Tobias Grossmann

About

Tobias Grossmann is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia where he directs the UVA Babylab. His research focuses on the early development of the social, cognitive, and brain processes that underpin adaptive social communication and behavior. He earned his Ph.D. in Psychology from the Max Planck Institutes for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences and Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. He was then awarded a Sir Henry Welcome Fellowship at the Center for Brain and Cognitive Development at Birkbeck, University of London, UK. Before joining UVA, he led an independent research group at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig and received his Habilitation from Heidelberg University’s Institute of Psychology.

Selected publications

• Infants’ Social Evaluation of Helpers and Hinderers: A Large‐Scale, Multi‐Lab, Coordinated Replication Study

  Developmental Science · 2024-11-26 · 31 citations

  articleOpen access

  Evaluating whether someone's behavior is praiseworthy or blameworthy is a fundamental human trait. A seminal study by Hamlin and colleagues in 2007 suggested that the ability to form social evaluations based on third-party interactions emerges within the first year of life: infants preferred a character who helped, over hindered, another who tried but failed to climb a hill. This sparked a new line of inquiry into the origins of social evaluations; however, replication attempts have yielded mixe…

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• Variability in Infants' Functional Brain Network Connectivity Is Associated With Differences in Affect and Behavior

  Frontiers in Psychiatry · 2021-06-09 · 30 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Variability in functional brain network connectivity has been linked to individual differences in cognitive, affective, and behavioral traits in adults. However, little is known about the developmental origins of such brain-behavior correlations. The current study examined functional brain network connectivity and its link to behavioral temperament in typically developing newborn and 1-month-old infants ( M [age] = 25 days; N = 75) using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Specificall…

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• Processing third-party social interactions in the human infant brain

  Infant Behavior and Development · 2022-06-03 · 24 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  The understanding of developing social brain functions during infancy relies on research that has focused on studying how infants engage in first-person social interactions or view individual agents and their actions. Behavioral research suggests that observing and learning from third-party social interactions plays a foundational role in early social and moral development. However, the brain systems involved in observing third-party social interactions during infancy are unknown. The current st…

  PublisherDOI

• Love on the developing brain: Maternal sensitivity and infants’ neural responses to emotion in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex

  Developmental Science · 2024-03-21 · 11 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Infancy is a sensitive period of development, during which experiences of parental care are particularly important for shaping the developing brain. In a longitudinal study of N = 95 mothers and infants, we examined links between caregiving behavior (maternal sensitivity observed during a mother-infant free-play) and infants' neural response to emotion (happy, angry, and fearful faces) at 5 and 7 months of age. Neural activity was assessed using functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) in t…

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• Novel Insights into the Social Functions of the Medial Prefrontal Cortex during Infancy

  eNeuro · 2025-05-01 · 7 citations

  reviewOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) is thought to play a central role in human social perception, cognition, and behavior. In adults, the mPFC is involved in representing and interpreting the mental states in self and others. Developmental research using neuroimaging techniques like functional near-infrared spectroscopy and functional magnetic resonance imaging has begun to extend these findings into infancy. Novel evidence reviewed in this opinion demonstrates that infant mPFC (1) plays a speci…

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Labs

• UVA Baby LabPI

Awards & honors

• Sir Henry Welcome Fellowship at the Center for Brain and Cog…

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