Gergely CSIBRA, MA (Budapest), PhD (Budapest)
Gergely CsibraPosition: Professor of Psychology
Office: Room 301A, The Henry Wellcome Building, Torrington Square
Mail: Birkbeck, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HX
Phone: +44 20 7631 6323
Fax: +44 20 7631 6587
Email: g dot csibra at bbk dot ac dot uk
Home Page: http://www.cbcd.bbk.ac.uk/people/gergo/
Research
My research focuses on various aspects of cognitive development in infancy. Specifically, I study infants' visual processing from the lowest levels of attention and eye-movement control through the intermediate levels of object and face perception to the highest levels of interpretation of observed actions in terms of goals and interpreting communicative signals. My interest recently turned to the question of what cognitive resources infants utilize to learn from others through communication.
I am also interested in how cognitive processes are accomplished by the human brain and how cognitive development can be explained by the neural development in infancy. I use high-density event-related potentials and near-infrared spectoscropy (optical imaging) to measure the on-line functioning of the brain while infants are engaged in various activities. I also employ the same techniques for studying visual cognition in adults.
Students
Hanna Marno
Object perception in social contexts
Recent publications
Csibra, G. (in press). Recognizing communicative intentions in infancy. Mind & Language.
Gliga, T., Volein, A., & Csibra, G. (in press). Verbal labels modulate perceptual object processing in one-year-old infants. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.
Holmboe, K., Nemoda, Z., Fearon, P., Csibra, G., Sasvari-Szekely, M., & Johnson, M. H. (in press). Polymorphisms in dopamine system genes are associated with individual differences in attention in infancy. Developmental Psychology.
Southgate, V., Chevallier, C., & Csibra, G. (in press). Seventeen-month-olds appeal to false beliefs to interpret others' referential communication. Developmental Science.
Southgate, V., Johnson, M. H., El Karoui, I., & Csibra, G. (in press). Motor system activation reveals infants’ on-line prediction of others’ goals. Psychological Science.
Senju, A., Southgate, V., Miura, Y., Matsui, T., Hasegawa, T., Tojo, Y., Osanai, H., & Csibra, G. (in press). Absence of spontaneous action anticipation by false belief attribution in children with autism spectrum disorder. Development and Psychopathology.
2009
Southgate, V., Johnson, M. H., Osborne, T., & Csibra, G. (2009). Predictive motor activation during action observation in human infants. Biology Letters, 5, 769-772.
Southgate, V. & Csibra, G. (2009). Inferring the outcome of an ongoing novel action at 13 months. Developmental Psychology, 45, 1794-1798.
Southgate, V., Chevallier, C., & Csibra, G. (2009). Sensitivity to communicative relevance tells young children what to imitate. Developmental Science, 12, 1013-1019.
Tomalski, P., Johnson, M. H., & Csibra, G. (2009). Temporal-nasal asymmetry of rapid orienting to face-like stimuli. NeuroReport, 20, 1309-1312.
Topál, J. Tóth, M., Gergely, G., & Csibra, G. (2009). Response to Comment on “Infants’ Perseverative Search Errors Are Induced by Pragmatic Misinterpretation”. Science, 325, 1624.
Topal, J., Gergely, G., Erdohegyi, A., Csibra, G., & Miklosi, A. (2009). Differential sensitivity to human communication in dogs, wolves and human infants. Science, 325, 1269-1272.
Hernik, M. & Csibra, G. (2009). Functional understanding facilitates learning about tools in human children. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 19, 34-38.
Tomalski, P., Csibra, G., & Johnson, M. H. (2009). Rapid orienting toward face-like stimuli with gaze-relevant contrast information. Perception, 38, 569-578.
Elsabbagh, M., Volein, A., Tucker, L., Holmboe, K., Csibra, G., Baron-Cohen, S., Bolton, P., Charman, T., Baird, G., & Johnson, M. H. (2009). Visual orienting in the early autism phenotype: Disengagement and facilitation. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 50, 637-642.
Csibra, G. & Gergely, G. (2009). Natural pedagogy. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 13,148-153.
Gliga, T. & Csibra, G. (2009). One-year-old infants appreciate the referential nature of deictic gestures and words. Psychological Science, 20, 347-353.
Elsabbagh, M., Volein, A., Csibra, G., Holmboe, K., Garwood, H., Tucker, L., Krljes, S., Baron-Cohen, S., Bolton, P., Charman, T., Baird, G., & Johnson, M. H. (2009). Neural correlates of eye gaze processing in the infant broader autism phenotype. Biological Psychiatry, 65, 31-38.
2008
Southgate, V., Gergely, G., & Csibra, G. (2008). Does the mirror neuron system and its impairment explain human imitation and autism? In J. A. Pineda (Ed.), Mirror Neuron Systems: The Role of Mirroring Processes in Social Cognition (pp. 331-354). Humana Press.
Grossmann, T., Johnson, M. H., Lloyd-Fox, S., Blasi, A., Deligianni, F., Elwell, C., & Csibra, G. (2008). Early cortical specialization for face-to-face communication in human infants. Proceedings of the Royal Society, London B, 275, 2803-2811.
Topal, J., Gergely, G., Miklosi, A., Erdohegyi, A., & Csibra, G. (2008). Infant perseverative errors are induced by pragmatic misinterpretation. Science, 321, 1831-1834.
Teinonen, T., Aslin, R. N., Alku, P., & Csibra, G. (2008). Visual speech contributes to phonetic learning in 6-month-old infants. Cognition, 108, 850-855.
Yoon, J. M. D., Johnson, M. H., & Csibra, G. (2008). Communication-induced memory biases in preverbal infants. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 105, 13690-13695.
Csibra, G., Kushnerenko, E., & Grossmann, T. (2008). Electrophysiological methods in studying infant cognitive development. In: C. Nelson & M. Luciana (Eds.), Handbook of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, Second Edition (pp. 247-262). Cambridge: MIT Press.
Johnson, M. H., Mareschal, D., & Csibra, G. (2008). The development and integration of dorsal and ventral visual pathways in object processing. To appear in C. Nelson & M. Luciana (Eds.), Handbook of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Second Edition (pp. 467-478). Cambridge: MIT Press.
Kushnerenko, E., Teinonen, T., Volein, A., & Csibra, G. (2008). Electrophysiological evidence of illusory audiovisual speech integration in human infants. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 105, 11442-11445.
Senju, A., Csibra, G., & Johnson, M. H. (2008). Understanding the referential nature of looking: Infants' preference for object-directed gaze. Cognition, 108, 303-319.
Senju, A. & Csibra, G. (2008). Gaze following in human infants depends on communicative signals. Current Biology, 18, 668-671.
Holmboe, K., Fearon, R. M. P., Csibra, G., Tucker, L., & Johnson, M. H. (2008). Freeze-frame: A new infant inhibition task and its relation to frontal cortex tasks in infancy and early childhood. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 100, 89-114.
Southgate, V., Johnson, M. H., & Csibra, G. (2008). Infants attribute goals to even biologically impossible actions. Cognition, 107, 1059-1069.
Csibra, G. (2008). Goal attribution to inanimate agents by 6.5-month-old infants. Cognition, 107, 705-717.
Southgate, V., Csibra, G., Kaufman, J., & Johnson, M. H. (2008). Distinct processing of objects and faces in the infant brain. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 20, 741-749.
Csibra, G. & Volein, A. (2008). Infants can infer the presence of hidden objects from referential gaze information. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 26, 1-11.
2007
Grossman, T., Johnson, M. H., Farroni, T., & Csibra, G. (2007). Social perception in the infant brain: gamma oscillatory activity in response to eye gaze. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 2, 284-291.
Csibra, G. (2007). Action mirroring and action interpretation: An alternative account. In: P. Haggard, Y. Rosetti, & M. Kawato (Eds.), Sensorimotor Foundations of Higher Cognition. Attention and Performance XXII (pp. 435-459). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Blasi, A., Fox, S., Everdell, N., Volein, A., Tucker, L., Csibra, G., Gibson, A. P., Hebden, J. C., Johnson, M. H., & Elwell, C. E. (2007). Investigation of depth dependent changes in cerebral haemodynamics during face perception in infants. Physics in Medicine and Biology, 52 6849-6864.
Gliga, T. & Csibra, G. (2007). Seeing the face through the eyes: A developmental perspective on face expertise. Progress in Brain Research, 164, 323-339.
Biro, S., Csibra, G., & Gergely, G. (2007). The role of behavioral cues in understanding goal-directed actions in infancy. Progress in Brain Research, 164, 303-322.
Southgate, V., Senju, A., & Csibra, G. (2007). Action anticipation through attribution of false belief by two-year-olds. Psychological Science, 18, 587-592.
Southgate, V., van Maanen, C., & Csibra, G. (2007). Infant pointing: Communication to cooperate or communication to learn? Child Development, 78, 735-740.
Kotsoni, E., Csibra, G., Mareschal, D., & Johnson, M. H. (2007). Electrophysiological correlates of common-onset visual masking. Neuropsychologia, 45, 2285-2293.
Csibra, G. & Johnson, M. H. (2007). Investigating event-related oscillations in infancy. In M. de Haan (Ed.), Infant EEG and Event-Related Potentials (pp. 289-304). Hove, England: Psychology Press.
Csibra, G. (2007). Teachers in the wild. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 11, 95-96.
Csibra, G. & Gergely, G. (2007). 'Obsessed with goals': Functions and mechanisms of teleological interpretation of actions in humans. Acta Psychologica, 124, 60-78.
Reid, V. M., Csibra, G., Belsky, J., & Johnson, M. H. (2007). Neural correlates of the perception of goal-directed action in infants. Acta Psychologica, 124, 129-138.
2006
Senju, A. Johnson, M. H., & Csibra, G. (2006). The development and neural basis of referential gaze perception. Social Neuroscience, 1, 220-234.
Gergely, G. & Csibra, G. (2006). Sylvia's recipe: The role of imitation and pedagogy in the transmission of human culture. In: N. J. Enfield & S. C. Levinson (Eds.), Roots of Human Sociality: Culture, Cognition, and Human Interaction (pp. 229-255). Oxford: Berg Publishers.
Kotsoni, E. Mareschal, D., Csibra, G., & Johnson, M. H. (2006). Common-onset visual masking in infancy: Behavioral and electrophysiological evidence. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 18, 966-973.
Csibra, G. & Southgate, V. (2006). Evidence for infants' understanding of false beliefs should not be dismissed. Response to Ruffman and Perner. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 10, 4-5.
Csibra, G. (2006). Blind infants in random environments: Further predictions. Developmental Science, 9, 148-149.
Csibra, G. & Gergely, G. (2006). Social learning and social cogniton: The case for pedagogy. In Y. Munakata & M. H. Johnson (Eds.), Processes of Change in Brain and Cognitive Development. Attention and Performance XXI (pp. 249-274). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2005
Farroni, T., Johnson, M. H., Menon, E. Zulian, L., Faraguna, D., & Csibra, G. (2005). Newborns' preference for face-relevant stimuli: Effects of contrast polarity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 102, 17245-17250.
Johnson, M. H., Griffin, R., Csibra, G., Halit, H., Farroni, T., de Haan, M., Tucker, L., Baron-Cohen, S., & Richards, J. (2005). The emergence of the social brain network: Evidence from typical and atypical development. Development and Psychopathology, 17, 599-619.
Gergely, G. & Csibra, G. (2005). A few reasons why we don't share Tomasello et al.'s intuitions about sharing. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 28, 701-702.
Kaufman, J., Csibra, G. & Johnson, M. H. (2005). Oscillatory activity in the infant brain reflects object maintenance. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 102, 15271-15274.
Gergely, G., & Csibra, G. (2005). The social construction of the cultural mind: Imitative learning as a mechanism of human pedagogy. Interaction Studies, 6, 463-481.
Csibra, G. (2005). Mirror neurons and action understanding. Is simulation involved? http://www.interdisciplines.org/mirror.
2004
Farroni, T., Johnson, M. H., & Csibra, G., (2004). Mechanisms of eye gaze perception during infancy. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 16, 1320-1326.
Halit, H., Csibra, G., Volein, A., & Johnson, M.H. (2004). Face-sensitive cortical processing in early infancy. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 45, 1228-1234.
Csibra, G., Henty, J., Volein, A., Elwell, C., Tucker, L., Meek, J., & Johnson, M.H. (2004). Near infrared spectroscopy reveals neural activation during face perception in infants and adults. Journal of Pediatric Neurology, 2, 85-89.
2003
Kaufman, J., Csibra, G., & Johnson, M. H. (2003). Representing occluded objects in the human infant brain. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B (Suppl.), Biology Letters, 270/S2, 140-143.
Grice, S.J., de Haan, M., Halit, H., Johnson, M.H., Csibra, G., Grant, J., & Karmiloff-Smith, A. (2003). ERP abnormalities of visual perception in Williams syndrome. NeuroReport, 14, 1773-1777.
Gergely, G. and Csibra, G. (2003). Teleological reasoning in infancy: The naive theory of rational action. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7 287-292.
Csibra, G. (2003). Teleological and referential understanding of action in infancy. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London B, 358, 447-458.
Csibra. G., Bíró, S., Koós, O., & Gergely, G. (2003). One-year-old infants use teleological representations of actions productively. Cognitive Science, 27, 111-133.
2002
Farroni, T., Csibra, G., Simion, F., and Johnson, M. H. (2002). Eye contact detection in humans from birth. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 99, 9602-9605.
2001
Johnson, M. H., de Haan, M., Oliver, A., Smith, W., Hatzakis, H., Tucker, L. A., & Csibra, G. (2001). Recording and analyzing high density ERPs with infants using the Geodesic Sensor Net. Developmental Neuropsychology.19, 295-323.
Csibra, G. (2001). Illusory contour figures are perceived as occluding surfaces by 8-month-old infants. Developmental Science, 4, F7-F11.
Grice, S.J., Spratling, M.W., Karmiloff-Smith, A., Halit, H., Csibra, G., de Haan, M., & Johnson, M.H. (2001). Disordered visual processing and oscillatory brain activity in autism and Williams Syndrome. Neuroreport, 12, 2697-2700.
Johnson, M. H., Mareschal, D., & Csibra, G. (2001). The development and integration of the dorsal and ventral visual pathways: A neurocomputational approach. In C. A. Nelson & M. Luciana (Eds.), Handbook of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience (pp. 139-151). Cambridge: MIT Press.
Csibra, G., Tucker, L. A., & Johnson, M. H. (2001). Differential frontal cortex activation before anticipatory and reactive saccades in infants. Infancy, 2, 159-174.
