Developmental Psychology

Prof. Dr. Moritz Daum

The Developmental Psychology group investigates the social-cognitive development of humans and how they become social actors who interact with their social environment. Our group examines the interplay between verbal and non-verbal representations in language development and the development of actions, as well as children’s social-cognitive and communicative abilities in monolingual or multilingual contexts. We also explore the influence of cultural background on social-cognitive development using techniques such as behavioral studies, eye tracking, and electroencephalography. Our group has developed a smartphone-based developmental diary app (www.weltentdeckerapp.ch) that allows caregivers to track the development of their children continuously and longitudinally in four different domains from birth to age 6. We aim to identify intra- and inter-individual relations and disentangle the effects of experience and maturation in developing skills to advance theories about children’s development and increase our understanding of devel-opmental change.