[lingtalks] TODAY: Jennifer Pfeifer Talk, CSB 003 @ 12pm

[Steven Ford]

The UCSD Department of Cognitive Science is pleased to announce a talk by

Jennifer Pfeifer

UCLA, Department of Psychology


Monday, February 26, 2007 at 12pm
Cognitive Science Building Room 003


"Developmental Social Cognitive Neuroscience Approach to Identity"



Abstract

One of the most unique abilities of humankind is the capacity to appreciate 
our selves as composed of complex, integrative attributes that are both 
enduring and potentially contradictory across situations. This kind of 
evaluative self-knowledge has been the subject of dozens of neuroimaging 
investigations hoping to find identity in the brain. But identity also 
involves particular relational aspects whose neural correlates have been 
much less frequently examined, such as social affirmation of self-knowledge 
by close others, or group belonging and bias. In this talk I explore 
different aspects of personal and social identity in the brain, including 
how identities may be informed by, and modulate the functioning of, 
mentalizing (deducing what others are thinking). As identity is an ongoing 
process but is notably concentrated during certain developmental stages, 
this talk incorporates work from pre-adolescent and adult populations to 
arrive at new inferences about the functionality of brain regions 
previously implicated in identity, as well as the impact that social 
contextual factors may have on identity and mentalizing processes. Future 
directions of this program of research include longitudinal neuroimaging 
investigations now underway, that exploit the period of heightened focus on 
identity and mentalizing in adolescence.
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