

Research areas
- Cognitive development in in infants and children
- Interaction of cognitive and sensorimotor processes in development
- The interrelation of action understanding and action performance in development
- Mechanisms of selective imitation
- Neurophysiological bases of early cognitive development
- The development of intuitive knowledge about physics
- The development of the perception of causality
Academic career
2001 | Licentiate degree (Master) in Psychology at the Faculty of Arts, University of Zürich, Switzerland |
2005 | PhD in Psychology at the Faculty of Arts, University of Zurich, Switzerland |
2011 | Habilitation at the Faculty of Biosciences, Pharmaceutics, and Psychology, University of Leipzig, Germany |
Professional career
Since 08/12 | Professor for Developmental Psychology, Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, Switzerland |
10/10-07/12 | Head of the Research Group "Infant Cognition and Action", Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany |
10/08-02/09 | Visiting Researcher at the Infant EEG Lab of the Cognitive Development Unit (EKUP), Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Norway |
12/04-09/10 | Senior Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Department of Psychology, Munich and Leipzig, Germany |
Publications in ZORA
You can find my publications in ZORA (Zurich Open Repository Archive):
ZORA Publication List
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Publications
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Do Facial Masks Impact Infants' Joint Attention? A Within‐Participant Laboratory Study. Infancy, 30(1):e12640.
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Infants’ Social Evaluation of Helpers and Hinderers: A Large‐Scale, Multi‐Lab, Coordinated Replication Study. Developmental Science, 28(1):1-28.
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How was your child’s temperament today and last week? Considering within-person variability in the measurement of infant temperament. European Journal of Personality:1-16.
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The two functions of imitation in the second year of life: A longitudinal study. Developmental Psychology:epub ahead of print.
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Humans and great apes visually track event roles in similar ways. PLoS Biology, 22(11):e3002857.
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Measuring Theory of Mind: a preliminary analysis of a novel linguistically simple and tablet-based measure for children. Frontiers in Developmental Psychology, 2:1445406.
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Speaker Competence Affects Prefrontal Theta and Occipital Alpha Power during Selective Word Learning in Preschoolers. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 36(7):1523-1540.
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Children's recognition of slapstick humor is linked to their Theory of Mind. Frontiers in cognition, 3:1-10.
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What's the point? Infants' and adults' perception of different pointing gestures. Infancy, 29(2):251-270.
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From everyday exposure to pragmatic mastery. International Review of Pragmatics, 16(1):149-161.
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Mini-review: Wild laughs: Ontogenesis and phylogenesis of humour. Neuroscience Letters, 822:137615.
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Automatic imitation in school-aged children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 238:105797.
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Cardiac interoception in infants: Behavioral and neurophysiological measures in various emotional and self‐related contexts. Psychophysiology, 60(12):e14386.
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What do you focus on? An investigation of goal focus from childhood to old age. Psychological Research, 87(7):2120-2137.
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Chasing the “How” and “Why” of goal pursuit: A multimethod approach to the study of goal focus. Journal of Research in Personality, 104:104371.
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Atypical gaze-following behaviour in infants with congenital heart disease. Early Human Development, 181:105765.
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The Agent Preference in Visual Event Apprehension. Open Mind:1-43.
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Seeing household chemicals through the eyes of children—Investigating influential factors of preschoolers’ perception and behavior. Journal of Safety Research, 83:400-409.
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Gradual Route to Productivity: Evidence from Turkish Morphological Causatives. Cognitive Science, 46(12):13210.
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Prior Action Direction of a Novel Agent Cues Spatial Attention in 7-Month-Old Infants. Swiss Journal of Psychology, 2(1):1-15.
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Household chemicals and pre-schoolers: Caretakers’ beliefs and perspectives on risks and responsibilities. Safety Science, 154:105864.
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Exploring the role of COVID-19 pandemic-related changes in social interactions on preschoolers' emotion labeling. Frontiers in Psychology, 13:942535.
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Infancy researchers need to change the way they develop their measures: A comment on Byers‐Heinlein et al. (2021). Infant and Child Development, 31(5):e2322.
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Do typological differences in the expression of causality influence preschool children’s causal event construal?. Language and Cognition, 14(2):161-184.
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Spelling out some unaddressed conceptual and methodological challenges in empirical lifespan research. Acta Psychologica, 226:103585.
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For Whom Is the Path the Goal? A Lifespan Perspective on the Development of Goal Focus. Collabra: Psychology, 8(1):31603.
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Children’s group loyalty is related to parental in-group collectivism. Cognitive Development, 61:101130.
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Predicting Reading From Behavioral and Neural Measures – A Longitudinal Event-Related Potential Study. Frontiers in Psychology, 12:733494.
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When dogs meow: An electrophysiological study of lexical-semantic processing in toddlers. Infancy, 26(6):1076-1096.
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Influence of causal language on causal understanding: A comparison between Swiss German and Turkish. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 210:105182.
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Development of the bodily self: Effects of visuomotor synchrony and visual appearance on virtual embodiment in children and adults. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 210:105200.
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Child-directed speech is optimized for syntax-free semantic inference. Scientific Reports, 11(1):16527.
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Does Linguistic Similarity Affect Early Simultaneous Bilingual Language Acquisition?. Journal of Language Contact, 13(3):482-500.
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Parenting Styles of Gay Fathers. Journal of GLBT Family Studies, 17(2):102-117.
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Compatibility Effects in Young Children's Tool Use: Learning and Transfer. Child Development, 92(1):e76-e90.
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The History of Developmental Psychology. PsyArXiv Preprints s2ckp, The Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science.
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Do you understand what I want to tell you? Early sensitivity in bilinguals' iconic gesture perception and production. Developmental Science, 23(5):e12943.
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Understanding verbal indirect communication in monolingual and bilingual children. Cognitive Development, 55:100912.
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Theory of mind development from adolescence to adulthood: Testing the two-component model. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 38(2):289-303.
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Einheit in Vielfalt – Einsicht ist das gemeinsame Ziel. Psychologische Rundschau, 71(1):46-48.
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Dynamic interaction patterns of monolingual and bilingual infants with their parents. Journal of Child Language, 47(1):45-63.
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Infants’ perception of goal-directed actions: A multi-lab replication reveals that infants anticipate paths and not goals. Infant Behavior and Development, 57:101340.
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Higher levels of motor competence are associated with reduced interference in action perception across the lifespan. Psychological Research, 83(3):432-444.
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Infants' object processing is guided specifically by social cues. Neuropsychologia, 126:54-61.
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Toddlers show sensorimotor activity during auditory verb processing. Neuropsychologia, 126:82-91.
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The dynamics of the interrelation of perception and action across the life span. Psychological Research, 83(1):116-131.
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Emotions experienced during the shedding of the first primary tooth. International Journal of Paediatric Dentistry, 29(1):22-28.
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Bilingual Children Adapt to the Needs of Their Communication Partners, Monolinguals Do Not. Child Development, 90(1):98-107.
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The Ontogenesis of Action Syntax. Collabra: Psychology, 5(1):21.
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Positionspapier der Fachgruppe Entwicklungspsychologie: Versuch einer Standortbestimmung. PsyArXiv Preprints jxyc3, University of Zurich.
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Effects of the Type of Childcare on Toddlers’ Motor, Social, Cognitive, and Language Skills. Swiss Journal of Psychology, 78:81-90.
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Syntactical regularities of action sequences in the infant brain: when structure matters. Developmental Science, 21(6):e12682.
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The dynamics of the interrelation of perception and action across the life span. OSF: https://osf.io/.
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Effects of verb-action congruence on sensorimotor processing of goal-directed actions in two- year-olds: A technical report. PsyArXiv Preprints g8fu4, University of Zurich.
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Interference of action perception on action production increases across the adult life span. Experimental Brain Research, 236(2):577-586.
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How preschoolers react to norm violations is associated with culture. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 165:135-147.
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The social side of curiosity. CDS Newsletter, 15(1):11.
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BILEX: A new tool measuring bilingual children’s lexicons and translational equivalents. First Language, 38(3):263-283.
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The two-systems account of theory of mind: testing the links to social- perceptual and cognitive abilities. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 12:25.
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Tooth Fairy guilty of favouritism!. The Medical journal of Australia, 207(11):482-486.
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The relationship between attention and deferred imitation in 12-month-old infants. Infant Behavior and Development, 48(Part B):175-183.
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Cause or consequence? Investigating attention bias and self-regulation skills in children at risk for obesity. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 155:113-127.
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Bilingual toddlers have advanced abilities to repair communication failure. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 155:84-94.
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Turning the tide: A plea for cognitively lean interpretations of infant behaviour. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 40:e383.
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Special Issue on the "Interrelations between non-linguistic and linguistic representations of cognition and action in development". Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 151:1-4.
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Action perception in infancy: the plasticity of 7-month-olds' attention to grasping actions. Experimental Brain Research, 234(9):2465-2478.
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Sensitivity to communicative and non-communicative gestures in adolescents and adults with autism spectrum disorder: saccadic and pupillary responses. Experimental Brain Research, 234(9):2515-2527.
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Effects of movement distance, duration, velocity, and type on action prediction in 12-month-olds. Infant Behavior and Development, 43:75-84.
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Measuring action understanding: Relations between goal prediction and imitation. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 34(1):53-65.
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Imitation is beneficial for verb learning in toddlers. European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 13(5):594-613.
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Kommentar der Fachgruppe Entwicklungspsychologie zum „Positionspapier zur Lage der Allgemeinen Psychologie“ der Fachgruppe Allgemeine Psychologie. Psychologische Rundschau, 67(3):183-185.
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Not that heart-stopping after all: visuo-cardiac synchrony does not boost self-face attribution. PLoS ONE, 11(8):e0160498.
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“Pro-active” in many ways: Developmental evidence for a dynamic pluralistic approach to prediction. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 69(11):2189-2201.
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Intra-individual variability and continuity of action and perception measures in infants. Frontiers in Psychology, 6:327.
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The developmental trajectory of pointing perception in the first year of life. Experimental Brain Research, 233(2):641-647.
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The use of intonation for turn anticipation in observed conversations without visual signals as source of information. Frontiers in Psychology:6:108.
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The microstructure of action perception in infancy: decomposing the temporal structure of social information processing. Child Development Perspectives, 9(2):79-83.
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Neural correlates of action perception at the onset of functional grasping. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 10(6):769-776.
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Experimentelle Handlungsforschung: Die ontogenetische Perspektive. In: Prinz, M. Experimentelle Handlungsforschung. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 158-205.
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Perception of individual and joint action in infants and adults. PLoS ONE, 9(9):e107450.
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Spatial orienting following dynamic cues in infancy: Grasping hands versus inanimate objects. Developmental Psychology, 50(8):2020-2029.
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Spielerisches Lernen – Mittels Spiel Wissen schaffen. Psychologie & Erziehung, (1):8-11.
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Productive verbs facilitate action prediction in toddlers. Infancy, 19(3):301-325.
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The relation between mirror self-image reactions and imitation in 14- and 18-month-old infants. Infant Behavior and Development, 36(4):809-816.
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Discontinuities in early development of the understanding of physical causality. Cognitive Development, 28(1):31-40.
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Perception of conversations: The importance of semantics and intonation in children's development. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 116(2):264-277.
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The development of pointing perception in infancy: effects of communicative signals on covert shifts of attention. Developmental Psychology, 49(10):1898-1908.
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Action observation in the infant brain: The role of body form and motion. Social Neuroscience, 8(1):22-30.
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Selective imitation of in-group over out-group members in 14-month-old infants. Child Development, 84(2):422-428.
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Fourteen-month-olds' imitation of differently aged models. Infant and Child Development, 21(3):250-266.
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The peer model advantage in infants’ imitation of familiar gestures performed by differently aged models. Frontiers in Psychology:3:252.
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Infants’ preferences for object-directed actions of older children compared to object-directed actions of peers and adults. Infant Behavior and Development, 35:533-542.
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Production and perception of contralateral reaching: A close link by 12 months of age. Infant Behavior and Development, 35(3):570-579.
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Die Gedanken vor-sprachlicher Kinder und nicht-sprachlicher Tiere. Erwägen, Wissen, Ethik:53-56.
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Rethinking ‘rational imitation’ in 14-month-old infants: a perceptual distraction approach. PLoS ONE, 7(3):e32563.
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Actions seen through Babies’ eyes: a dissociation between looking time and predictive gaze. Frontiers in Psychology:3:370.
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Spatial cueing by referential human gestures, arrows and mechanical devices. International Journal of Mind, Brain and Cognition, 2:113-126.
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Detection of visual-tactile contingency in the first year after birth. Cognition, 120(1):82-89.
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Perception and production of object-related grasping in 6-month-olds. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 108(4):810-818.
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The development of grasping comprehension in infancy: covert shifts of attention caused by referential actions. Experimental Brain Research, 208(2):297-307.
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The reliability of a model influences 14-month-olds' imitation. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 106(4):208-220.
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The development and neural basis of pointing comprehension. Social Neuroscience, 5(5-6):441-450.
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Dynamic action in virtual environments: Constraints on the accessibility of action knowledge in children and adults. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 62(2):335-351.
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Motor Processes in Children's Mental Rotation. Journal of Cognition and Development, 10(1-2):18-40.
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The development of rational imitation in 9- and 12-month-old infants. Infancy, 14(1):131-141.
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Frühkindliche Handlungswahrnehmung und Theory of Mind: Vom Verständnis zielgerichteter Handlungen zum Verständnis mentalistisch gesteuerter Handlungen. Zeitschrift für Entwicklungspsychologie und Pädagogische Psychologie, 41(4):233-242.
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Inferring the size of a goal object from an actor's grasping movement in 6- and 9-month-old infants. Developmental Science, 12(6):854-862.
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Means-end behavior in young infants: the interplay of action perception and action production. Infancy, 14(6):613-640.
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Becoming a social agent: Developmental foundations of an embodied social psychology. European Journal of Social Psychology, 39(7):1196-1206.
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Disentangling embodied and symbolic modes of social understanding. European Journal of Social Psychology, 39(7):1214-1216.
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Effects of action on children’s and adults’ mental imagery. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 104(1):34-51.
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Naiva förestellningar om bollens rörelsemängd bland professionella fotbollsspelare. Glänta, (2-3):26-39.
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Intuitive physics: naïve concepts about the ball's momentum among professional football players. In: Andersson, P; Ayton, P; Schmidt, C. Myths and facts about football: the economics and psychology of the world's greatest sport. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 39-60.
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Encoding the goal of an object-directed but uncompleted reaching action in 6- and 9-month-old infants. Developmental Science, 11(4):607-619.
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Das Misskonzept der Meister: intuitive Physik bei Fussballspielern. Psychoscope, 29(4):8-11.
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Controlling reaching movements with predictable and unpredictable target motion in 10-year-old children and adults. Experimental Brain Research, 177(4):483-492.
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Developmental changes in the interference of motor processes with mental rotation. Cognitive Science Society. Annual Conference. Proceedings, 27(27):220-225.
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Dynamische mentale Repräsentationen bei Kindern und Erwachsenen : der Einfluss von Perzeption und Kognition auf das representational momentum. 2005, University of Zurich, Faculty of Arts.
Book chapters
Daum, M. M. (forthcoming). Cognitive Development in Infancy. In B. Hopkins, E. Geangu, & S. Linkenauger (Eds.). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Child Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Daum, M. M., & Aschersleben, G. (2014). Experimentelle Handlungsforschung: Die ontogenetische Perspektive. In W. Prinz, (Hrsg.); G. Aschersleben; M. M. Daum; A. Herwig; E. Kühn; S. Schütz-Bosbach (2014). Experimentelle Handlungsforschung. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer.
Daum, M. M. & Prinz, W. (2011). Body and action representations for integrating self and other. In V. Slaughter & C. Brownell (Eds.). Early Development of Body Representations (pp. 267-292). Cambridge University Press; Cambridge Studies in Cognitive and Perceptual Development.
Daum, M. M., Zmyj, N., & Aschersleben, G. (2010). Ontogenesi precoce della percezione e del controllo delle azioni. In F. Morganti, A. Carassa, G. Riva (Eds.) (2010) Intersoggettivita‘ e interazione: Un dialogo fra scienze cognitive, scienze sociali e neuroscienze. Torino: Bollati Boringhieri.
Daum, M. M., Rauch, J., & Wilkening, F. (2008). Intuitive physics: Naïve concepts about the ball’s momentum among professional football players. In P. Andersson, P. Ayton & C. Schmidt (Eds.), Myths and facts about football: The economics and psychology of the world's greatest sport (pp. 39-60). Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholar Press.
Daum, M. M., Zmyj, N., & Aschersleben, G. (2008). Early ontogeny of action perception and production. In F. Morganti, A. Carassa & G. Riva (Eds.), Enacting intersubjectivity: A cognitive and social perspective to the study of interactions (pp 175-186). Amsterdam, The Netherlands: IOS Press.
Aschersleben, G., & Daum, M. M. (2008). Frühe Ontogenese der Handlungssteuerung. In G. D. Rey & T. Wehr (Eds.), Kognitive Psychologe: Ausgewählte Grundlagen und Anwendungsbeispiele (pp 31-44). Lengerich: Pabst Science Publishers.
Books
Prinz, W., Aschersleben, G., Daum, M. M., Schütz-Bosbach, S., Kühn, E. Herwig, A. (in press). Experimentelle Handlungsforschung. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer.