Child Development invites manuscripts for a special section on developmental social cognitive neuroscience to be compiled by guest editors Kevin Pelphrey ( Carnegie Mellon University) and Rebecca Saxe (Massachusetts Institute of Technology).

The goal of the special section is to showcase research that brings together behavioral, neuropsychological, and neuroimaging approaches to understanding the typical and atypical development of social perception and social cognition. We are seeking papers that integrate developmental psychology and cognitive neuroscience approaches to social cognitive development, including gaze detection and the perception of biological motion, understanding of actions and intentions, moral reasoning, empathy, theory of mind, and reasoning about social groups. Research with adults or animals that explicitly informs our understanding of development will also be considered.
In addition to empirical papers, focused review articles that highlight the significance of cognitive neuroscience approaches to the development of social cognition are also appropriate.

We ask potential contributors to first provide a short letter of intent describing the manuscript they wish to submit to this special section. The guest editors will review letters of intent for fit with this special issue and will work to provide the broadest array of high-quality papers that address a variety of questions in developmental social cognitive neuroscience. The deadline for letters of intent is October 1, 2007.
Following this initial review, potential contributors will be contacted to submit completed manuscripts for peer review by January 15, 2008.

Initial inquiries and letters of intent regarding the special section may be sent to Kevin Pelphrey (kevin.pelphrey@duke.edu ) or Rebecca Saxe (saxe@mit.edu ).