{"id":411,"date":"2020-04-23T13:17:46","date_gmt":"2020-04-23T12:17:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/upgrade-rocs\/?p=411"},"modified":"2020-08-21T14:02:19","modified_gmt":"2020-08-21T13:02:19","slug":"cogsocoage-tracking-the-cognitive-basis-of-social-communication-across-the-life-span","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/rocs\/cogsocoage-tracking-the-cognitive-basis-of-social-communication-across-the-life-span\/","title":{"rendered":"CogSoCoAGE: Tracking the cognitive basis of social communication across the life-span"},"content":{"rendered":"

More about Professor Heather Ferguson<\/a>
\n<\/strong>More about the project<\/a><\/p>\n

About\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

This is a five-year research project based at the University of Kent\u2019s School of Psychology, funded by a <\/span>European Research Council Starting grant<\/span><\/b> awarded to Prof<\/span>essor<\/span> Heather Ferguson. It is an interdisciplinary research project that aims to investigate the cognitive basis of social communication, and how this changes across the <\/span>life span<\/span> (from ten to 90 years old). This research is particularly important and timely given the significant negative consequences of impairments in social communication. For example, misunderstanding another person\u2019s meaning or intentions can cause one to take offence or restrict further interactions. Indeed, difficulties in social communication mediate a substantial decline in social participation in older adults, which in turn leads to isolation, loneliness and poor health.<\/span>\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

CogSoCoAGE seeks to gain a fuller understanding of the cognitive mechanisms that underlie healthy development, ageing and social communication, and to explore promising new protocols to enhance the quality of social communication in older adults (thus improving their mental health and well-being) by training these cognitive skills. Establishing success using such an approach would reveal exciting opportunities for the future to apply tailored training methods to clinical populations who suffer impaired social skills (e.g. autism).<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Research objectives<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

The<\/span> research questions were: <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  • To what degree can variations in T<\/span>heory <\/span>o<\/span>f <\/span>M<\/span>ind ability (the ability to<\/span> understand that others have beliefs and intentions different from one\u2019s own)<\/span> across the life <\/span>span b<\/span>e accounted for by changes in executive<\/span> skills<\/span> (<\/span>cognitive processes that are required for managing our own behaviour and for achieving goals)<\/span>?
    \n<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n
  • How do Theory of Mind ability and executive skills change over time in different age groups (using longitudinal methods, i.e. test-retest of the same participants)?<\/li>\n
  • Can Theory <\/span>o<\/span>f <\/span>M<\/span>ind<\/span>\u00a0ability be enhanced<\/span> through training specific EF skills, and how do these training<\/span> effects differ across the life <\/span>span?<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Programme and methodology<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

    We will employ an interdisciplinary approach that links theory and practice from cognitive, social, developmental, and clinical (neuro)psychology to st<\/span>udy the relationship between Theory of Mind<\/span> and E<\/span>xecutive <\/span>F<\/span>unctions<\/span> across a broad and dynamic age range (ten to 80+ <\/span>yrs<\/span> old). We will use cutting-edge combinations of techniques (e.g. <\/span>eye-tracking<\/span> and EEG) and paradigms to assess multiple key components of social communication, including emotional states, visual perspective-taking, and high-level inferences about others\u2019 minds. These tasks <\/span>will be used<\/span> alongside sophisticated statistical methods that allow us to track the time<\/span> course of social understanding<\/span>, and model how it relates to executive functions<\/span> and more general cognitive\/social skills (e.g. IQ, language) within and between individuals.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    Findings<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

    Primary findings in bullet points\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      \n
    • Brunsdon<\/span>, V.E.A., Bradford, E.E.F., & Ferguson, H.J. (in press). Sensorimotor mu rhythm during action observation changes across the lifespan independently from social cognitive processes.\u202f<\/span>Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/li>\n
    • Ferguson, H.J., Brunsdon<\/span>, V.E.A, & Bradford, E.E.F (2018). Age of avatar modulates the <\/span>altercentric<\/span> bias in a visual perspective-taking task: An ERP study.\u202f<\/span>Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience.<\/span><\/i>\u202f18(6), 1298-1319<\/span><\/li>\n
    • Bradford, E., Hukker<\/span>, V., Smith, L., & Ferguson, H. (2018). Belief-Attribution in Adults with and without Autistic Spectrum Disorders.\u202f<\/span>Autism Research<\/span><\/i>,\u202f<\/span>11<\/span><\/i>, 1542-1553. doi:10.1002\/aur.2032<\/span><\/li>\n
    • Nieuwland, M., <\/span>Politzer<\/span>-Ahles, S., <\/span>Heyselaar<\/span>, E., <\/span>Segaert<\/span>, K., Von <\/span>Grebmer<\/span> Zu<\/span> Wolfsthurn4S., <\/span>Bartolozzi<\/span>, F., <\/span>Kogan<\/span>, V., Ito, A., <\/span>Meziere<\/span>, D., Barr, D., <\/span>Rousselet<\/span>, G., Ferguson, H., Busch-Moreno, S., Fu, X., <\/span>Tuomainen<\/span>, J., <\/span>Kulakova<\/span>, E., Husband, M., Donaldson, D., <\/span>Kohut<\/span>, Z., <\/span>Rueschmeyer<\/span>, S., & <\/span>Huettig<\/span>, F. (2018). Large-scale replication study reveals a limit on probabilistic prediction in language comprehension.\u202f<\/span>ELife<\/span><\/i>,\u202f<\/span>7<\/span><\/i>. doi:10.7554\/eLife.33468<\/span><\/li>\n
    • Nieuwland, M., Barr, D., <\/span>Bartolozzi<\/span>, F., Busch-Moreno, S., Donaldson, D., Ferguson, H., Fu, X., <\/span>Heyselaar<\/span>, E., <\/span>Huettig<\/span>, F., Husband, M., Ito, A., <\/span>kazanina<\/span>, N., <\/span>Kogan<\/span>, V., <\/span>Kohut<\/span>, Z., <\/span>Kulakova<\/span>, E., <\/span>Meziere<\/span>, D., <\/span>Politzer<\/span>-Ahles, S., <\/span>Rousselet<\/span>, G., <\/span>Rueschmeyer<\/span>, S., <\/span>Segaert<\/span>, K., <\/span>Tuomainen<\/span>, J., & Von <\/span>Grebmer<\/span> Zu<\/span> Wolfsthurn<\/span>, S. (2019). Dissociable effects of prediction and integration during language comprehension: Evidence from a large-scale study using brain potentials.\u202f<\/span>Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences<\/span><\/i>. doi:10.1101\/267815<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      Various research <\/span>presentations\/invited talks, also<\/span> focusing on adolescence (e.g. see list on project website).\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      Impact<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

      This project is still ongoing, but aims to offer <\/span>new information<\/span><\/b> on <\/span>social communication across the life span. <\/span>Furthermore, the <\/span>CogSoCoAGE<\/span> project will explore how to enhance social communication, which may have important implications for educational settings.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      More about Professor Heather Ferguson More about the project About\u202f\u00a0 This is a five-year research project based at the University of Kent\u2019s School of Psychology, funded by a European Research Council Starting grant awarded to Professor Heather Ferguson. It is an interdisciplinary research project that aims to investigate the cognitive basis of social communication, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":416,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/rocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/rocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/rocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/rocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/610"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/rocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/rocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2799,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/rocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411\/revisions\/2799"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/rocs\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/rocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/rocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/rocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}