variablesamong many others that can trigger social inhibition in thismodel.

What Lies Ahead? Timidity and boldness represent two of the most salienttemperamental features that are conserved across mammalsand whose neural substrates underlying their expression arebeginning to be well-mapped. An interaction of thesetemperamental features may serve as a dangerouscombination for the development of internalizing andexternalizing problems in children. Future research shouldconsider the tracking of children who exhibit features of bothtimidity and boldness in early infancy.

ReferencesAsendorpf J.B., & Meier, G.H. (1993). Personality effects on

children’s speech in everyday life: Sociability-mediatedexposure and shyness-mediated reactivity to socialsituations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64,1072-1083.

Cheek, J.M., & Buss, A.H. (1981). Shyness and sociability.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 41, 330-339.

Kagan, J. (1994). Galen’s prophecy: Temperament in humannature. New York: Basic Books.

Page, R.M. (1990). Shyness and sociability: A dangerouscombination for illicit substance use in adolescent males?Adolescence, 25, 803-806.

Santesso, D.L., Schmidt, L.A., & Fox, N.A. (2002). Are shynessand sociability still a dangerous combination for substance use?Evidence from a U.S. and Canadian sample. Manuscriptsubmitted for publication.

Schmidt, L.A. (1999). Frontal brain electrical activity inshyness and sociability. Psychological Science, 10, 316-320.

Schmidt, L.A., & Fox, N.A. (1994). Patterns of corticalelectrophysiology and autonomic activity in adults’shyness and sociability. Biological Psychology, 38, 183-198.

Assessing the Development ofExecutive Functions

Christoph KleinResearch Group Psychophysiology, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germanyemail: [email protected]

The development from childhood to adolescence is adynamic period of multi-facetted changes in functions such

as cognition, affect, social behavior, and(neuro)physiological regulation. Important toand concurrent with these changes is thedevelopment of self-regulation and self-control, and of meta-cognitive processes(Segalowitz & Rose-Krasnor, 1992), as they areconsidered to exert control over more specificprocesses. The distinction between specific/modular and control/ superordinate functionscan be illustrated with an everyday example:While a pre-school child will normally be able

to run, pick up a ball from the ground, and detect anapproaching vehicle perfectly reliably, he or she may fail tocoordinate these modular processes with the parents’instruction to be careful when crossing the road, and his orher desire to retrieve a ball lost while playing as quickly as itis safe to do so (superordinate function). In order to complywith parents’ instructions, the child must self-regulate his orher behavior, i.e., to inhibit the prepotent response to dashacross the road in order to fetch the ball and has, instead, tosequence and plan the subsequent actions: “look right, leftand right again. Then cross the road looking and listening asyou go”.

Self-regulation in developmental psychology has acorresponding term in neuropsychology, namely “executivefunction” or “executive control”. This term emphasizes anability in which humans seem to be especially proficient: toguide behavior on the basis of internal representations(“memories”) of goals or (self-) instructions – instead of beingdriven by salient environmental stimuli or stuck in well-wornhabits. Executive control thus includes, among otherabilities, the ability to inhibit prepotent responses, toanticipate and plan goal-directed actions, and the ability toterminate a no longer appropriate action and switch toanother.

The importance of executive (self-) control indevelopment becomes readily apparent when we look atchildren with severe deficits in these functions. In their

“it is at the level ofthe frontal cortextht we observeindividualdifferences inshyness”

comprehensive model of attention-deficit hyperactivitydisorder (ADHD), Lauth and Schlottke (1999) havepostulated a primary deficit in central nervous activity andbehavioral regulation (including sustained attention,inhibitory control, and a tendency for seeking stimulation).This primary deficit results in impulsiveness andhyperactivity and it impairs strategic planning and meta-cognitive processes. Such distorted behavioral self-regulation provokes negative responses in the socialenvironment, with the experience of failure and thedevelopment of dysfunctional “compensatory” behavior asa consequence. As a result, children with attention-deficithyperactivity disorder (ADHD) encounter serious academicand social problems (Tannock, 1998).

That executive functions are considered to exert controlover modular functions, such as running, picking up the ball,detecting an approaching vehicle in the example above, hastwo important implications. First, if we want to assess theexecutive function’s efficiency, we must assure that themodular functions are intact. Ideally, both the executivefunction under investigation and the modular functions itcontrols should be assessed together, with performance in thelatter being statistically controlled. Second, it is plausible toassume that the executive functions do not develop beforebut concurrent with or even after the modular functions theycontrol. In line with this reasoning,developmental neuropsychological research hasshown that executive functions show protracteddevelopment during childhood and adolescence(Kirk & Kelly, 1985). Furthermore, those corticalregions, the functional integrity of which seemsnecessary for executive control, appear also toshow protracted development, especially inparticular portions of the frontal lobes (Jernigan,Trauner, Hesselink, & Tallal, 1991).

The assessment of the development ofexecutive functions is hence a promising starting point forunderstanding cognitive development from the neuro-psychological perspective. An executive paradigm that hasattracted close attention of neuroscientists interested in theprefrontal cortex is the antisaccade task (Hallett, 1978). Asoutlined in the rationale for the study of executive functions,performance in the anti-saccade task (executive function)should be compared with performance in the prosaccade task(modular function). During the prosaccade task, a fixationpoint is presented in the middle of the screen for 1-2 seconds(left “screen” in figure 1). Subsequently, a peripheral cueappears to the left or right (typically in random order; middle“screen” in figure 1), and subjects are instructed to look at theperipheral cue when it appears (small arrow in the right“screen” in figure 1). By contrast, during the antisaccade tasksubjects are instructed to look to the mirror-image positionof the peripheral cue upon its appearance, as illustrated bythe large white arrow in figure 1.

The antisaccade task is a very pronounced test ofexecutive functions. This is because a strong peremptoryresponse, the glance at the peripheral cue, must be inhibited

in favor of a response executed in accordance only with thetask instruction held active in working memory and theperceptual representation of the cue. Studies withneurological patients have shown that frontal lobe regions(dorsolateral or ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, frontal eyefields) must be intact in order to accomplish the antisaccadetask; conversely, regions in the parietal cortex seem necessaryto execute prosaccade tasks with normal reaction times (e.g.,Pierrot-Deseilligny, Rivaud. Gaymard, & Agid, 1991; Walker,Husain, Hodgson, Harrison, & Kennard, 1998).

The comparative investigation of pro- and antisaccade taskperformance is hence an elegant research tool to investigateprefrontal cortex/executive functional development withrelatively high specificity. In that regard and because of itsrelative simplicity, the antisaccade task does better than manyof the cognitively complex “frontal lobe tests” commonlyused in neuropsychology.

For that reason we were interested in a precise statisticalmodeling of the developmental trajectories of pro- andantisaccade task performance in healthy children,adolescents, and young adults aged 6–28 years. Our samplecomprised 199 participants aged 6–28 years (66% males). Allparticipants were tested with the pro- and antisaccade taskfrom which various parameters of saccade control werederived (Klein, 2001). Univariate multiple regression models

comprising age and its inverse as predictors werefitted for each parameter of saccade control. Wegenerally found that all of the parametersrelating to the antisaccade task performanceshowed more protracted development andstronger relations with age than thoseparameters that derived from the prosaccadetask. An illustrative example of our results isgiven in figure 2 for the pro- (2A) andantisaccadic (2B) reactions times. This figuredocuments the superposition of linear and curvi-

linear age effects on saccade control, which are significantlystronger for the anti- as compared to the prosaccadic reactiontimes (plotted on the y-axis). Hence, the antisaccadic reactiontimes provide an incremental developmental validity aboveand beyond that of the prosaccadic reaction times. Thispattern of results thus confirms the hypothesis of protracteddevelopment of prefrontal executive functions.

Tracing the development of specific neuropsychologicalfunctions in healthy children is a logically necessaryprerequisite to the detection and description ofdevelopmental alterations in children with those psychiatricdisorders that can be conceived of as “neurodevelopmental”.ADHD is such a disorder, because there is evidence ofalterations in fronto-striatal regions in ADHD. Hence, wewere interested in exploring whether ADHD patients exhibitalterations from healthy children in the development ofantisaccade control. Data from forty-six carefully diagnosedpatients with ADHD and 46 healthy controls, matched withpatients for age (135.9±23.8 months), gender (38 boys, 8 girls),and IQ (Raven’s SPM: 106.2±16.2) were available foranalyses. As can be seen in figure 3A, there were significant,but small differences between the groups in prosaccadicreactions times. Antisaccadic reaction times showed theexpected significant decrease in controls, but not in patients.(Because of the restricted age range in this study comparedto Klein, 2001, a simple linear model explained the relationbetween age and the dependent measures). This pattern of

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“children withADHD encounterserious academicand socialproblems”

Figure 1

Schematic illustration of the pro- and antisaccade tasks.


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results suggests differential developmental processes inADHD patients in executive functions and point to a frontalinvolvement in the disorder (Klein, Brandenbusch, &Raschke, in press).

The two studies cited above have demonstrated thatthe comparative investigation of anti- and prosaccades mayreveal two kinds of differential developmental processes: (a)within samples of healthy children and differentiating“frontal” and “non-frontal” measures, and (b) betweenhealthy children and ADHD patients. In both cases theantisaccade task parameters act as indicators of executivefunctions and provide incremental validity either withrespect to functional development in healthy subjects orwith respect to the separation of patients from controls.These results are in line with the assumed protracted devel-opment of prefrontal cortical functions and the involve-ment of fronto-striatal dysfunctions in ADHD.

Traditional models of cognitive development, forexample, Piaget’s constructivist theory, are largely devoid ofexplicit references to the neurobiological correlates orfoundations of cognitive development (Segalowitz &Rose Krasnor, 1992). Cognitive neuropsychologicalconstructs and tests of executive functions may thus be in agood position to bridge the existing gap between cognitivedevelopment theories on the one side and developmental

brain research on the other. This ambitious endeavor wouldinvolve research programs in addition to the well-documented description and explanation (e.g., inconstructivist theories) provided by developmentalpsychology. Such programs may include (a) the descriptionof development of functions rooted in neuropsychologicaltheorizing (as shown here), (b) the establishment of empiricalrelations between selected construct indicators of bothpsychological traditions, along with (c) attempts to link thesedisciplines on the theoretical level, and (d) the developmentof common research paradigms and tests. No doubt, thisendeavor is still in its infancy.

ReferencesHallett, P.E. (1978). Primary and secondary saccades to

goals defined by instructions. Vision Research, 18, 1279-1296.

Jernigan, T.L., Trauner, D.A., Hesselink, J.R.& Tallal, P.A.(1991). Maturation of the human cerebrum duringadolescence. Brain, 114, 2037-2049.

Kirk, U.& Kelly, M.S. (1985). Children’s differentialperformance on selected dorsolateral prefrontal andposterior cortical functions: A developmentalperspective. Journal of Clinical and ExperimentalNeuropsychology, 7, 604.

Figure 2Pro- and antisaccadicreaction times

Figure 3Pro- and antisaccadicreaction times inhealthy children andADHD patients

Klein, C. (2001). Developmental functions for parametersderived from pro- and anti-saccade tasks in 199participants aged 6-28 years. Experimental Brain Research,139, 1–17.

Klein, C., Brandenbusch, A. & Raschke, A. (2002). Anti-saccade task performance in Ritalin free children withattention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).Psychophysiology, in press.

Lauth, G.W. & Schlottke, P.F. (1999). Training mitaufmerksamkeitsgestoerten Kindern. Weinheim: Beltz.

Pierrot-Deseilligny, C., Rivaud, S., Gaymard, B.& Agid, Y.(1991). Cortical control of reflexive visually-guidedsaccades. Brain, 114, 1473–1485.

Segalowitz, S.J. & Rose-Krasnor, L. (1992). The construct ofbrain maturation in theories of child development. Brainand Cognition, 20, 1–7.

Walker, R., Husain, M., Hodgson, T.L., Harrison, J.&Kennard, C. (1998). Saccadic eye movements andworking memory deficits following damage to humanprefrontal cortex. Neuropsychologia, 36(11), 1141–1159.

COMMENTARY: An Integration of Neuroscience intothe Study of Child Development

Xiaolin ZhouCenter for Brain and Cognitive Sciencesand Department of PsychologyPeking University, Beijing Chinaemail: [email protected]

It seems to me that there are currently two new major trends inthe research into child development. One trend is to push thefrontier of research into even earlier stage of development.Youngerbabies’ surprisingly advanced cognitive abilities become a focus ofinterest (Colombo,2001;Dehaene-Lambertz,Dehaene,& Hertz-Pannier, 2002; Fiser & Aslin, 2002; Saffran,Aslin, & Newport, 1996;Stager, & Werker, 1997).The second trend is to investigate therelations between children’s cognitive and social development andtheir brain activation and maturation (Frith & Frith,2001;Dehaene-Lambertz,et al.,2002;Perner & Lang,1999).Another trend,probablystill in its infancy, is to link directly children’s cognitive and behavioraldevelopment with their genes and genetic inheritance (Backes,Genc, Schreck et al., 2000; Fagerheim, Raeymaekers,Tonnessen etal.,1999;Paterson,Brown,Gsodl et al.,1999;Dale,Simonoff,Bishop,et al., 1998).

I am very glad to see that the present special section focuseson developmental cognitive neuroscience,that is, the second trendI outlined above. Although I think the current trend is moreinfluenced by the growing cognitive neuroscience (Gazzaniga,2000)than by the traditional developmental neuroscience studying brainplasticity and neuronal connections (Segalowitz, Introduction), thisnew line of research can nevertheless answer many developmentalquestions, old and new, at different levels.The Guest Editor did agreat job in assembling papers tackling some of these questions.But as the Editor pointed out, broader perspectives may need tobe taken up, and new arguments and findings in cognitiveneuroscience may need to be taken into consideration when weattempt to link brain and mind development.

The essay by Segalowitz discussed two schools of thoughtabout the nature of the developmental process and promoted theconcept of constructivism.This concept emphasizes the importanceand flexibility of biological systems in child development and thebrain basis for individuality. The author delineated three key

components of the constructivism: 1) experience influencing thematuration of the brain;2) lifelong interaction between experienceand brain;and 3) conscious mental manipulation of the experience.While the first two principles of growth and functioning are widelybacked up by empirical evidence and accepted by most cognitiveneuroscientists, questions perhaps can be raised concerning thethird component.The author suggested that attention is a majorcatalyst for learning and top-down control is critical to children’sexperience.However,recent neuroimaging studies (e.g.,Willingham,Salidis, Gabrieli, 2002) found that conscious and unconsciouslearning may activate many common brain regions and it is anempirical question to what extent learning in children can happenin the absence of awareness (attention). Moreover, in conductingexperiments and theorizing about role of attention in children’slearning,we perhaps need to differentiate attention and awareness(consciousness) (Lamme,2003).Such a distinction has been madeboth on psychological/theoretical grounds and on neurobiologicalgrounds. It remains to be seen whether this distinction has differentconsequences for children’s learning from experience.Furthermore, we may also need to differentiate top-downprocessing at the psychological level and at the physiological level(Frith,2001),especially when we investigate the neural correlate ofchildren’s learning and top-down control. In short, the concept ofconstructivism needs to be delineated in more detail and a largebody of evidence should be accumulated directly from studies onchildren. Advances in cognitive neuroscience could provide aguideline for such research.A good example is perhaps the attemptto link cognitive neuroscientific studies of executive functions withdevelopmental theories (Perner & Lang,1999;Perner,Lang,& Kloo,2002; Klein, this issue).

The papers by Gunnar and Townsend and by Schmidt tried toillustrate the relations between child’s social behavior and its brainbasis, more from the perspective of neurobiology. Gunnar andTownsend urged us to be more physiologically sophisticated ininterpreting HPA system data while Schmidt suggested that webuild up a model for conflicted children incorporating a complexinteraction among environmental factors, the frontal cortex,forebrain limbic structures,and the HPA and serotonergic systems.Once again, I feel that recent advances in cognitive neurosciencecan be brought into the areas. For example, we can ask whetherthese conflicted or stressed children have abnormal performanceor brain (especially prefrontal) activation when they carry outexecutive function tasks, and whether there are correlationsbetween children’s approach-avoidance tendencies and theirinhibitory skills. Klein’s paper argued for a special role of theconstructs and tasks of executive functions in bridging the gapbetween cognitive developmental theories and braindevelopments. I agree with him and I suggest that we need also tobe more sophisticated in executive functions (and other functionsstudied extensively in cognitive neuroscience such as attention) andtheir brain bases.After all, executive functions can be fractionatedand they may have distinct neural correlates (Dreher & Berman,2002; Shallice, 2001). One challenge for developmental cognitiveneuroscience is to find the correlational or even causal relationsbetween different aspects of children’s executive functions andchildren’s social behaviors and skills.

To summarize, I think that the advances of cognitiveneuroscience provide a guiding role for research into childdevelopment. Developmental psychologists, whether studyingcognitive or social development,whether studying normal childrenor abnormal populations, just cannot ignore theories and datacoming from the brain imaging techniques. Papers in this specialissue give us good examples of taking advantage of this trend,eitherdirectly or indirectly.

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ReferencesBackes, M., Genc, B., Schreck, J., Doerfler,W., Lehmkuhl, G., & von

Gontard,A. (2000).Cognitive and behavioral profile of fragile Xboys:Correlations to molecular data.American Journal of MedicalGenetics, 95, 150–156.

Colombo, J. (2001).The development of visual attention in infancy.Annual Review of Psychology, 52, 337–367.

Dale, P. S., Simonoff, E., Bishop,D.V.M., Eley,T.C.,Oliver, B., Price,T. S.,Purcell, S., Stevenson, J., & Plomin, R. (1998). Genetic influenceon language delay in two-year-old children.Nature Neuroscience,1, 324–328.

Dehaene-Lambertz, G., Dehaene, S., & Hertz-Pannier, L. (2002).Functional neuroimaging of speech perception in infants.Science,298, 2013–2015.

Dreher, J.-C. Berman, K. F. Fractionating the neural substrate ofcognitive control processes. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 99,14595–14600 (2002).

Fagerheim, T., Raeymaekers, P., Tonnessen, F. E., Pedersen, M.,Tranebjaerg, L., & Lubs, H. A. (1999). A new gene (DYX3) fordyslexia is located on chromosome 2. Journal of Medical Genetics,36, 664–669.

Fiser, J. & Aslin, R.N. (2002). Statistical learning of new visual featurecombinations by infants. PNAS, 99, 15822–15826.

Frith, C. (2001). A framework for studying the neural basis ofattention. Neuropsychologia, 39, 1367–1371.

Frith, U., & Frith, C. (2001).The biological basis of social interaction.Current Directions in Psychological Science, 10, 151–155.

Gazzaniga, M. S. (Ed.). (2000). The New Cognitive Neurosciences.Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Lamme, A. A. F. (2003). Why visual attention and awareness aredifferent? Trends in Cognitive Science, 7, 12–18.

Paterson, S. J., Brown, J. H., Gsodl, M. K., Johnson, M. H., & Karmiloff-Smith, A. (1999). Cognitive modularity and genetic disorders.Science, 286, 2355–2358.

Perner, J. & Lang, B. (1999). Development of theory of mind andexecutive control. Trends in Cognitive Science, 9, 337–344.

Perner, J. Lang,B.,& Kloo,D. (2002).Theory of mind and self-control:more than a common problem of inhibition.Child Development,73, 752–767.

Saffran, J. R.,Aslin, R. N., & Newport, E. L. (1996). Statistical learningby 8-month-old infants. Science, 274, 1926–1928.

Shallice,T. (2001). Fractionating the supervisory system. Brain andCognition, 47, 30–30.

Stager, C. L., & Werker, J. F. (1997). Infants listen for more phoneticdetail in speech perception than in word-learning tasks.Nature,388, 381–382.

Willingham, D. B., Salidis, J., & Gabrieli, J. D. E. (2002). Directcomparison of neural systems mediating conscious andunconscious skill learning. Journal of Neurophysiology, 88,1451–1460.

COMMENTARY: Good Reasons for IntegratingNeuroscience and Developmental Psychology

Nathan A. FoxDept. of Human Development, University of MarylandCollege Park, Maryland USAEmail: [email protected]

There are many reasons to study the interface of developmentalpsychology and neuroscience. Among them are an increasedunderstanding of deviant behavior or psychopathology that is a

result of this interface and a reductionist approach to studyingbehavior. Knowledge of the way in which neurotransmitters workin the brain has provided information for the development ofcertain drug therapies, which at the very least alleviate symptomsof individuals who suffer from an array of behavioral problemsincluding depression, bi-polar illness and schizophrenia.This biolog-ical approach to psychology (and psychiatry) has also led to areformulation of the etiology of certain types of psychopathology.For example, not so long ago, autism was thought to be the resultof ineffective caregiving behavior.Neuroscience research on autismhas dispelled this theory and current work is attempting to iden-tify the genes that play a role in the expression of autistic behaviorwhile scientists examine specific brain systems that may beaffected in this condition.

There is a notion within both psychology and neurosciencethat if one could describe the pattern of neural activation of aparticular psychological state this would provide a clear andprecise understanding of the behavior. Reducing behavior to thechemical or electrical action of neurons illuminates the underlyingbasis of that behavior.There is a sense among some neuroscien-tists that description of the neural pattern of firings, or activationby region in the brain, will supplant description of behavior as thebest reflection of psychological state.The information provided bythe pattern of neural activation is the most elemental form fromwhich psychological state is to be understood. This assumptionhowever may be incorrect. If the goal is to understand behavior,then even identifying the precise neural state of a behavior willonly help if the behavior itself is well specified.Thus, specificationof behavior,which is the realm of the psychologist, is critical for thebehavior-neuroscience interface.

The issue of the effects of early experience on the developingchild is of critical concern to developmental psychologists. It is anarea that has been illuminated by neuroscience research.Workershave for some time studied the manner in which the brain formsbeginning at conception and throughout fetal development.Thesestudies describe the timing of events during gestation duringwhich neurons migrate to their predetermined regions of thebrain and link up to form the connections of the central nervoussystem. What is clear from this work is that the processes ofsynapse formation, overproduction and synaptic pruning continueafter birth.These processes appear, as well, to occur in differentregions of the cortex, with differing developmental trajectories.Thus, for example, synapse production in the visual cortex appearsto peak early in the first year of life.The process of synaptogen-esis continues on for a much longer period of time in anteriorportions of the cortex (particularly the frontal lobes)(Huttenlocher and Dabholkar, 1997). The timing and nature ofpostnatal brain development has led to work on the effects ofenvironmental input on these processes. It has raised questionsabout the flexibility of brain development—what is the effect ofdifferent types of experience, ranging from deprivation to enrich-ment (Greenough, Black, & Wallace, 1987).

These questions are crucial for those interested in develop-ment for they focus on the role of experience (and environment)as it may shape brain development and hence the ontogeny ofcognitive and social behavior.This work raises questions regardingcritical or sensitive periods and the timing of environmental input.

The papers, edited by Sid Segalowitz for the ISSBD Newsletter(Spring 2003) are an attempt to provide answers to the questionof why developmental psychologists should be interested inneuroscience. Segalowitz and Gunnar & Townsend directly addressthe issue of early experience and its affects upon the developingorganism. Segalowitz raises the important point that the modern

synthesis of neuroscience and developmental psychology is bestviewed through the lens of constructivist theory. Psychological andbrain development are not deterministic but a function of envi-ronmental input and the child’s effect on that environment. Animportant corollary of Segalowitz’s position is that psychologymust carefully describe the environment so that interactionsbetween biology and context may be fully understood.

Gunnar and Townsend’s piece rests squarely in the traditionof the effects of early experience on brain development. Theyfocus on the HPA axis and the role of different experiences inshaping reactivity of this physiological system.The HPA axis is amodel system for understanding the effects of early experienceon brain and behavior and there is a long history of animalresearch examining these relations with the notion that HPAresponsivity may index the animal’s response to stress.Gunnar andTownsend rightly point out that hypo or hyper reactivity of thissystem do not easily map on to an animal’s inac-tive or reactive response to stress. Rather, the phys-iological role of the HPA system as a mobilizationfor both short term and long term energy needsin response to acute and chronic environmentalchallenge must be considered.

Schmidt raises an important point in his piecewith regard to the study of the interface of neuro-science and social competence. One of the by-products of this interface has been the increased need anddemand from neuroscientists for greater specificity and descrip-tion of behavior. Schmidt calls for greater detail with regard toetiology of shy behavior and for increased behavioral descriptionof this phenomenon.This level of analysis is critical if progress isto be made in understanding the underlying brain processes forcomplex cognitive or social behaviors.

Along the same lines, the paper by Klein provides the readerwith important behavioral distinctions in the attention phenom-enon known as inhibition of return. Klein argues convincingly thatif one is to understand the brain bases of tasks putatively thoughtto tap frontal lobe functioning (often called executive functiontasks) one must tap both these functions and those he calls“modular functions” processes controlled by but not identical tothe executive tasks under study. Data from his laboratory showquite elegantly how two behavioral measures, proscaccadic reac-tion time and antisaccadic reaction time may be useful in exam-ining executive attention. The important point is again that thebrain behavior link can only be successful if there is a high level ofspecificity about the processes being assessed and at the sametime control over related functions.

The four papers in this special issue highlight the reasons wecan be excited about the coming years of work linking brain andbehavior especially from a developmental context. Each providesa link to the issues that are important in this line of study: theneed for greater specificity of behavioral description, theneed to develop tasks which tap specific processes, the impor-tance of early experience in the sculpting of brain systemsinvolved in cognitive and social behaviors and the role of thechild as an active constructor of their environment during devel-opment.

ReferencesGreenough,W.T., Black, J.E., & Wallace, C.S. (1987). Experience and

brain development. Child Development, 58, 539–559.Huttenlocher, P.R. & Dabholkar,A.S. (1997). Regional differences in

synaptogenesis in human cerebral cortex. The Journal ofComparative Neurology, 387, 161–178.

COMMENTARY: Challenges and Contributions ofNeuroscience in Developmental Psychology

Joan G. MillerInstitute for Social Research, University of MichiganAnn Arbor, MI, USA e-mail: [email protected]

The present essays exemplify the excitement and promise ofneuroscience in developmental psychology, as this rapidly growingperspective yields important empirical findings linking brain devel-opment to psychological outcomes as well as contributes to anunderstanding of basic developmental mechanisms. Rather thanfocus on the many provocative empirical findings emerging fromthe work discussed, my focus here is on identifying some of thechallenges that neuroscience research in developmental

psychology must address and insights that it can beanticipated to provide.

The broad-based knowledge and subtlety thatmust inform neuroscience research in develop-mental psychology, as an interdisciplinary field ofinquiry, is underscored in Gunnar and Townsend’sdiscussion of the demands and potential pitfalls forpsychologists in the incorporation of cortisolmeasures in their research. Common in studies of

child development, these measures are attractive to psychologistsbecause of their relative ease of measurement and link to impor-tant outcomes related to stress, health, and well being. However,as Gunnar and Townsend caution, it is critical not to treat cortisolmeasurement as an “index” that can be applied in a linear mannerto tap stress levels. Rather, a sophisticated understanding of theHPA system and of its adaptive role in human survival mustinform use of this measure.Thus, as they note in highlighting someof this complexity, cortisol serves multiple, sometimes conflicting,functions and relates to other measures of stress through complexpathways that are sensitive to particular circumstances, such as thecurrent state of the body.Their call importantly is not for psychol-ogists to abandon research on the HPA system but to approachthis work with a more physiologically sophisticated understanding.This type of message, it may be noted, represents a more generalcaution that applies to other interdisciplinary efforts in psychology,in which researchers may adopt what has become a popularapproach, without a sophisticated understanding of the nature ofthe phenomena being assessed.Thus, for example, similar types ofcautions have also been raised in the interdisciplinary perspectiveof cultural psychology regarding the need to treat the constructof culture in more process-oriented terms, rather than in termsof readily available and easily administered indexes, such as indi-vidualism/collectivism scales (Kitayama, 2002; Miller, 2002).

The importance in developmental neuroscience of beingsensitive to issues of method variance is raised by Klein’s discussionof his exciting research on the development of executivefunctioning. Klein adopts a widely used and logically soundmethodological strategy that typifies much work in developmentalneuroscience, i.e., that of identifying an age-related psychologicaleffect that is related both conceptually and empirically to a parallelage-related effect on the neurological level. In the case of Klein’sresearch discussed here, the age-related psychological effect isexecutive functioning, as measured by performance on theantisaccade task, and the underlying neurological process is theprotracted development of prefrontal cortical functions.As Kleinobserves, this same biological mechanism would appear related aswell to the protracted pattern of cognitive developmental change

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“calls for greaterdetail with regardto etiology of shybehavior”


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captured in the Piagetian stage model. A central challenge in thistype of effort to tap the biological grounding of developmentalprocesses,however, is taking into the account the absence of a oneto one relationship between psychological constructs and themeasures constructed operationally to tap them. In this regard, itmust be recognized,for example,that many of the original Piagetiantasks were later criticized as being overly complex and as usingmaterials that are unfamiliar, unclear, or non-sufficientlymotivationally engaging for children and thus that underestimatechildren’s competencies. It has been this recognition that has playeda major role in rethinking the empirical claims of Piagetian theoryand in moving the field into what has been heralded recently as aPost-Piagetian era (Gopnik, 1996). More generally, the presentconsiderations highlight the need in neuroscience research indevelopmental psychology,as in psychology more generally,to avoididentifying a psychological construct with a single methodologicalapproach but rather to be sensitive to the context and taskdependence of all psychological phenomena.

The challenges of taking into account the socio-culturalgrounding of psychological processes, in turn, are raised bySchmidt’s exploration of shyness, a phenomena whose behavioralmanifestations are, at least partially, culturally variable. Schmidtdiscusses the distinct patterns of frontal brain electrical activitylinked to individual differences in the tendency to experienceanxiety in participating in social activity. In future work on this topic,however, it is important to examine whether the same types ofneurophysiological correlates are observed in socio-culturalcontexts in which reserved behavior is socially valued.This typeof culturally based inquiry would stand to make possible a broad-ened understanding of the positive feedback loops existingbetween brain and behavior. For example, research on Chinesecultural populations has shown that the interpersonal correlatesof shy-anxious behavior are not the same as in North Americansamples, with such children scoring higher than their averagepeers on sociability and leadership, performing better in school,

and being evaluated more positively by both their parents andteachers (Chen, Rubin & Li, 1995; Chen, Hasting, Rubin, Chen, Cen& Stewart, 1998).

Beyond presenting examples of the types of exciting findingsof neuroscience research in developmental psychology, thepresent essays also importantly make clear the nature of the theo-retical contributions of this approach. The contemporary wide-spread enthusiasm and interest in neuroscience in departmentsof psychology may reflect a desire to locate a “firm” grounding forthe discipline through identifying deterministic physiological under-pinnings for psychological effects. However, it is made clear inSegalowitz’s powerful arguments and in the important empiricalfindings reported throughout the various essays, that the activitiesof the individual impact on brain structure throughout the lifecourse.The fact of psychological processes reflecting brain devel-opment is compatible not only with individual agency but also withsociocultural processes affecting the course and endpoints ofpsychological development.

ReferencesChen, X., Rubin, K. H., & Li, B. (1995). Social and school adjustment

of shy and aggressive children in China. Development andPsychopathology, 7, 337–49.

Chen, X., Hastings, P., Rubin, K. H., Chen, H., Cen, G., & Stewart, S. L.(1998). Childrearing attitudes and behavioral inhibition inChinese and Canadian toddlers: A cross-cultural study.Developmental Psychology, 34, 677–686.

Gopnik, A. (1996).The post-Piaget era. Psychological Science, 7(4),221–225.

Kitayama, S. (2002). Culture and basic psychological processes —Toward a system view of culture:Comment on Oyserman et al.(2002). Psychological Bulletin, 128(1), 89–96.

Miller, J. G. (2002). Bringing culture to basic psychological theory:Beyond individualism and collectivism:Comment on Oysermanet al. (2002). Psychological Bulletin, 128(1), 97–109.

BSI

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In my last Notes to you, I mentioned six issues that theSteering Committee and I myself in particular wanted to

pursue. I am happy to inform you that we have made progresson all, but certainly there is still a way to go before I canannounce the final outcomes.

The first issue concerned efforts to maintain and enlargeour membership, with a special emphasis on increasing thenumber of young investigators and students joining ISSBD.The experience of other learned societies shows that there arebasically two ways this can be done – to use the pull ofattractive events such as congresses and workshops, and toencourage the push from colleagues already engaged in ISSBDaffairs and who are familiar with the conditions for scientistsin their own region or country. To this end, we have puttogether a list of volunteers from various corners of the worldwho expressed a wish to be more active in ISSBD. This materialwill now go to Andy Collins, the Chair of the new internationalmembership committee, who will make the contacts anddevelop a plan of action. This work will be conducted in closecollaboration with Barry Schneider, our Treasurer andMembership Secretary. If you are interested yourself inhelping the group, please send me an email.

The second issue referred to our biennial congress, theshowcase of international research on human development. Icommented on the need, and our aim, to make it even moreappealing to all generations of scientists and, mostimportantly, by stressing the life-span conception of continuityand change, to offer something for researchers in all the lifeperiods. Concerning the next venue, Ghent, Belgium in 2004,together with the organizer Leni Verhofstad-Denève, we havealready made some steps in this direction. The planned rosterof symposia has been amended to include some interestinghighlights, and we will see the first results of an internationalyoung scholars’ initiative. Ghent will have many moreattractions, including workshops and programs for youngscholars, not to mention this wonderful town. Nevertheless,it is true that there is room for more support by ISSBD for thelocal organizer and we also want to make sure that thecongress helps to fund our activities. Toward this aim, theSteering Committee has been discussing suggestions frommyself and others either to have more formal contracts in thefuture (that will define the roles between ISSBD and theorganizers in more concrete detail than has been the case upto now) or to be even more radical and try to organize thecongresses more centrally. I personally tend to favor the firstsolution, which has been used with success by comparableinternational learned societies, but this needs further study.

While still on the subject of ISSBD’s upcoming congresses,I can report on progress concerning the 2006 congress to beheld in Melbourne, Australia. Ann Sanson, the local organizer,tells me that things are well underway. A local organizinggroup and a national advisory group have been formed. Theorganizers have the support of the Australian PsychologicalSociety, the Australasian Human Development Association,the Australian Institute of Family Studies and the Universityof Melbourne (the latter two will be co-hosts). The meeting isscheduled for July 3-7. The Melbourne Convention andVisitors Bureau is supporting the local organizers in preparingthe proposal to ISSBD (that is expected to arrive very soon).

All in all, things look very promising, so be sure to make a noteof the date.

The third issue concerned our series of successfulworkshops that more recently faced some funding difficulties.As promised, President-Elect Anne Petersen and I have beenworking on this. A suggestion for further discussion in theSteering Committee and the Executive Committee will beprepared in the next few weeks. The main challenge here is todevelop a master plan that sets out our aims for a number ofyears and that presents a comprehensive picture, rather thancontinuing to apply to foundations on an ad hoc basis.

The fourth issue referred to the better recognition ofscientific achievements by a special ISSBD award program.Past-President Ken Rubin has been working on this and I hopethat initial results will be visible at the Ghent congress.

All of the above are certainly interrelated, and thus my sixthissue was no surprise – as an organization we need to findways to be more efficacious (in terms of efforts and costs). Theleadership of ISSBD has been working as a group ofvolunteers, and we certainly want to maintain the advantageof such an intrinsic motivation for our actions. However, otherlearned societies had similar problems related to the growthof the organization and the changes in the support by officers’institutions. In some cases, their solution was to outsourceparts of their operations, such as the payment of dues,membership services, administrative support for their journal,or even concerning the organization of congresses. Aspromised and announced in my last Notes, I have contactedother societies and this resulted in a draft proposal thatdescribes ways in which we could streamline our operations.Inspired by this, we have begun a second round of discussionsin the Steering Committee for which I and others havecollected more information about how others deal with similarproblems. Right now we are in the middle of a lively exchange– after all there is a concern that outsourcing could be beyondour financial means, at least short-term, and that we might losesome of the volunteer spirit we all appreciate. It is too earlyto envision the final solution, but I can assure you that we willdiscuss every possibility, bearing in mind that ourinternational format requires flexibility (e.g., concerning theorganization of the congresses) in order to adapt to regionalcustoms and opportunities for funding. Jari-Erik Nurmi, ourSecretary General, has been very supportive in all issuesrelated to the organizational overhaul (an update of our webpresentation has priority at this time).

At the end of the day, my colleagues and I are convincedthat ISSBD will be stronger than ever – certainly if we cancount on your help. If you have ideas related to any of thetopics mentioned above, or if you want to volunteer forwhatever task within ISSBD, please send me an email([email protected]). I am sure that we will makeprogress within the next few months, and I will keep youinformed. All the best for your work and life.

Yours,

Rainer K. Silbereisen, Ph.D.President of the International Society for the Study of BehaviouralDevelopment

Notes from The PresidentNotes from The President


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The 2004 meeting of the International Society for the Studyof Behavioural Development will be held in Ghent, anexquisite medieval town in the heart of Flanders (Belgium)between Bruges, Antwerp and Brussels, July 11-15, 2004.

If you want to receive regularly updated informationabout this meeting send an e-mail with your name andaddress to [email protected]

Information about the conference isavailable from the Dept. of Developmental, Personalityand Social PsychologyGhent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2B-9000 Ghent BELGIUMFax: + 32 (0) 9 2646486

website: http://allserv.rug.ac.be/ISSBD2004 (from Feb.2003 onwards).

Submission deadlines:• Symposia: September 10, 2003 • Posters: October 1, 2003

The complete announcement, includingsubmission forms, will be available in

February 2003 and sent to all ISSBD members andanyone who requested it.

The social program will be available from September2003, and will feature various pre- and post-conferencetours.

Production:Psychology Press27 Church RoadHoveBN3 2FA, UK

Distribution:Journals Customer ServicesTaylor & Francis LtdRankine RoadBasingstokeHantsRG24 8PR, UK

EditorialAssociate EditorXinyin Chen

ISSBD NewsletterDepartment of PsychologyUniversity of WesternOntarioLondon, Ontario, CanadaN6A 5C2email: [email protected]

EditorJoan G. Miller

Correspondence Address:ISSBD NewsletterInstitute for Social Research, RCGDUniversity of MichiganAnn Arbor, MI, USA 48106–1248email: [email protected]

18th Biennial ISSBD Meeting

[email protected]

ISSBD Ghent 2004ISSBD Ghent 2004

ISSBD Ghent 2004ISSBD Ghent 2004

Dear Colleagues,

Together with co-chair Rainer Silbereisen and themembers of the International and Local ProgrammeCommittees, I have great pleasure in inviting you toparticipate in andcontribute to the 18thBiennial ISSBD meeting,which will be held inGhent (Belgium) on July11-15th, 2004. This conference will offer ampleopportunities for informal exchanges and organisedscientific meetings. You can also register for a pre-conference workshop about developmentalpsychopathology starting on July 10th.

Besides the opening address by the distinguishedprimatologist Frans de Waal and the eminent keynoteaddresses and invited symposia, the programme willprovide ample opportunities for presenting yourresearch as part of a symposium or as a poster.Moreover, we are planning various “scientific get-together sessions” for young scholars and discussiongroups on current issues in developmental psychology,guided by internationally renowned specialists.

We therefore strongly encourage you to contributeenthusiastically to this truly international conference.

Please note that thedeadlines for submissionsare September 10, 2003 forthe symposia and October1, 2003 for the posters.

As you probably know, Ghent is an exquisite medievalcity in the heart of Flanders (Belgium), situatedbetween Bruges, Antwerp and Brussels. We areconvinced that the conference venue will offer asplendid occasion for meeting colleagues from all overthe world in a pleasant and relaxed environment. Notethat the conference banquet will be organised in theimpressive, 11th-century Castle of the Counts ofFlanders.

We look forward to welcoming you to Ghent in thesummer of 2004!

Leni Verhofstadt-DenèveChair ISSBD Ghent 2004

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1 8 T H B I E N N I A L I S S B D M E E T I N G C A L L F O R P A P E R S

Visit us at:http://allserv.rug.ac.be/ISSBD2004

The International Society for the Study of Behavioural Development (ISSBD) promotes the discovery,dissemination, and application of scientific knowledge about behavioural development throughout

the life span. Your colleagues from the University of Ghent invite you to the 18th biennial meeting tobe held on July 11-15th, 2004.

WELCOME TO THE 18TH BIENNIAL MEETING

Karla Van Leeuwen, Prof. Ivan Mervielde, Prof. Leni Verhofstadt-Denève& Leen De Medts, in Ottawa (August 2002), promoting the

ISSBD Ghent 2004 meeting


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PROGRAMME OVERVIEW

English is the official language of the meeting. Thescientific programme will consist of a pre-conferenceworkshop on developmental psychopathology, keynoteaddresses, invited symposia and poster presentations.Moreover, we are planning various “scientific get-together sessions”.

OPENING ADDRESS

Frans de Waal (USA): Principles of primatesociality: From conflictresolution to sympathy andquid-pro-quo

KEYNOTE LECTURES

Jens Asendorpf (GE) Personality-relationshiptransaction over the life span

Lars Bergman (SE) A holistic approach toindividual development:Some methodologicalconsiderations

Laura L. Carstensen (USA) Aging, motivation andemotion

Avshalom Caspi (USA) (Measured) genes,(measured) environmentsand behaviouraldevelopment

Andrew Collins (USA) Development and closerelationships: Precursors andpathways from infancy toadulthood

Thalia Eley (UK) Anxiety and depression inchildren and adolescents: Adevelopmental cognitivegenetic approach

Giyoo Hatano (JP) Cognitive developmentthrough participation inpractices

Ulman Lindenberger (GE) Cognitive developments inold age

Rolf Loeber (USA) Developmental aspects ofcrime: Key knowledge forprevention

Jenny Saffran (USA) Statistical learning inlanguage acquisitions

James Vaupel (GE) The demography of aging:Causes and consequences

Suman Verma (IN) Socialisation for survival:Developmental issues amongworking-street children inIndia

INVITED SYMPOSIA

Marc Bornstein (USA)& Maria Lucia Seidl de Multicultural studies of social Moura (BRA) development in early life

Huichang Chen (CN) Children and adolescents insocial changes

Michel Deleau (FR) Language and theory of minddevelopment

Jutta Heckhausen (USA) Developmental regulation ofmajor life-course transitions

Paul van Geert (NL/B) Dynamic systems approachesto development: Present andfuture

Willem Koops (NL) History of childhood anddevelopmental psychology

Fergus Craik (CA) Life span cognition:Mechanisms of change

SCIENTIFIC GET-TOGETHER SESSIONS

These sessions will be organized by different presenters(young scholars, experts…) and aim to create aninformal forum for open discussions and informationexchange on current topics in developmentalpsychology. (Timing and format will be announcedlater).For information concerning

• The young scholars initiative, mail to: Deepali Sharma <[email protected]>

Convener: Deepali SharmaTopic: Current cross-cultural research issues inwhich young scholars, from multidisciplinaryand multi-ethnic backgrounds, are involved.

• Exchange on current “hot topics” in developmentalpsychology, mail to: Silvia Koller < [email protected] >

Convener: Silvia KollerTopic: still to be confirmed

Suman Verma <[email protected]>Conveners: Suman Verma & Anne PetersenTopic: Positive youth development acrosscultures

PRE-CONFERENCE WORKSHOP ON DEVELOPMENTALPSYCHOPATHOLOGY

The pre-conference workshop on developmentalpsychopathology consists of two parts. The first (statusof research) will take place on Saturday afternoon, July10th; the second (improvement of research & policyimplications) will be organized on Sunday morning, July11th.

The aim of the first part of the workshop is:

• to focus on the current status of developmentalpsychopathology research. This part will bepresented by eminent researchers in this domain

• to stimulate discussions among the participants abouttheir own research (interactive sessions starting fromposter presentations)

For the second part, participants can choose betweentwo parallel workshops focusing on:

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• the acquisition of tools to ameliorate the participants’research activities (e.g. how to organise moreeffective developmental psychopathology research,communications, publications…)

• how to transpose research into policy?Implementation of findings on developmentalpsychopathology in society: how to start? Specialattention should be paid to the importance ofcultural elements.

A. Caspi, R. Loeber, T. Moffitt and W. Koops havealready agreed to participate.

Some speakers and session conveners are still underconsideration.

Committees

INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMME COMMITTEE

General Chair: Leni Verhofstadt-Denève (BE)

Co-chair: Rainer Silbereisen (GE)

Members: Avshalom Caspi (UK),Huichang Chen (CN), Silvia H.Koller (BR), Willem Koops(NL), Brett Laursen (USA), RolfLoeber (USA), Ivan Mervielde(BE), Bame Nsamenang (CM),Jari-Erik Nurmi (FI), MariePecheux (FR), Anne C. Petersen(USA), Candida Peterson (AU),Kenneth Rubin (USA), BarrySchneider (CA)

LOCAL ORGANISING COMMITTEE

Chair: Leni Verhofstadt-Denève (BE)

Co-chairs: Michel Born (BE), AlfonsMarcoen (BE)

Secretary-Treasurer: Luc Goossens (BE)

Secretary-Treasurers Peter Dejonckheere (BE),(executive assistance) Leen De Medts (BE)

Advisors: Avshalom Caspi (UK), MariePecheux (FR)

Members: Willem Koops (NL), IvanMervielde (BE)

PRE-CONFERENCE WORKSHOP COMMITTEE

Chair: Caroline Braet (BE),Marcel van Aken (NL)

CO-ORDINATOR OF PUBLISHERS’ BOOK EXHIBITS

Karla Van Leeuwen (BE)

Submissions

The Programme Committee invites submissions forsymposia and posters to be presented at the 2004 ISSBDMeeting in Ghent, Belgium. Submissions are welcome

from ISSBD members, non-members, students, facultyand researchers. Submissions are encouraged from allfields of behavioral development.

Symposia should include presentations on a specifictheme and involve an integration of findings fromdifferent research projects. Symposia are organized bytwo co-conveners from different continents (stronglyrecommended) and will be scheduled for 1 hour and 45minutes. They will include 3 or 4 presenters (each 30minutes or 23 minutes respectively), plus 13 minutes fora discussant-lead dialogue with the audience.Symposium papers will be reviewed by two experts. Incase of a substantial disagreement, the opinion of a thirdexpert will be solicited.

Very important remark: A thorough inspection(both grammatical and stylistical) of yourabstract should be made by an academic nativespeaker of English! This applies also for posterabstracts!

Individual posters will be accepted for the presentationof theoretical or empirical research.

All proposals for symposia must be received bySeptember 10, 2003 (decision by December 15,2003).

The deadline for the receipt of poster proposalsis October 1, 2003 (decision by December 20,2003).

Electronic submission of abstracts is stronglypreferred. Abstracts should be submitted inone of the two following ways:

1. Online via http://allserv.rug.ac.be/ISSBD2004

or

2. Electronically by e-mail via [email protected]

If electronic submission is impossible, pleaserequest submission forms from: ISSBD, Semico n.v.,Korte Meer 16, 9000 Ghent, Belgium Semico n.v., Korte Meer 16, 9000 Ghent, BelgiumPhone: +32 9 233 86 60 // Fax: +32 9 233 85 97

Since proposals will be sent to international reviewpanels for evaluation, we will be unable to acceptproposals submitted after the deadline.

The scientific programme will span four days, startingon Monday morning, July 12, 2004. Your submissionform should state any religious reason for being unableto present on any of the four days. Otherwise,submission indicates willingness to present on any ofthe four days.


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REVIEW PANELS:TOPICS

1. Infancy2. Perceptual, sensory, motor & psychobiological

processes3. Children at risk & atypical development4. Adolescence5. Language6. Cognition7. Educational issues & school context8. Social development & peer relations9. Affect & temperament

10. Parenting, family & kinship relations11. Cultural & cross-cultural studies12. History, theory & interdisciplinary issues13. Adult years & ageing14. Methodology & statistics15. Life span16. Development & psychopathology

REVIEW PANELS: MEMBERS

Gerald Adams (Canada), Lieselotte Ahnert (Germany),Francoise Alsaker (Switzerland), Lewis Aptekar (USA),Jeffrey Arnett (USA), Ora Aviezer (Israel), Jeffrey Bisanz(Canada), Kathleen Bloom (Canada), Klaus Boehnke(Germany), Jeanne Brooks-Gunn (USA), John Bynner(England), Charissa Cheah (USA), Catherine Cooper(USA), Ann Crouter (USA), Pierre Dasen (Switzerland),

Michel Deleau (France), Anik de Ribaupierre(Switzerland), Alain Desrochers (Canada), Judith S.Dubas (Netherlands), Lutz Eckensberger (Germany),Constance Flanagan (USA), Nancy Galambos (Canada),Xiaojia Ge (USA), Megan Gunnar (USA), Paul Hastings(Canada), Christopher Hertzog (USA), Brian Hopkins(UK), Margaret K. Kerr (Sweden), Thomas Kindermann(USA), Reinhold Kliegl (Germany), Silvia H. Koller(Brazil), Nina Koren-Karie (Israel), Lothar Krappmann(Germany), Michael Lamb (USA), Kang Lee (Canada),Jackie Lerner (USA), Morag MacLean (UK), AlfonsMarcoen (Belgium), Zopito Marini (Canada), GregMoran (Canada), Carmen Moreno (Spain), Ellen Moss(Canada), Tullia Musatti (Italy), Adam Niemczynski(Poland), Peter Noack (Germany), Jari-Erik Nurmi(Finland), David Oppenheim (Israel), Hellgard Rauh(Germany), M. Clotilde Rossetti-Ferreira (Brazil), ColetteSabatier (France), Abraham Sagi (Israel), WolfgangSchneider (Germany), Rachel Seginer (Israel), FelicisimaSerafica (USA), Shmuel Shulman (Israel), Peter K. Smith(UK), Christiane Spiel (Austria), Dale Stack (Canada),Ursula Staudinger (Germany), Howard Steele (UK),Harold Stevenson (USA), Elizabeth Susman (USA), DougSymons (Canada), Keiko Takahashi (Japan), John Taplin(Australia), Georges Tarabulsy (Canada), Odile Tessier(Canada), Marcel van Aken (The Netherlands), Annavon der Lippe (Norway), Fred Vondracek (USA),Alexander von Eye (USA)

* The “reduced fee” category in the table applies to scholars from countries with currency restrictions recognized for ISSBDmembership

** Including opening ceremony, welcome party and farewell party

Conference Registration and FeesRegistration Early Middle Late

Before February 2 to From June 1, 2004 &February 1, 2004 May 31, 2004 on-site

Euro Euro Euro

Normal feesMembers 227 284 351

Non-Members 324 386 448

StudentsMembers 103 132 147


Reduced fees *Members 103 132 125


Accompanying person ** 50 50 60

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Venue

The congress site (Ghent University & InternationalCongress Centre – ICC) is situated in the charmingCitadelpark, adjacent to the Botanical Garden of theUniversity featuring more than 7500 different plantspecies. This congress site underscores the importanceof Ghent as a historical business centre in Flanders(Belgium). Its central location, its proximity to therailway station and to the city centre, and the lush greensurroundings turn this site into an attractive andconvenient venue for the ISSBD Congress.

Accommodation

The local committee holds allocations in all major hotelsin Ghent at advantageous rates. The average price, incl.breakfast, is about 80 euros, with prices ranging from 60to 210 euros. Moreover, low-budget rooms are availablein student dormitories (near the congress site) and asBed & Breakfast accommodation. All prices in Belgiuminclude VAT and service. Because of the peak demandfor hotel rooms during the summer season, we adviseyou to make early reservations. The exact prices will beposted in October 2003.

Twice a day, a free shuttle service will provide transportfrom a central location near the hotels to the congresssite.

Registration information

Registration forms will be posted on the congresswebsite (http://allserv.rug.ac.be/ISSBD2004) in October2003. They will also be sent to all ISSBD members as apart of the ISSBD Newsletter. Non-members wishing toreceive copies by e-mail/post should contact us [email protected].

REGISTRATION FEE

The registration fee includes participation in the openingceremony and welcome reception on July 11, 2004, fullaccess to the scientific programme on July 12-15, coffeebreaks, the farewell party, congress documentation andthe abstract book. Special support will be offered toencourage participants from developing countries.Please check our web-pages for future updates. Separateregistration is required for the pre-conference(approximately 40 euros for early registration; reducedfees are possible for delegates from developingcountries).

Ghent: a city you never will forget!

Ghent lies in the heart of Flanders, between Bruges,Antwerp and Brussels. Its rich heritage has shaped thecity into a living museum with a “medieval skyline”. Itis by no means a coincidence that Ghent, the capital ofEast Flanders, is often referred to as the historic heart ofFlanders, a city of all times, and as one of the mostbeautiful historic cities in Europe. The city combines animpressive past with a bustling present. Its historic heartboasts dozens of places of interest. St. Michael’s bridgeoffers a wonderful vista of the Ghent skyline with thethree impressive towers of St. Nicholas’ Church, theBelfry with its bell tower, and the Cathedral of SaintBavon, which contains the world-famous painting TheAdoration of the Lamb by Jan van Eyck.

Traces of the Middle Ages have been preserved in a lotof places. The old port with its guildhalls on the Grasleiand Korenlei is but one example of the beautiful viewsthis town has to offer.

Not far from the Graslei arises the magnificent Castle ofthe Counts (Gravensteen), once the medieval fortress of


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the Counts of Flanders. Few cities can offer suchcultural wealth combined with Flemish charm. Theconference venue is at walking distance from thehistoric heart of the city, blending science and culture.Moreover, there are two famous museums close to thecongress centre. The Museum of Fine Arts features asuperb collection of paintings, sculptures, tapestries,engravings and drawings by European Masters from the14th to the first half of the 20th century.

The works of the Flemish painting schools, fromHieronymus Bosch to Gustave van de Woestijne andPaulus Potter, constitute the highlights of the collection.They are supplemented bythe works of Modernists suchas Magritte and Servranckx.

The Ghent City Museum of Contemporary Art(S.M.A.K) boasts an impressive collection of Belgian andinternational modern art. The major artistic trends since1945 are represented by Bacon, Beuys, Panamarenko,Broodthaers, Long, Neuman. The museum evolvesconstantly and has earned an international reputation byorganizing outstanding exhibitions.

Not only art lovers but literally everyone can findsomething here to suit their taste. Ghent offers plenty ofshops and restaurants and an exciting nightlife. Ghentcan be discovered by boat, carriage, bicycle or on foot.The official language in Ghent is Dutch, but most people

speak French, English and/or German as well. TheBelgian currency unit is the euro. There are exchangeoffices and banks in the city centre. All major credit cardsare accepted in hotels, restaurants and shops.

Participants and accompanying persons are warmlyinvited to explore the rich historical, cultural and socialaspects of Flanders. Excursions to various famous placesin Flanders will be organized on every congress day.Coach excursions are organized by licensed coachoperators with English-speaking guides.

Ghent is easily accessible by road, railway and airplane.Brussels Airport is located at approximately 50 km from

the city of Ghent. Fromthe airport there is adirect railway connection

to Ghent. The journey takes about 40 minutes. FromLondon (Waterloo Station), the Eurostar brings you toGhent in less than 3 hours. Starting from Paris, theThalys train will take you to Brussels in about 1 hour.Coming by car, you will find Ghent at the intersection ofthe E17-E40 trans-European motorways.

In 2004 the flamboyant folkloristic “Ghent Festivities”will take place from July 17 to 26, just after the ISSBDmeeting. Perhaps this is one more reason to attend themeeting and to prolong your stay in this sparkling citywith a few more days… So see you in Ghent in July2004!

Visit us at: http://allserv.rug.ac.be/ISSBD2004

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On behalf of the ISSBD and Korean organizing committee,we invite you to the International Society for the Study ofBehavioural Development (ISSBD) Asian RegionalWorkshop to be held at Seoul National University, Seoul,Korea, June 16-18, 2003. Please visit our website on www.issbd.or.kr for details.

Theme of the workshopThe theme of the workshop is “Parental Beliefs,Parenting, and Child Development from Cross-CulturalPerspectives.” The aims of the workshop are tointroduce Asian scholars to the literature andmethodologies pertaining to the study of; (a) parents’beliefs about child development, and (b) parents’socialization goals in Western and Asian culturalsettings. Furthermore, it is intended to provide thescholars from Asia and other continents with

2003 May 29–June 1

The 15th Annual Convention of the American

Psychological Society

Location: Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Contact: Barbara Mitchell-Swain, E-mail:

[email protected]

Website: www.psychologicalscience.org

2003 July 12–16

6th Regional Congress of the International

Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology

Regional Conference (IACCP)

Location: Budapest, Hungary

Contact: Dr. Marta Fülop, E-mail:

[email protected]

Website: www.psychology.hu/iaccp

information about the diversity of parental beliefswithin Asian cultures.

Registration and Financial SupportRegister for the workshop online: http://www.issbd.or.kr.Deadline for registration is April 15, 2003. Thirty qualifiedyoung scholars from developing countries will receivefinancial support to attend the workshop. Deadline forfinancial application is March 31, 2003.

Contact AddressFor more information, please contact:Dr. Yi, Soon Hyung, PresidentKorean Association of Child StudiesFax: 82-2-887-9579E-mail: [email protected]: http://www.issbd.or.kr

2003 August 7–10

The 111th Annual Convention of the AmericanPsychological Association

Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Website: www.apa.org

2004 August 8–13

XXVIII International Congress of Psychology

Location: Beijing, China

Website: www.iupsys.org

2006 July 16–21

26th International Congress of AppliedPsychology of the International Associationof Applied Psychology

Location: Athens, Greece

Contact: [email protected]

Website: www.iaapsy.org

ISSBD Asian Regional Workshop on Parental Beliefs, Parenting, and Child Development

from Cross-Cultural Perspectives

Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea, June 16-18, 2003

MAJOR CONFERENCES OF INTEREST


24

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF BEHAVIOURAL DEVELOPMENT

2003 MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL

1. Membership Information. Please verify the listing below. Cross out incorrect information and enter changes inthe space provided. PLEASE PRINT CLEARLY! Use Ø for the numeral zero, and I (three lines) for the letter.

(Please print clearly)

Family Name

Given Name

Address

Country

Phone

Email

2. Membership Status. For all membership categories except Reduced Regional, one or two year membership isavailable. Please indicate membership category. Note that only Full members and Student Journal membersreceive the International Journal of Behavioural Development. All members receive the ISSBD Newsletter, a Directoryof Members, and reduced registration for ISSBD biennial meetings. Student rates are not available for more thanthree years. Student applications must be accompanied by a letter from a Professor or university official attestingto current student status.

NEW! Two-YearMembership Category One Year Two Year 2-Installment Option

Full ______(U.S. $95) ______(U.S. $160) ______($90 + $70)

Student: Journal ______(U.S. $47) ______(U.S. $80)

Student: No Journal ______(U.S. $30) ______(U. S. $46)

Emeritus ______(U.S. $30) ______(U.S. $46)

Spouse (provide name of spouse paying full dues) ______(U.S. $30) ______(U.S. $46)

Reduced Regional (see instructions on reverse) ______(U.S. $10) ______(U.S. $15)

Optional Gift to ISSBD ______ ______(U.S. $15) ______

Total ______ ______(U.S. $15) ______

3. Payment. Choose one of the following two options. No other forms of payment can be accepted. Do not sendcash.

(1) Cheque: Cheques must be in U.S. dollars, Euros (E1.00 = $US1.00), or Canadian dollars ($Cad1.60 =$US1.00). Please make check payable to ISSBD. Your name and address should appear on the cheque.

New!(2) Credit Card: Only Visa or MasterCard can be accepted. Indicate type of credit card and expiration date,

write credit card number in large, clear numerals, and sign your name.

(3) Two installment option for two year membership paid by credit card only. Please debit $90 now, and $70 onDec 1, 2003.

Visa MasterCard Expiration Date (MM/YY) _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Signature _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Card #

Membership encompasses the calendar year. Applications received prior to October are credited to the currentyear (and include back issues of publications). Applications received after October are effective the following year.Mail application and payment to ISSBD Membership Secretary and Treasurer, School of Psychology, University ofOttawa, 120 University St., Ottawa, ON, Canada, K1N 6N5. Email inquiries may be addressed [email protected]. The ISSBD home page is www.issbd.org.

(For payment bycredit card for fullmembership only.Details below)

25


INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR THE STUDYOF BEHAVIOURAL DEVELOPMENT

2003 New Member Application

I New Members should sign the following statement.

I wish to become a member of the INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF BEHAVIOURALDEVELOPMENT. I understand that membership dues entitle me to receive the International Journal ofBehavioural Development, ISSBD Newsletters, a Directory of Members, and all other rights and perquisitesof members in good standing.

Name ___________________________________________________________

Date _________________________

II. Membership Status.

For all membership categories except Reduced Regional, one or two year membership is available. Pleaseindicate membership category and complete the form on the reverse. Note that all members receive theInternational Journal of Behavioural Development, ISSBD Newsletters, a Directory of Members, andreduced registration for ISSBD biennial meetings. The student rate is available for no more than three years.Student applications must be accompanied by a letter from a Professor or university official attesting tocurrent student status.

One Year Membership (2003)

Full (U.S. $95)

Student (U.S. $47)

Emeritus (U.S. $47)

Spouse (U.S. $47)

Name of spouse paying Full dues:

Reduced Regional (see attached instructions): Category I (U.S. $10) Category II (U.S. $15)Two Year Membership (2003 and 2004)

Full (U.S. $160)

Or choose the 2 Year 2 Installment option (available only with the twoyear full membership option). Pay US$90.00 now and US$70.00 onDecember 1 2003. In order to choose this option you must pay by credit card.

Student (U.S. $80)

Emeritus (U.S. $46)

Spouse (U.S. $46)

Name of spouse paying Full dues:


26

III. Payment.

Cheque: Cheques must be in U.S. dollars, Euros (E1.00 = $US1.00), or Canadian dollars ($Cad1.60 =$US1.00). Please make check payable to ISSBD. Your name and address should appear on the cheque.

Credit Card: Only Visa or MasterCard can be accepted. Indicate type of credit card and expiration date,write credit card number in large, clear numerals, and sign your name.

Two installment option for two year membership paid by credit card only. Please debit $90 now, and $70on Dec 1, 2003.

Visa MasterCard

Expiration Date

Card Number

Signature

Membership encompasses the calendar year. Applications received prior to October are credited to thecurrent year (and include back issues of publications). Applications received after October are effective thefollowing year. Mail application and payment to:

Barry Schneider ISSBDUniversity of OttawaSchool of Psychology, University of Ottawa, 120 University St., Ottawa, Ontario, KIN 6N5CanadaEmail: [email protected]

Membership information is also available at http://www.issbd.org.

IV. New Member Survey.

How did you first hear of ISSBD? ..................................................................................................................................

..............................................................................................................................................................................................

What prompted you to join ISSBD? ..............................................................................................................................

..............................................................................................................................................................................................

What are the most important benefits of ISSBD membership? .................................................................................

..............................................................................................................................................................................................


2003 New Member Application (continued)

(MM/YY)

27


V. Membership Information.

Please print or type the following information about yourself.

Name (Given/Middle/Family) __________________________________________________________________

Title _____________________________________________________

Mailing Address

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Work Telephone ___________________________________________

Home Telephone___________________________________________

E-Mail ___________________________________________________

Fax ______________________________________________________

Period of life span studied (circle all that apply):1 = Prenatal; 2 = Infancy; 3 = Preschool; 4 = Middle Childhood;5 = Adolescence; 6 = Adulthood; 7 = Aging; 8 = Life Span

Scientific discipline and research area (circle all that apply):1 = Psychology; 2 = Child Development; 3 = Human Development; 4 = Gerontology;5 = Education; 6 = Sociology; 7 = Psychiatry; 8 = Medicine; 9 = Anthropology; 10 = Developmental Psychobiology; 11 = Linguistics

Reduced Regional Membership.Dues are based on World Bank categories for lending eligibility. Fees include the International Journal ofBehavioural Development, ISSBD Newsletters, a Directory of Members, and reduced registration for ISSBDmeetings. Please send payment to the corresponding Regional Office or to the Office of the ISSBDMembership Secretary and Treasurer. Reduced Regional Membership is available in one year incrementsonly.

Baltic Countries:Tiia TulvisteMoisavahe 42-29EE 2400 TartuEstonia

Belarus: Yuri KarandashevISSBD Regional coordinator in BelarusBelarussian State Pedagogical University M. TankDepartment of Developmental and Educational PsychologySovietskaya Str. 18220809 MinskBelarus




28

China:Huichang ChenInstitute of Developmental PsychologyBeijing Normal UniversityBeijingP.R. China

India:Suman VermaDept. of Child DevelopmentGovt. Home Science CollegeS10 Chandigarh 160011India

Indonesia: Hera L. MikarsaUniversity of IndonesiaFaculty of PsychologyKampus Baru UIDepokIndonesia

Russia: Tatiana YermolovaUL. Gilyarovskogo 12K.V. 65Moscow, 12909Russia

West and Central Africa: Jean TanoFlash Universite D’AbidjanDepartment de Psychologie08 B.P. 168Abidjan 8Cote D’Ivoire

Category I ($10 USA)Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Angola, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belize, Benin, Bhutan,Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde,Central African Republic, Chad, China, Colombia, Comoros, Congo, Costa Rica, Côte d’Ivoire, Cuba,Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia,Fiji, Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, India,Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kiribati, Kyrgyz Republic, Lao, Latvia, Lesotho,Liberia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Madagascar, Malawi, Maldives, Mali, Marshall Islands, Mauritania,Micronesia, Moldova, Mongolia, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, Nicaragua, Niger,Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Pakistan, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Romania, Russia, Rwanda, Samoa,Senegal, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, St. Vincent, Sudan, Suriname,Swaziland, Syria, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Tonga, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Ukraine,Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Vietnam, Yemen, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

Category II ($15 USA)Botswana, Brazil, Chile, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Gabon, Grenada, Hungary, Lebanon, Malaysia,Mauritius, Mexico, Palau, Panama, Poland, Slovak Republic, St. Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, andVenezuela.



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