Behavioural studies

Many of our studies do not require any special equipment. In these studies we observe how your child behaves in a range of situations. It could be that the experimenter shows your child something which he or she can then copy. We use this sort of task to investigate how imitation develops. This can show us whether children have understood and imitate the aim of a particular action and whether they also copy how the aim of the action is achieved (for example, if they also use a tool instead of their hands).

In other studies, your child might interact with the experimenter in a joint game. We often also use hand puppets, for example if a game involves two different figures. We use this kind of game to research a wide range of social cognitive mechanisms, such as communicative behaviour, the development of cognition and motor skills, and the understanding of theory of mind.