Infant and Child DevelopmentInf. Child. Dev. 18 : 573–581 (2009)

Book Reviews

SOCIAL COGNITION: DEVELOP-MENT, NEUROSCIENCE And AUT-ISM. Edited by T. Striano and V. Reid.Wiley-Blackwell, 2008. pp. 376. Price£50.00, h67.50. ISBN 9781405162173.

‘Social Cognition’ edited by Strianoand Reid provides an excellent, up-to-date basis for understanding key de-velopments in early social cognition.The book takes an interdisciplinaryapproach, bringing together researchfrom both developmental psychologyand cognitive neuroscience, with hintsof philosophy in places. The targetaudience includes postgraduate stu-dents and postdoctoral researchers,although final year psychology under-graduates may find many sections ofthe book valuable and accessible.

The central themes of the book in-clude social perception, gaze processingand understanding of actions. Althoughthe primary focus is on early socialcognition in typically developing in-fants, the editors have included a sec-tion on later (typical) development anda section discussing social impairmentsin clinical populations (i.e. Autism andWilliams Syndrome). The inclusion ofresearch in older and atypical popula-tions complements the chapters on so-cial processing in typically developinginfants nicely. Structurally, the bookbegins with two introductory chapterson methods, followed by 16 reviewchapters from a varied group of high-profile researchers, and concludingwith three commentaries.

The introductory chapters by theeditors give a flavour of the book, withan emphasis on interdisciplinary workand importance of using a variety ofmethods to tackle key questions. Someof these methods are summarized in thesecond chapter, with better descriptionsof infant studies than of the neu-roscience approaches used with adults.

The section on ‘Cognitive Neu-roscience’ is quite disparate, coveringresearch on mirror neurons, theory ofmind, emotion processing and atten-tion. Several chapters review mainlyresearch in adulthood, while two (Ia-coboni and Blakemore) take a moredevelopmental approach and considerbrain and cognitive changes in ado-lescence. A common theme in almostevery chapter is the role of the mirrorneuron system in social cognition, andwhile some may disagree with some ofthe conclusions drawn, the sectionprovides a reasonable overview of thefield. Worth highlighting is the chapterby Julie Grezes on Social Perception,which provides a cogent overview ofresearch on action understanding,covering everything from action un-derstanding to judgements aboutemotions and beliefs. The chapter eventouches on intriguing new research onthe understanding of emotions in aut-ism, and leaves me looking forward tothe forthcoming papers.

The chapters in the section called‘Social Cognition during Infancy’ aremore integrated, with a focus on howinfants learn to perceive and interactwith other people. This is clearly theground that the editors are most fa-miliar with, and they have assembled afascinating collection of reviews. Inparticular, the chapter by Petra Haufgives a thoughtful analysis of researchinto when infants are able to link theirperception of action to performance ofaction, and how one can influence theother. Another highlight is the finalchapter of this section, in which Reidand Striano propose a model of infantinformation processing called the Di-rected Attention Hypothesis. The au-thors argue that infants progressthrough five stages during whichthey develop selective attention to-wards various elements of their social

Copyright r 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

environment. The model suggests thepresence of early perceptual biases withthe subsequent development of morecomplex socio-cognitive processes. As acounterpoint to this theory, the com-mentary by Nelson (Chapter 20) ex-amines Reid and Striano’s model indetail, emphasizing the need for moreideas about the underlying neural me-chanisms for each stage. The inclusionof these commentaries, even those cri-tical of the editors own ideas, is one ofthe strengths of the book and providesan important balance.

The final review section, entitled‘Social Cognition: the Challenge ofAutism’ is also strong, with diversityin approaches but also a clear focus onnew ways to understand abnormalsocial cognition. The initial chapter byJoseph and Tager-Flusberg focuses ontwo key developments in social cog-nition: face identity and eye gaze pro-cessing. The authors provide a nicereview of the literature in these areasand highlight the relationship betweenattention, perception and social-affec-tive impairments in autism. A realstrength of the chapter is how bothbehavioural and neuropsychologicalevidence are integrated to formulateideas for future research. Griffin andDennett take a longer view of the fieldof social cognition, considering howour ideas about understanding of be-liefs and intentions have changed overthe last 30 years. The authors provide aclear overview of the conflicts inherentin both rich interpretations of infants’behaviours and sparse interpretationsand the difficulties of trying to applyphilosophical concepts to the messyworld of infants. The final chapter onWilliams Syndrome written by Brock,Einav and Riby provides a nice com-parison to the chapters on Autism. Itreviews recent research, which largely

dispels many of the assumptionsmade about Williams Syndromesuch as being the opposite of Autism.Importantly, it emphasizes thecomplexity of social cognition and howresearch into clinical populationscan help elucidate our understandingof social cognition in typicaldevelopment.

Overall, this book is at the cuttingedge of research in social cognition,reflecting the current trends in the fieldin its themes of mirroring, gaze, inter-action and the development of socialinteractions before 2 years of age. Incontrast, it is possible to imagine thatan equivalent book published 15 yearsago, as well as lacking any neu-roscience content, would have fo-cussed on topics like the emergence oftheory of mind in children aged over 3years. Such research is barely men-tioned in Striano and Reid’s volume.There is also almost no discussion ofevolutionary or comparative ap-proaches, nor of the development oflanguage and communication. Theseareas could potentially have a lot tosay about social cognition, but wouldhave diluted the central themes of thebook.

In putting together this impressivecollection of chapters, Striano and Reidhave made a useful contribution to thebookshelf of any student of socialcognition. It is clear that a lot of timeand thought went into the organizationof this book. We will be recommendingit to our own students.

Antonia Hamilton and Danielle RoparSchool of Psychology, University of

Nottingham, UK

DOI: 10.1002/icd.616

Book Review

Book Reviews574

Copyright r 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Inf. Child. Dev. 18: 573–581 (2009)DOI: 10.1002/icd