Developmental Psychology

Diamond, Adele

doi: 10.1037/a0014601pmid: 19209985

This special section of Developmental Psychology contains articles on the interplay of biology and the environment, broadly defined, that have the potential to change or challenge how developmental psychologists think. Topics include how experience affects gene expression; how genes affect how the environment is experienced and what effect the environment has; interactions between the environment and the presence or absence of early brain damage; motor neurons and the understanding of others' beliefs and intentions; the effect of physical fitness on cognition and the brain; evidence that our brains work and develop differently from the way traditionally thought; misconceptions that can arise from treating children as if they are simply small adults; and how research with adults can provide insights into developmental processes in children. Each of the 16 articles in the special section forges new territory and crosses disciplinary boundaries. They suggest that investigators look at variables not typically considered, or look at them from perspectives not usually taken, and especially that they pay more attention to interrelations among variables.

Shachar-Dadon, Alice; Schulkin, Jay; Leshem, Micah

doi: 10.1037/a0014030pmid: 19209986

The authors investigated whether adversity in a female, before she conceives, will influence the affective and social behavior of her progeny. Virgin female rats were either undisturbed (controls) or exposed to varied, unpredictable, stressors for 7 days (preconceptual stress [PCS]) and then either mated immediately after the end of the stress (PCS0) or 2 weeks after the stress ended (PCS2). Their offspring were raised undisturbed until tested in adulthood. PCS offspring showed reduced social interaction; in the acoustic startle test, PCS males were less fearful, whereas PCS females were more fearful; in the shuttle task, PCS0 males avoided shock better; and in the elevated maze, PCS0 females were more active and anxious. The 2-week interval between stress and mating assuaged the effects on offspring activity and shock avoidance but not the changes in social behavior and fear in male and female offspring. Hence, PCS to the dam, even well before pregnancy, influences affective and social behavior in her adult offspring, depending on how long before conception it occurred, the behavior tested, and sex.

Moulson, Margaret C.; Fox, Nathan A.; Zeanah, Charles H.; Nelson, Charles A.

doi: 10.1037/a0014035pmid: 19209987

To examine the neurobiological consequences of early institutionalization, the authors recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) from 3 groups of Romanian children—currently institutionalized, previously institutionalized but randomly assigned to foster care, and family-reared children—in response to pictures of happy, angry, fearful, and sad facial expressions of emotion. At 3 assessments (baseline, 30 months, and 42 months), institutionalized children showed markedly smaller amplitudes and longer latencies for the occipital components P1, N170, and P400 compared to family-reared children. By 42 months, ERP amplitudes and latencies of children placed in foster care were intermediate between the institutionalized and family-reared children, suggesting that foster care may be partially effective in ameliorating adverse neural changes caused by institutionalization. The age at which children were placed into foster care was unrelated to their ERP outcomes at 42 months. Facial emotion processing was similar in all 3 groups of children; specifically, fearful faces elicited larger amplitude and longer latency responses than happy faces for the frontocentral components P250 and Nc. These results have important implications for understanding of the role that experience plays in shaping the developing brain.

Wiebe, Sandra A.; Espy, Kimberly Andrews; Stopp, Christian; Respass, Jennifer; Stewart, Peter; Jameson, Travis R.; Gilbert, David G.; Huggenvik, Jodi I.

doi: 10.1037/a0014550pmid: 19209988

Genetic factors dynamically interact with both pre- and postnatal environmental influences to shape development. Considerable attention has been devoted to gene–environment interactions (G × E) on important outcomes (A. Caspi & T. E. Moffitt, 2006). It is also important to consider the possibility that these G × E effects may vary across development, particularly for constructs like self-regulation that emerge slowly, depend on brain regions that change qualitatively in different developmental periods, and thus may be manifested differently. To illustrate one approach to exploring such developmental patterns, the relation between variation in the TaqIA polymorphism, related to D2 dopamine receptor expression and availability, and prenatal exposure to tobacco was examined in two exploratory studies. First, in 4-week-old neonates, genotype–exposure interactions were observed for attention and irritable reactivity, but not for stress dysregulation. Second, in preschool children, genotype was related to Preschool Trail Making Test (K. A. Espy and M. F. Cwik, 2004) task performance on conditions requiring executive control; children with both the A1+ genotype and a history of prenatal tobacco exposure displayed disproportionately poor performance. Despite study limitations, these results illustrate the importance of examining the interplay between genetic and prenatal environmental factors across development.

Dedovic, Katarina; Wadiwalla, Mehereen; Engert, Veronika; Pruessner, Jens C.

doi: 10.1037/a0014433pmid: 19209989

Individual health is determined by a myriad of factors. Interestingly, simply being male or female is one such factor that carries profound implications for one's well-being. Intriguing differences between men and women have been observed with respect to vulnerability to and prevalence of particular illnesses. The activity of the major stress hormone axis in humans, the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis, is directly and indirectly associated with the onset and propagation of these conditions. Previous studies have shown differences between men and women at the level of stress hormone regulation, suggesting that the metabolic effects of stress may be related to susceptibility for stress-related disease. While the majority of studies have suggested that biological differences are responsible, few have also considered the role of gender socialization. In this selective review, the authors summarize evidence on sex differences and highlight some recent results from endocrinological, developmental, and neuroimaging studies that suggest an important role of gender socialization on the metabolic effects of stress. Finally, a model is proposed that integrates these specific findings, highlighting gender socialization and stress responsivity.

Karmiloff-Smith, Annette

doi: 10.1037/a0014506pmid: 19209990

This article argues that one dominant position in psychology, linguistics, neuroscience, and philosophy about how genetic disorders point to the innate specification of dissociated modules in the human brain should be replaced by a dynamic, neuroconstructivist approach in which genes, brain, cognition, and environment interact multidirectionally. The article challenges current thinking about a series of questions: (a) Do significantly better scores in one domain necessarily indicate an intact module? (b) What do scores in the normal range suggest? (c) What is wrong with mental-age matching? (d) Why is the notion of an intact module unlikely? (e) Do developmental disorders suggest associations rather than dissociations? (f) Is the environment the same for atypically developing individuals? The article concludes by examining the implications of taking a neuroconstructivist approach and by arguing that human intelligence is not a state (i.e., not a collection of static, built-in modules that can be intact or impaired) but a process (i.e., the emergent property over developmental time of dynamic, multidirectional interactions between genes, brain, cognition, behavior, and environment) with domain-specific outcomes impossible without the process of development.

Caspers, Kristin M.; Paradiso, Sergio; Yucuis, Rebecca; Troutman, Beth; Arndt, Stephan; Philibert, Robert

doi: 10.1037/a0014026pmid: 19209991

Research on antecedents of organized attachment has focused on the quality of caregiving received during childhood. In recent years, research has begun to examine the influence of genetic factors on quality of infant attachment. However, no published studies report on the association between specific genetic factors and adult attachment. This study examined the link between the 5-HTTLPR promoter polymorphism of the serotonin transporter gene and adult unresolved attachment assessed with the Adult Attachment Interview. Genetic material and information on attachment-related loss or trauma were available for 86 participants. Multivariate regression analyses showed an association between the short 5-HTTLPR allele and increased risk for unresolved attachment. Temperament traits and psychological symptoms did not affect the association between 5-HTTLPR and unresolved attachment. The authors hypothesize that the increased susceptibility to unresolved attachment among carriers of the short allele of 5-HTTLPR is consistent with the role of serotonin in modulation of frontal–amygdala circuitry. The findings challenge current thinking by demonstrating significant genetic influences on a phenomenon previously thought to be largely environmentally driven.

Pennington, Bruce F.; McGrath, Lauren M.; Rosenberg, Jenni; Barnard, Holly; Smith, Shelley D.; Willcutt, Erik G.; Friend, Angela; DeFries, John C.; Olson, Richard K.

doi: 10.1037/a0014549pmid: 19209992

This article examines Gene × Environment (G × E) interactions in two comorbid developmental disorders—reading disability (RD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)—as a window on broader issues on G × E interactions in developmental psychology. The authors first briefly review types of G × E interactions, methods for detecting them, and challenges researchers confront in interpreting such interactions. They then review previous evidence for G × E interactions in RD and ADHD, the directions of which are opposite to each other: bioecological for RD and diathesis stress for ADHD. Given these results, the authors formulate and test predictions about G × E interactions that would be expected at the favorable end of each symptom dimension (e.g., above-average reading or attention). Consistent with their prediction, the authors found initial evidence for a resilience interaction for above-average reading: higher heritability in the presence of lower parental education. However, they did not find a G × E interaction at the favorable end of the ADHD symptom dimension. The authors conclude with implications for future research.

Rowe, Meredith L.; Levine, Susan C.; Fisher, Joan A.; Goldin-Meadow, Susan

doi: 10.1037/a0012848pmid: 19209993

Children with unilateral pre- or perinatal brain injury (BI) show remarkable plasticity for language learning. Previous work highlights the important role that lesion characteristics play in explaining individual variation in plasticity in the language development of children with BI. The current study examines whether the linguistic input that children with BI receive from their caregivers also contributes to this early plasticity, and whether linguistic input plays a similar role in children with BI as it does in typically developing (TD) children. Growth in vocabulary and syntactic production is modeled for 80 children (53 TD, 27 BI) between 14 and 46 months. Findings indicate that caregiver input is an equally potent predictor of vocabulary growth in children with BI and in TD children. In contrast, input is a more potent predictor of syntactic growth for children with BI than for TD children. Controlling for input, lesion characteristics (lesion size, type, seizure history) also affect the language trajectories of children with BI. Thus, findings illustrate how both variability in the environment (linguistic input) and variability in the organism (lesion characteristics) work together to contribute to plasticity in language learning.

Gallese, Vittorio; Rochat, Magali; Cossu, Giuseppe; Sinigaglia, Corrado

doi: 10.1037/a0014436pmid: 19209994

Social life rests in large part on the capacity to understand the intentions behind the behavior of others. What are the origins of this capacity? How is one to construe its development in ontogenesis? By assuming that action understanding can be explained only in terms of the ability to read the minds of others—that is, to represent mental states—the traditional view claims that a sharp discontinuity occurs in both phylogeny and ontogeny. Over the last few years this view has been challenged by a number of ethological and psychological studies, as well as by several neurophysiological findings. In particular, the functional properties of the mirror neuron system and its direct matching mechanism indicate that action understanding may be primarily based on the motor cognition that underpins one's own capacity to act. This article aims to elaborate and motivate the pivotal role of such motor cognition, providing a biologically plausible and theoretically unitary account for the phylogeny and ontogeny of action understanding and also its impairment, as in the case of autistic spectrum disorder.