Theme 2: Perception, Action and Control

Baby Research on Action, Interaction & Neurocognition

Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour The BabyBRAIN group investigates the developmental mechanisms and neurocognitive changes underlying early social-cognitive development.

On the one hand, we study how infants perceive other persons and, as their development progresses, come to understand what others are doing and thinking. On the other hand, we investigate how infants develop to become efficient and skilled agents themselves. As part of this research line, we carry out studies on infants’ action processing and action understanding as well as on imitation, tool-use, action planning, and joint action in early childhood.

We make use of state-of-the-art techniques of infancy research, such as remote infrared eye-tracking and EEG.

Contact
Name:	Sabine Hunnius
Telephone:	024-3612648
Email:	s.hunnius@donders.ru.nl
Fax:	024-3616066
Visiting address:	Donders Centre for Cognition Montessorilaan 3 6525 HR Nijmegen The Netherlands
Postal address:	Donders Centre for Cognition P.O. Box 9104 6500 HE Nijmegen The Netherlands

Key grants and prizes

2017: EU Marie Curie Initial Training Network grant ‘MOTION’

2017: DCC PhD student grant, ‘Understanding predictive processing in development: Modelling the generation of generative models’

2016: DCC PhD student grant, ‘Self-projection, its neurocognitive basis, and its development in typical and atypical children’

2014: EU Marie Curie Initial Training Network grant ‘BRAINVIEW’

2013: NWO Aspasia prize

Key publications

Braukmann, R., Lloyd-Fox, S., Blasi, A., Johnson, M.H., Bekkering, H., Buitelaar, J.K., & Hunnius, S. (2017). Diminished socially selective neural processing in 5-month-old infants at high familial risk for autism. European Journal of Neuroscience.

Monroy, C.D., Gerson, S.A., & Hunnius, S. (2017). Toddlers' action prediction: Statistical learning of continuous action sequences. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology , 157, 14-28.

Meyer, M., van der Wel, R.P.R.D., & Hunnius, S. (2016). Planning my actions to accommodate yours: Joint action development during early childhood. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 371, 20150371.

van Schaik, J.E. & Hunnius, S. (2016). Little chameleons: The development of social mimicry during early childhood. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 147, 71-81.

Gerson, S.A., Bekkering, H., & Hunnius, S. (2015). Short-term motor training, but not observational training, alters neurocognitive mechanisms of action processing in infancy. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 27, 1207-1214.

Stapel, J.C., Hunnius, S., Meyer, M., & Bekkering, H. (2016). Motor system contribution to action prediction: Temporal accuracy depends on motor experience. Cognition, 148, 71–78.

Hunnius, S. & Bekkering, H. (2014). What are you doing? How active and observational experience shape infants’ action understanding. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 369.

Links

Back to:
Research Theme 2:
Perception, Action and Decision-making

Research Group
Baby Research on Action, Interaction & Neurocognition

Principal Investigator
Prof. S. Hunnius

Group members

Postdocs
Lena Ackermann
Manon Krol
Marlene Meyer

PhD's
Iara de Almeida
Rocío Fernandez
Klejda Fico
Tommaso Ghilardi
Anna-Sophie Immel
Francesco Poli
Danaja Rutar
Joanna Rutkowska
Stefania Vacaru
Erik Verhaar
Emma Ward

Research Assistant
Eline van Petersen

Outreach manager
Josje de Valk

Lab manager
Angela Khadar