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The Cognitive Basis of Social Interaction Across the Lifespan

This chapter sets the scene of the book by providing key definitions of the concepts that underlie social interaction, and highlighting the importance of a lifespan approach. Traditionally, research on social interaction has focused on a very narrow age-range between 2 and 7 years old, when these skills are known to develop in typically developing children. However, over the last few years new paradigms and methodological advances have facilitated an exciting new body of research that has examined social interaction in infancy and beyond childhood. This chapter presents key theoretical models of social interaction, and considers the predictions that each makes about development across the lifespan, noting a particular role for cognitive mechanisms. It also introduces a range of methodological approaches that have been used to study social interaction, emphasizing the challenges that researchers face in applying these methods across the lifespan, and the opportunities that lie ahead thanks to new paradigms and technologies that enable more implicit and ecologically-valid research on this topic.