Mark Johnson

Professor at Birkbeck and Cambridge

Research Interests

The focus of my research is Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, the study of functional brain development over the first years of life. The key questions that motivate my research concern how specialized cognitive functions emerge within particular brain regions (such as the cerebral cortex) during development. Within this approach my research focuses on the perception and cognition of the social and physical world over the early years. We adopt an “interactive specialisation” framework for thinking about human functional brain development (see my book “Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience”, Blackwell, 2005, for a summary of this). Much of this research is conducted collaboratively with other members of the Centre for Brain & Cognitive Development, though we also collaborate with other labs in the US, Europe, and Japan.

The development of the social brain

Within this topic, we study face perception, eye-gaze perception and eye-gaze cued action, and the perception of human action. Through imaging (ERP, NIRS) and behavioural testing methods, our goal is understand the typical and atypical development of the human social brain network.

Developing an understanding of the physical world

Within this area we study object processing and action in the dorsal and ventral streams, object-centred attention, visual masking, perceptual binding, and the representation of occluded objects. In addition to conventional brain correlates of perception, we study event-related oscillations (ERO).

The development of prefrontal cortex function

It is often assumed that the prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain most associated with higher cognitive functions) is “functionally silent” for the first year after birth. However, recent evidence reveals activation of this area from at least the first months. We are conducting longitudinal individual differences studies to trace the early emergence of functions attributed to PFC.

Infants at-risk for autism

A longstanding research interest has concerned how Autism develops over the first year of life. It is possible that overt behavioural symptoms of Autism only emerge toward the end of the first year of life. We are studying groups of infants at-risk for autism (such as the younger siblings of children already diagnosed) to trace the earliest brain and cognitive signs of autism. In the longer term, early identification may lead to better intervention strategies. For more information about the Autism Baby Siblings Research Program, please click here.

The core funding for my laboratory comes from the UK Medical Research Council.

Curriculum Vitae

I chose to conduct my undergraduate studies at the University of Edinburgh, since I could combine courses from basic biology with those on psychology. During these studies I became particularly fascinated with developmental biology and developmental psychology. I was struck, however, with how separate these two disciplines were at that time. As a PhD student at the University of Cambridge, under the supervision of Gabriel Horn and Pat Bateson, I found a natural home for my interest in relating brain development, and early experience, to behavioural development. I also learned about the necessity of using multiple converging methodologies from genetics, neuroscience, and psychology, to address these issues. After completing my PhD I was fortunate to join the newly formed MRC Cognitive Development Unit in London, under the Directorship of John Morton. Here I developed my interest in studying human infants, and enjoyed the freedom of postdoctoral years to develop and expand theoretical ideas on the development of perception, especially face processing. A logical consequence of this work was to understand the mechanisms that underlie the looking-time based behavioural measures used to study human infants. This took me to spend an enjoyable year (spread over two) with Mike Posner and Mary Rothbart at the University of Oregon, Eugene. This productive time advanced my interest in the development of visual orienting and attention, and further reinforced to me the importance of interdisciplinary approaches to development.

In 1991 I joined the faculty at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) as Associate Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, and was fortunate to recruit Leslie Tucker from Oregon as my lab manager. Over the ensuing years, Leslie’s role has expanded with the size of the research group to her present position at Birkbeck of Centre Co-ordinator. At CMU my growing interest in neural network and connectionist models was nourished, and I benefited from some outstanding colleagues and students. In 1994 I returned to London to re-join the MRC Cognitive Development Unit as a Senior Research Scientist. At this time we were keen to establish an infant ERP/EEG lab, and we were fortunate to recruit Gergely Csibra from Budapest to lead this. Gergo’s unique combination of technical and theoretical skills allowed us to become one of the first few labs in the world to undertake high-density ERP studies in young infants. In 1997 I took up the chair of Psychology at Birkbeck, University of London, and shortly after the lab moved to “our” building, 32 Torrington Square, to form the new “Centre for Brain & Cognitive Development” (CBCD) along with Denis Mareschal.

Since 1997 the CBCD has expanded rapidly and includes many excellent new colleagues such as Michael Thomas, Fred Dick, Jennifer Aydelott, Annette Karmiloff-Smith, Natasha Kirkham, and Angelica Ronald. In 2006 some members of the CBCD moved into a new purpose-built building (the Henry Wellcome Building), designed around our scientific needs.  Also in 2006 we, along with Martin Eimer, were awarded the Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher Education.  In 2008 I was awarded the British Psychological Society President’s Award for distinguished contributions to psychological knowledge, and in 2009 the Experimental Psychology Society Mid-Career Award. More recently, in 2011, I was elected as Fellow of the British Academy (FBA) and in 2012 I was elected as Fellow of the Cognitive Science Society.

I am also on Neurotree.

You can also follow this Link to download a recent interview with Current Biology.

Publications

Book Section

de Haan, M. and Johnson, Mark H. (2016) Typical and atypical human functional brain development. In: Cicchetti, D and Cohen, D.J.(eds.) Developmental Psychopathology: Developmental Neuroscience. Hoboken, U.S.: Wiley, pp. 632-653. ISBN 9781118120910.

Johnson, Mark H. (2015) Neurobiological perspectives on developmental psyschopathology. In: Thapar, A. and Pine, D.S. and Leckman, J.F. and Scott, S. and Snowling, M.J. and Taylor, E.A. (eds.) Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. New York, U.S.: Wiley, pp. 107-118. ISBN 9781118381960.

Johnson, Mark H. (2014) Functional brain development during infancy. In: Bremner, J.G. and Wachs, T. (eds.) The Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of Infant Development. Chicester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 9781118672860.

Johnson, Mark H. (2014) The paradox of the emerging social brain. In: Banaji, M.R. and Gelman, S.A. (eds.) Navigating the Social World: What Infants, Children, and Other Species Can Teach Us. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199361069.

Johnson, Mark H. (2013) Theories in developmental cognitive neuroscience. In: Rubenstein, J. and Rakic, P. (eds.) Neural Circuit Development and Function in the Brain. New York, U.S.: Elsevier, pp. 191-205. ISBN 9780123972675.

Papademetriou, M. and RICHARDS, J. and Correia, T. and Blasi, Anna and Murphy, D.G.M. and Lloyd-Fox, Sarah and Elwell, Clare and Johnson, Mark H. (2013) Cortical mapping of 3D optical topography in infants. In: Van Huffel, S. and Naulaers, G. and Caicedo, A. and Bruley, D.F. and Harrison, D.K. (eds.) Oxygen Transport to Tissue XXXV. Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology 789. New York, U.S.: Springer, pp. 455-461. ISBN 9781461474111.

Blakemore, S.-J. and Grossmann, Tobias and Cohen-Kadosh, K. and Sebastian, C. and Johnson, Mark H. (2013) Social development. In: Mareschal, Denis and Butterworth, B. and Tolmie, A. (eds.) Educational Neuroscience. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 9781118725894.

Grossmann, Tobias and Johnson, Mark H. (2013) The early development of the brain bases for social cognition. In: Ochsner, K.N. and Kosslyn, S. (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Neuroscience: The Cutting Edges. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199988709.

Karmiloff-Smith, Annette (2012) The importance of sleep for learning. In: Oates, J. and Karmiloff-Smith, Annette and Johnson, Mark H.(eds.) Developing Brains. Early Childhood in Focus 7. Milton Keynes, UK: Open University Press. ISBN 9781780073217.

Johnson, Mark H. (2011) Face perception: a developmental perspective. In: Calder, A.J. and Rhodes, G and Johnson, Mark H. and Haxby, J.V. (eds.) The Handbook of Face Perception. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, pp. 3-14. ISBN 9780199559053.

Elsabbagh, Mayada and Holmboe, Karla and Gliga, Teodora and Mercure, Evelyne and Hudry, K. and Charman, T. and Baron-Cohen, S.and Bolton, P. and Johnson, Mark H. (2011) Social and attention factors during infancy and the later emergence of autism characteristics. In: Braddick, O.J. and Atkinson, J. and Innocenti, G.M. (eds.) Gene Expression to Neurobiology and Behaviour Human Brain Development and Developmental Disorders. Progress in Brain Research 189. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Elsevier, pp. 195-207. ISBN 9780444538840.

Eimer, Martin (2011) The face-sensitive N170 component of the event-related brain potential. In: Calder, A.J. and Rhodes, G. and Johnson, Mark H. and Haxby, J. (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Face Perception. Oxford Library of Psychology. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199559053.

Johnson, Mark H. and Grossmann, Tobias and Farroni, Teresa (2008) The social cognitive neuroscience of infancy: illuminating the early development of social brain functions. In: Kail, R. (ed.) Advances in Child Development and Behavior. Advances in Child Development and Behavior 36. Elsevier, pp. 331-372. ISBN 9780123743176.

Johnson, Mark H. (2008) Cognitive neuroscience. In: Haith, M.M. and Jenson, J.B. (eds.) Encyclopedia of Infant and Early Childhood Development. San Diego, USA: Academic Press, pp. 309-318. ISBN 9780123708779.

Johnson, Mark H. and Mareschal, Denis and Csibra, Gergely (2008) The development and integration of the dorsal and ventral visual pathways in object processing. In: Nelson, C.A. and Luciana, M. (eds.) The Handbook of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience.Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience. Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA: MIT press, pp. 467-498. ISBN 9780262141048.

Thomas, Michael S.C. and Richardson, Fiona M. (2006) Atypical representational change: conditions for the emergence of atypical modularity. In: Munakata, Y. and Johnson, Mark H. (eds.) Processes of Change in Brain and Cognitive Development. Attention and Performance 21. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, pp. 315-347. ISBN 9780198568742.

Book

Johnson, Mark H. and de Haan, M. (2015) Developmental cognitive neuroscience: an introduction. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 9781118938072.

Oates, J. and Karmiloff-Smith, Annette and Johnson, Mark H., eds. (2012) Developing brains. Early Childhood in Focus 7. Milton Keynes, UK: The Open University. ISBN 9781780073217.

Calder, A.J. and Rhodes, G and Johnson, Mark H. and Haxby, J., eds. (2011) Oxford handbook of face perception. Oxford Library of Psychology. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199559053.

Mareschal, Denis and Johnson, Mark H. and Sirois, S. and Spratling, Michael and Thomas, Michael S.C. and Westermann, Gert (2007)Neuroconstructivism: how the brain constructs cognition. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience 1. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198529903.