College of Education and Human Development

Institute of Child Development

Philip Zelazo

  • Nancy M. and John E. Lindahl Professor

Philip Zelazo

Areas of interest

Developmental cognitive neuroscience; executive function; consciousness; rule use; self and social understanding; EEG/ERP; neuroimaging; affective decision making; problem solving; cultural differences in cognitive development; thought and language

Degrees

PhD (distinction), 1993, Yale University

Biography

Developmental cognitive neuroscience; executive function; consciousness; rule use; self and social understanding; EEG/ERP; neuroimaging; affective decision making; problem solving; cultural differences in cognitive development; thought and language.

The Carlson and Zelazo Lab

Lab

Developmental Social Cognitive Neuroscience Lab

Research

Professor Zelazo studies the development and neural bases of executive function, or the conscious control of thought, action, and emotion. He does so using a variety of approaches, from experimental to cross-cultural to electrophysiological (EEG/ERP), and his work has focused on a number of influential ideas, including the notion that the executive function depends, in part, on the development of the ability to use increasingly complex, higher-order rules (formulated in self-directed speech)—part of the Cognitive Complexity & Control theory; the notion that consciousness develops through a series of “levels” in which information is reprocessed via thalamo-cortical circuits involving prefrontal cortex (the Levels of Consciousness model)—with consequences for the quality of subjective experience, and the potential for recall, rule complexity, and cognitive control; and the importance of the distinction between more “cool,” cognitive aspects of executive function typically associated with dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DL-PFC) vs. more “hot,” affective aspects associated with more ventral and medial regions of PFC (e.g., orbitofrontal cortex; OFC).

Advising expectations and availability

If you are a prospective graduate student who is interested in working with Dr. Zelazo, click here to review his advising expectations. The document outlines what you can expect from Dr. Zelazo as an advisor/mentor and provides an overview of Dr. Zelazo's expectations of students. Expectations for both the child psychology Ph.D. program at the University of Minnesota and the Developmental Social Cognitive Neuroscience (DSCN) Lab with Dr. Carlson can be found here.

Please note that for the Fall 2024 admissions cycle I am not looking to take on new Ph.D. students as their primary advisor.

Publications

Zelazo, P. D., Forston, J. L., Masten, A. S., & Carlson. S. M. (2018). Mindfulness plus reflection training improves executive function in early childhood. Frontiers in Psychology, 9:208. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00208

Perone, S., Almy, B., & Zelazo, P. D. (2018). Toward an understanding of the neural basis of executive function development (pp. 291-314). R. L. Gibb & B. Kolb (Eds.), The neurobiology of brain and behavioral development (2nd ed.). Amsterdam: Elsevier.

Zelazo, P. D., Blair, C. B., & Willoughby, M. T. (2017). Executive function: Implications for education (NCER 2017-2000). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Research, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. This report is available on the Institute website at http://ies.ed.gov/. 

Galinsky, E., Bezos, J., McClelland, M., Carlson. S. M., & Zelazo, P. D. (2017). Civic science for public use: Mind in the Making and Vroom. Child Development. doi: 10.1111/cdev.12892

Meuwissen, A. S., Anderson, J. E., & Zelazo, P. D. (2017). The creation and validation of the Developmental Emotional Faces Stimulus Set. Behavior Research Methods, 49(3), 960-966. doi: 10.3758/s13428-016-0756-7. 

Doebel, S., & Zelazo, P. D. (2016). Seeing conflict and engaging control: Experience with contrastive language benefits executive function in preschoolers. Cognition, 157, 219-226.

Woltering, S., Lishak, V., Hodgson, N., Granic, I., & Zelazo, P. D. (2016). Executive function in children with externalizing and comorbid internalizing behavior problems. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 57(1), 30-38. 

Zelazo, P. D. (2015). Executive function: Reflection, iterative reprocessing, complexity, and the developing brain. Developmental Review, 38, 55-68.

Doebel, S., & Zelazo, P. D. (2015). A meta-analysis of the Dimensional Change Card Sort: Implications for developmental theories and the measurement of executive function in children. Developmental Review, 38, 241-268.

Shapiro, S. L., Lyons, K. E., Miller, R. C., Butler, B., Vieten, C., & Zelazo, P. D. (2015). Contemplation in the classroom: A new direction for improving self-regulation in early childhood. Educational Psychology Review, 27, 1-30.

Meuwissen, A. S., & Zelazo, P. D. (2014).  Hot and cool executive function: Foundations for learning and healthy development. Zero to Three, 35, 18-23.

Gao, H. H., Zelazo, P. D., Sharpe, D., & Mashari, A. (2014). Beyond early linguistic competence: Development of children's ability to interpret adjectives flexibly. Cognitive Development, 32, 86-102.

Bauer, P. J., & Zelazo, P. D. (2014). The National Institutes of Health Toolbox for the Assessment of Neurological and Behavioral Function: A tool for developmental science. Child Development Perspectives, 8, 119-124.

Zelazo, P. D., Anderson, J. E., Richler, J., Wallner-Allen, K., Beaumont, J. L., Conway, K. P., Gershon, R., & Weintraub, S. (2014). NIH Toolbox Cognition Battery (CB): Validation of executive function measures in adults. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 20, 620-629.

Espinet, S. D., Anderson, J. E., & Zelazo, P. D. (2013). Reflection training improves executive function in preschool-age children: Behavioral and neural effects. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 4, 3-10.

Doebel, S., & Zelazo, P. D. (2013). Bottom-up and top-down dynamics in young children's executive function: labels aid 3-year-olds' performance on the Dimensional Change Card Sort. Cognitive Development, 28, 222-232.

Lahat, A., Helwig, C., & Zelazo, P. D. (2013). An event-related potential study of adolescents’ and young adults' judgments of moral and social conventional violations.  Child Development, 84, 955-969.

Benson, J., Sabbagh, M., Carlson, S. M., & Zelazo, P. D. (2013). Individual differences in executive functioning predict preschoolers’ improvement from theory-of-mind training. Developmental Psychology, 49, 1615-1627.

Zelazo, P. D., Anderson, J. E., Richler, J., Wallner-Allen, K., Beaumont, J. L., & Weintraub, S. (2013). NIH Toolbox Cognition Battery (CB): Measuring executive function and attention. In P. D. Zelazo & P. J. Bauer (Eds.), National Institutes of Health Toolbox— Cognition Battery (NIH Toolbox CB): Validation for children between 3 and 15 years. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 78(4), 16-33.

Ortner, C. M. N., Zelazo, P. D., Anderson, A. K. (2013). Effects of emotion regulation on concurrent attentional performance. Motivation and Emotion, 37, 346-354. doi: 10.1007/s11031-012-9310-9.

Masten, A. S., Herbers, J. E., Desjardins, C. D., Cutuli, J. J., McCormick, C. M., Sapienza, J. K., Long, J. D., & Zelazo, P. D. (2012). Executive function skills and school success in young children experiencing homelessness. Educational Researcher, 41, 373-384.

Zelazo, P. D., & Carlson, S. M. (2012). Hot and cool executive function in childhood and adolescence: Development and plasticity. Child Development Perspectives, 6, 354-360. 

Lahat, A., Helwig, C. C., & Zelazo, P. D.  (2012). Age-related changes in cognitive processing of moral and social conventional violations.  Cognitive Development, 27, 181-194.

Espinet, S. D., Anderson, J. E., & Zelazo, P. D. (2012). N2 amplitude as a neural marker of executive function in young children: An ERP study of children who switch versus perseverate on the Dimensional Change Card Sort. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 2, S49-S58.

Hahn, C., Cowell, J. M., Wiprzycka , U. J., Goldstein, D., Ralph, M., Hasher, L., & Zelazo, P. D. (2012). Circadian rhythms in executive function during the transition to adolescence: The effect of synchrony between chronotype and time of day. Developmental Science, 15, 408-416.

Zelazo, P. D., & Lyons, K. E. (2012). The potential benefits of mindfulness training in early childhood: A developmental social cognitive neuroscience perspective. Child Development Perspectives, 6, 154-160.