Mark H. Johnson (professor)

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Mark Johnson is a British cognitive neuroscientist who since 1997 is head of the [www.cbcd.bbk.ac.uk/ Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development] at Birkbeck College, London. He is considered to be one of the leading figures in the emerging field of developmental cognitive neuroscience.

Johnson is the author of the Interactive Specialization hypothesis, an approach that views brain development as a series of back-propagated interactions between genetics, brain, body and environment.

In 1996, Johnson co-authored (with Jeffrey Elman, Annette Karmiloff-Smith, Elizabeth Bates, Domenico Parisi, and Kim Plunkett), the book Rethinking Innateness [1] . This influential book has received more than 1,000 citations[2], and has been nominated for the “One hundred most influential works in cognitive science from the 20th Century” (Minnesota Millennium Project)[3].

In 1997, Johnson published Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience (2nd Ed. - 2005)[4], a textbook that helped give birth to the field of developmental cognitive neuroscience. This new research field explores the emergence of cognitive skills during development by tracking developmental changes in brain structure and function.

In 2007, Johnson co-authored (with Denis Mareschal, Sylvain Sirois, Michael Spratling, Michael Thomas and Gert Westermann) Neuroconstructivism [5].

Johnson is also, with Denis Mareschal, co-editor of the journal Developmental Science.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Elman et al, Jeffrey (1996). Rethinking Innateness: A Connectionist Perspective on Development. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ISBN 026255030X. 
  2. ^ http://info.scopus.com/etc/citationtracker/
  3. ^ http://www.cogsci.umn.edu/OLD/calendar/past_events/millennium/lista.html
  4. ^ Johnson, M.H. (2000). "Functional brain development in infants: Elements of an interactive specialization framework". Child Development 71 (1): 75-81. 
  5. ^ Mareschal et al, Denis (2007). Neuroconstructivism: Volumes I & II (Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0199214824. 

[edit] External links