Socialization of prelinguistic communication

The core question of this subproject is how referential communication emerges (e.g., How do infants come to communicate about things? What do they communicate about? With whom do they communicate?).

We also ask whether infants' prelinguistic communication is influenced by different caregiving practices both within and across cultures. One particular focus of our studies is the the emergence of the pointing gesture in prelinguistic development.

Thus, in this subproject we conduct longitudinal, natural and semi-natural studies on caregiver-infant interaction in different social settings and across different cultures.  more>

Infant social cognition and joint action

In this subproject we run semi-natural and experimental studies to examine infants' developing understanding of other persons' actions and of their epistemic states (e.g., When do infants expect others to commit mistakes? Do infants understand what others do and do not know?).

We also investigate infants' understanding of joint actions between others and infants' ability to initiate and sustain joint action (e.g., Do infants recognize when others are acting together?  Do infants prefer certain interaction partners over others?).  more>