Minerva Fast Track Group "Facets of Early Social Learning"

The Minerva Fast Track Group investigates the foundational psychological processes underlying social learning in the first years of life. Furthermore, we compare humans with other great ape species to understand the evolution of uniquely human learning mechanisms. Our research is guided by three central questions:

1. Learning Through Observation: How does social learning develop in non-instructed, observation-based contexts?
2. The Observational Process: What visual attention processes guide the observer's focus?
3. Methods Development: How can eye-tracking technology be optimized for studies with non-human primates and in remote field settings outside the laboratory?

Topic 1: Learning Through Observation

Psychological research has long focused on "participatory" learning situations, characterized by high levels of child-directed communication and pedagogical scaffolding. In contrast, learning situations without direct adult guidance have received comparatively little attention. To capture the diversity in infants' early social experiences, the Minerva Fast Track Group examines a broader range of social learning settings, shifting the focus from participatory learning to observational learning from "third-party" interactions. Specifically, we analyze how observing joint attention interactions influences early learning outcomes compared to participatory settings. Our research tracks both human developmental trajectories and species differences between humans, chimpanzees, bonobos, and orangutans.

Topic 2: The Observational Process

In addition to learning outcomes, we explore the observational process itself. While it is well-documented that various visual attention processes organize learning in participatory learning situations, it remains largely unexamined how observers distribute their attention when observing interactions between others.

Our central focus is the perception of observed joint attention. In one of our projects, we analyze variations in scanpaths as a diagnostic tool to determine whether humans and other great apes recognize joint attention from an observer perspective. Another project investigates covert attention cueing effects (shifts in visual attention without direct eye movements) in the context of both experienced and observed joint attention from infancy to adulthood.

Topic 3: Methods Development

The automated measurement of eye movements via eye-tracking technology has become a pivotal tool for investigating unobservable mental processes across diverse domains of human and non-human cognition. Although the method was originally developed for controlled lab studies with adult humans, it is now successfully being used in research with infants and young children, as well as with animals, including other primates. Furthermore, there is an increasing interest in utilizing eye-tracking for studies conducted in remote field settings with limited technical infrastructure.

While eye-tracking is already well-established in lab-based infancy research, its application with other animals and outside the lab presents unique challenges. The goal of our group is to identify these challenges, develop practical solutions, and establish methodological standards for these emerging application fields. In our core project on this topic, we develop procedures for comparing eye-tracking data of varying data quality, to enable reliable comparisons across different individuals, populations, and developmental stages.