This Max Planck Research Group investigates the social and cognitive foundations of human communication in infancy.  Human communication involves an understanding of others' minds and is based on prosocial motives for acting together. How do these abilities emerge and how do infants communicate - particularly through gesture - before they have language?

In the Communication Before Language Group we investigate infants' developing social cognition and social motivation in relation to their emerging prelinguistic communication within social and cultural contexts.

Our work is motivated by the idea that there is a psychological basis of human communication that develops ontogenetically prior to language and can be first expressed in gestures. Further, our work investigates the extent to which social and cultural differences influence infants' emerging prelinguistic communication.

Our research facilities: Baby Research Center

Subprojects of the Communication Before Language Group:

• Infant social cognition and joint action - Studies on infants' understanding of others' behavior and mental states, with a focus on communication and joint cooperative actions.
• Socialization of prelinguistic communication - Studies on caregiver-infant interaction in different social settings and across different cultures to examine the effects of social input on the development of early communication.