Séminaire : Eric Turkheimer "Using Twins To Understand the Individuation of Physical and Cognitive Growth"

We will have the pleasure to have Eric Turkheimer in person at the CRNL on Tuesday, March 5 2024. He will be presenting a talk entitled "Using Twins To Understand the Individuation of Physical and Cognitive Growth”, as part of the seminar series  "Toward an integrative cognitive science of social inequalities”. The talk will take place at 16h in the Amphitheater of the Neurocampus. Please see below for the abstract and a short biography of Pr. Turkheimer, who is one of the most prominent figures in the field of behavioral genetics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Turkheimer).

Using Twins To Understand the Individuation of Physical and Cognitive Growth

Eric Turkheimer (University of Virginia, USA)

Tuesday, March 5, 2024, 16h

 

Abstract: Twins are commonly thought of as a tool for the investigation of the heritability of human behavioral differences. I suggest that this is not the ideal way for them to be used. Instead, twins can be used as a means of imposing quasi-experimental control in developmental investigations where random assignment is not possible in humans. In addition, a rarely employed characteristic of twins, that they are born at significant biological disadvantage, and then recover quickly, makes them a useful model for developmental resilience in response to biological insult. I offer examples from research conducted with the Louisville Twin Study, a classic longitudinal study of infants and children, who are now being followed up in middle age.

 

Bio: Eric Turkheimer is the Hugh Scott Hamilton Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia. From 2003 to 2008 he was Director of Clinical Training. Turkheimer has been an Associate Editor for Psychological Assessment, is currently an Associate Editor of Behavior Genetics and has served on the editorial boards of Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and Perspectives on Psychological Science. In 2009, he was awarded the James Shields Memorial Award for outstanding research in Behavioral Genetics. He is a past President of the Behavior Genetics Association. Turkheimer’s research has encompassed many of the substantive and methodological themes common to behavioral genetic researchers: data from adoptees, twins, siblings, parents and children to investigate intelligence, personality, psychopathology and family dynamics; experimental and quasi-experimental research designs, statistical modeling, synthesis of empirical results, and, perhaps most characteristically, philosophy of science. His current research includes detection of gene-environment interactions in twin studies of intelligence, development of statistical methods for analyses of children of twins, and the use of twins to establish quasi-experimental control in studies of developmental associations between parenting behavior and offspring outcomes in adolescence. His overarching research goal is to explore the possibilities and limitations of behavior genetics as a means of expanding the scope and rigor of human behavioral science.