Kevin Pelphrey, Ph.D.

Associate Professor
Yale Child Study Center

Research Interests

Dr. Kevin Pelphrey completed his doctoral studies in Psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2001. He then undertook postdoctoral training in Cognitive Neuroscience at Duke University. Work in Dr. Pelphrey's laboratory focuses on discovering brain mechanisms underlying the development of different aspects of social cognition including social perception (the initial stages of evaluating the intentions and goals of others by analysis of biological motion cues), theory of mind (the ability to make inferences about the mental states of others), and the perception and regulation of emotion. This work employs cognitive neuroscience methods including functional and structural magnetic resonance imaging, diffusion tensor imaging, imaging genetics, visual scanpath recordings, and virtual reality techniques.
The laboratory conducts studies focused on fundamental questions regarding the typical and atypical development of social cognition in children with and without autism spectrum disorders and other neurodevelopmental disorders. By studying the normal ontogeny of the brain mechanisms underlying social cognition and the abnormal development of these mechanisms in children with autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders, the Pelphrey laboratory is working to uncover the building blocks for complex, multi-faceted, social cognitive abilities.
Dr. Pelphrey has received a Scientist Career Development Award from the National Institutes of Health, a John Merck Scholars Award for his work on the biology of developmental disorders, and the American Psychological Association's Boyd McCandless Award for distinguished early career theoretical contributions to Developmental Psychology. His research program is funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Simons Foundation, Autism Speaks, and the National Science Foundation.

Recent Publications

• Pelphrey, K. A., Morris, J. P., McCarthy, G., & LaBar, K. S. (2007). Perception of dynamic changes in facial affect and identity in autism. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 2, 140-149.
• Morris, J. P., Pelphrey, K. A., & McCarthy, G. (2007). Controlled scanpath variation alters fusiform face activation. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 2, 31-38.
• Morris, J. P., Pelphrey, K. A., & McCarthy, G. 2007). Face processing without awareness in the right fusiform gyrus. Neuropsychologia, 45, 3087-3091.
• Carter, E. J. & Pelphrey, K. A. (2008) Friend or foe? Brain mechanisms for perceiving social signals of threat and affiliation. Social Neuroscience, 3, 151-163.
• Morris, J. P., Pelphrey, K. A., & McCarthy, G. (2008). Perceived causality influences brain activity evoked by biological motion. Social Neuroscience, 3, 16-25.
• Pinkham, A. E., Hopfinger, J. B., Pelphrey, K. A., Piven, J., & Penn, D. L. (2008). Neural bases for impaired social cognition in schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorders. Schizophrenia Research, 99, 164-175.
• Perlman, S. B., Camras, L. C., & Pelphrey, K. A. (2008). Physiology and functioning: Parents' vagal tone, emotion socialization, and children's emotion knowledge. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 100, 308-315.
• Libertus, M. E., Brannon, E. M., & Pelphrey, K. A. (2008). Developmental changes in category-specific brain responses to numbers and letters in a working memory task. NeuroImage, 44, 1404-1414.
• Cantlon, J. F., Libertus, M. E., Pinel, P., Dehaene, S., Brannon, E. M., & Pelphrey, K. A. (2008). The neural development of an abstract concept of number. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, Electronic publication ahead of print on November 18th, 2008.
• Vander Wyk, B. C., Hudac, C. M., Carter, E. J., Sobel, D. M., Pelphrey, K. A. (2009). Action understanding in the superior temporal sulcus region. Psychological Science, 20, 771-777.
• Saxe, R., Whitfield-Gabrieli, S., Scholz, J., Pelphrey, K. A. (2009). Brain Regions for Perceiving and Reasoning About Other People in School-Aged Children, Child Development, 80, 1197-1209.

Contact

Campus Address
Child Study Center
230 South Frontage Road
New Haven, CT 06520

Office Address

E-mail
kevin.pelphrey@yale.edu

Office Phone
785-3486