Elma Hilbrink

My research interests include the development of social interaction, early social cognition, social learning and early communicative abilities, with a focus on development during infancy. Currently I am part of the INTERACT project for which I conduct various studies to assess infants' understanding and developing abilities concerning communication in interaction. For example, their understanding and abilities with regards to timing in turn-taking.

I received my PhD from the School of Psychology at Cardiff University in July 2011. My PhD research was part of the First Steps project in which we followed 39 infants from birth till 18 months. Infants were tested each month on tasks involving imitative-, communicative- and motor development. Furthermore mothers and their infants were recorded each month in 10-minute free-play interactions. In addition mothers kept an electronic diary of behaviors occurring at home. My main interests in this project were individual differences in the development of early facial and vocal imitation, the infant's own role in the development of imitation versus the role of the infant's social environment and individual differences in infants' social motivations for imitation.