TY - JOUR A1 - Henrichs, Ivanina A1 - Elsner, Claudia A1 - Elsner, Birgit A1 - Wilkinson, Nick A1 - Gredeback, Gustaf T1 - Goal certainty modulates infants' goal-directed gaze shifts JF - Developmental psychology N2 - We investigated whether 12-month-old infants rely on information about the certainty of goal selection in order to predict observed reaching actions. Infants' goal-directed gaze shifts were recorded as they observed action sequences in a multiple-goals design. We found that 12-month-old infants exhibited gaze shifts significantly earlier when the observed hand reached for the same goal object in all trials (frequent condition) compared with when the observed hand reached for different goal objects across trials (nonfrequent condition). Infants in the frequent condition were significantly more accurate at predicting the action goal than infants in the nonfrequent condition. In addition, findings revealed rapid learning in the case of certainty and no learning in the case of uncertainty of goal selection over the course of trials. Together, our data indicate that by the end of their first year of life, infants rely on information about the certainty of goal selection to make inferences about others' action goals. KW - anticipation KW - eye movement KW - infant KW - direct matching KW - statistical learning Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1037/a0032664 SN - 0012-1649 SN - 1939-0599 VL - 50 IS - 1 SP - 100 EP - 107 PB - American Psychological Association CY - Washington ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Henrichs, Ivanina A1 - Elsner, Claudia A1 - Elsner, Birgit A1 - Gredeback, Gustaf T1 - Goal salience affects infants' goal-directed gaze shifts JF - Frontiers in psychology N2 - Around their first year of life, infants are able to anticipate the goal of others' ongoing actions. For instance, 12-month-olds anticipate the goal of everyday feeding actions and manual actions such as reaching and grasping. However, little is known whether the salience of the goal influences infants' online assessment of others' actions. The aim of the current eye-tracking study was to elucidate infants' ability to anticipate reaching actions depending on the visual salience of the goal object. In Experiment 1, 12-month-old infants' goal-directed gaze shifts were recorded as they observed a hand reaching for and grasping either a large (high-salience condition) or a small (low-salience condition) goal object. Infants exhibited predictive gaze shifts significantly earlier when the observed hand reached for the large goal object compared to when it reached for the small goal object. In addition, findings revealed rapid learning over the course of trials in the high-salience condition and no learning in the low-salience condition. Experiment 2 demonstrated that the results could not be simply attributed to the different grip aperture of the hand used when reaching for small and large objects. Together, our data indicate that by the end of their first year of life, infants rely on information about the goal salience to make inferences about the action goal. KW - anticipation KW - eye movement KW - salience KW - infant KW - action understanding Y1 - 2012 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00391 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 3 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Adam, Maurits A1 - Reitenbach, Ivanina A1 - Papenmeier, Frank A1 - Gredebäck, Gustaf A1 - Elsner, Claudia A1 - Elsner, Birgit T1 - actions, but not for mechanical claws JF - Meteoritics & planetary science : journal of the Meteoritical Society N2 - Previous research indicates that infants’ prediction of the goals of observed actions is influenced by own experience with the type of agent performing the action (i.e., human hand vs. non-human agent) as well as by action-relevant features of goal objects (e.g., object size). The present study investigated the combined effects of these factors on 12-month-olds’ action prediction. Infants’ (N = 49) goal-directed gaze shifts were recorded as they observed 14 trials in which either a human hand or a mechanical claw reached for a small goal area (low-saliency goal) or a large goal area (high-saliency goal). Only infants who had observed the human hand reaching for a high-saliency goal fixated the goal object ahead of time, and they rapidly learned to predict the action goal across trials. By contrast, infants in all other conditions did not track the observed action in a predictive manner, and their gaze shifts to the action goal did not change systematically across trials. Thus, high-saliency goals seem to boost infants’ predictive gaze shifts during the observation of human manual actions, but not of actions performed by a mechanical device. This supports the assumption that infants’ action predictions are based on interactive effects of action-relevant object features (e.g., size) and own action experience. KW - Infancy KW - Goal saliency KW - Anticipatory gaze shifts KW - Eye tracking KW - Action processing Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infbeh.2016.05.001 SN - 0163-6383 SN - 1879-0453 VL - 44 SP - 29 EP - 37 PB - Elsevier CY - New York ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Spinath, Birgit A1 - Elsner, Birgit T1 - How-to für M.Sc. Psychologie-Studiengänge BT - Empfehlungen und Ressourcen BT - Recommendations and resources JF - Psychologische Rundschau : offizielles Organ der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Psychologie N2 - Aufgrund der Neuregelung der Psychotherapieausbildung dürften derzeit an fast allen Psychologie-Ausbildungsstandorten die Beratungen über zukünftige Masterstudiengänge in vollem Gang sein. Da die Ausgestaltung der Studiengänge für unser Fach von großer Bedeutung ist, haben DGPs und Fakultätentag zahlreiche Empfehlungen gegeben, die dazu beitragen sollen, dass sich das Psychologie-Studium auch zukünftig an geteilten Standards orientiert. Basierend auf Beratungen in der DGPs-Kommission „Studium und Lehre“ stellt der vorliegende Beitrag die zentralen Empfehlungen und Ressourcen in übersichtlicher Form zusammen und liefert so ein How-to für die Konzeption psychologischer Masterstudiengänge. Gleichzeitig werden die wichtigsten Argumente für die Empfehlungen dargelegt. T2 - How-to for M.Sc. Psychology Courses Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1026/0033-3042/a000538 SN - 0033-3042 SN - 2190-6238 VL - 72 IS - 2 SP - 150 EP - 153 PB - Hogrefe CY - Göttingen ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Austin, Gina A1 - Groppe, Karoline A1 - Elsner, Birgit T1 - The reciprocal relationship between executive function and theory of mind in middle childhood: a 1-year longitudinal perspective JF - Frontiers in psychology N2 - There is robust evidence showing a link between executive function (EF) and theory of mind (ToM) in 3-to 5-year-olds. However, it is unclear whether this relationship extends to middle childhood. In addition, there has been much discussion about the nature of this relationship. Whereas some authors claim that ToM is needed for EF, others argue that ToM requires EF. To date, however, studies examining the longitudinal relationship between distinct sub components of EF [i.e., attention shifting, working memory (WM) updating, inhibition] and ToM in middle childhood are rare. The present study examined (1) the relationship between three EF subcomponents (attention shifting, WM updating, inhibition) and ToM in middle childhood, and (2) the longitudinal reciprocal relationships between the EF subcomponents and ToM across a 1-year period. EF and ToM measures were assessed experimentally in a sample of 1,657 children (aged 6-11 years) at time point one (t1) and 1 year later at time point two (t2). Results showed that the concurrent relationships between all three EF subcomponents and ToM pertained in middle childhood at t1 and t2, respectively, even when age, gender, and fluid intelligence were partialle dout. Moreover, cross-lagged structural equation modeling (again, controlling for age, gender, and fluid intelligence, as well as for the earlier levels of the target variables), revealed partial support for the view that early ToM predictslater EF, but stronger evidence for the assumption that early EF predictslater ToM. The latter was found for attention shifting and WM updating, but not for inhibition. This reveals the importance of studying the exact interplay of ToM and EF across childhood development, especially with regard to different EF subcomponents. Most likely, understanding others' mental states at different levels of perspective-taking requires specific EF subcomponents, suggesting developmental change in the relations between EF and ToM across childhood. KW - executive function KW - theory of mind KW - longitudinal KW - middle childhood KW - attention shifting KW - inhibition KW - working memory updating Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00655 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 5 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Groppe, Karoline A1 - Elsner, Birgit T1 - Executive function and food approach behavior in middle childhood JF - Frontiers in psychology N2 - Executive function (EF) has long been considered to be a unitary, domain-general cognitive ability. However, recent research suggests differentiating "hot" affective and "cool" cognitive aspects of EF. Yet, findings regarding this two-factor construct are still inconsistent. In particular, the development of this factor structure remains unclear and data on school-aged children is lacking. Furthermore, studies linking EF and overweight or obesity suggest that EF contributes to the regulation of eating behavior. So far, however, the links between EF and eating behavior have rarely been investigated in children and non-clinical populations. First, we examined whether EF can be divided into hot and cool factors or whether they actually correspond to a unitary construct in middle childhood. Second, we examined how hot and cool EF are associated with different eating styles that put children at risk of becoming overweight during development. Hot and cool EF were assessed experimentally in a non-clinical population of 1657 elementary-school children (aged 6-11 years). The "food approach" behavior was rated mainly via parent questionnaires. Findings indicate that hot EF is distinguishable from cool EF. However, only cool EF seems to represent a coherent functional entity, whereas hot EF does not seem to be a homogenous construct. This was true for a younger and an older subgroup of children. Furthermore, different EF components were correlated with eating styles, such as responsiveness to food, desire to drink, and restrained eating in girls but not in boys. This shows that lower levels of EF are not only seen in clinical populations of obese patients but are already associated with food approach styles in a normal population of elementary school-aged girls. Although the direction of effect still has to be clarified, results point to the possibility that EF constitutes a risk factor for eating styles contributing to the development of overweight in the long-term. KW - hot and cool executive function KW - eating behavior KW - food approach KW - overweight KW - middle childhood Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00447 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 5 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kuehn, Simone A1 - Elsner, Birgit A1 - Prinz, Wolfgang A1 - Brass, Marcel T1 - Busy doing nothing : evidence for nonaction-effect binding N2 - Research on voluntary action has focused on the question of how we represent our behavior on a motor and cognitive level. However, the question of how we represent voluntary not acting has been completely neglected. The aim of the present study was to investigate the cognitive and motor representation of intentionally not acting. By using an action-effect binding approach, we demonstrate similarities of action and nonaction. In particular, our results reveal that voluntary nonactions can be bound to an effect tone. This finding suggests that effect binding is not restricted to an association between a motor representation and a successive effect (action-effect binding) but can also occur for an intended nonaction and its effect (nonaction-effect binding). Moreover, we demonstrate that nonactions have to be initiated voluntarily in order to elicit nonaction-effect binding. Y1 - 2009 UR - http://pbr.psychonomic-journals.org/ U6 - https://doi.org/10.3758/Pbr.16.3.542 SN - 1069-9384 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Jeschonek, Susanna A1 - Marinovic, Vesna A1 - Hoehl, Stefanie A1 - Elsner, Birgit A1 - Pauen, Sabina T1 - Do animals and furniture items elicit different brain responses in human infants? N2 - One of the earliest categorical distinctions to be made by preverbal infants is the animate-inanimate distinction. To explore the neural basis for this distinction in 7-8-month-olds, an equal number of animal and furniture pictures was presented in an ERP-paradigm. The total of 118 pictures, all looking different from each other, were presented in a semi-randomized order for 1000 ms each. Infants' brain responses to exemplars from both categories differed systematically regarding the negative central component (Nc: 400-600 ms) at anterior channels. More specifically, the Nc was enhanced for animals in one subgroup of infants, and for furniture items in another subgroup of infants. Explorative analyses related to categorical priming further revealed category-specific differences in brain responses in the late time window (650-1550 ms) at right frontal channels: Unprimed stimuli (preceded by a different-category item) elicited a more positive response as compared to primed stimuli (preceded by a same-category item). In sum, these findings suggest that the infant's brain discriminates exemplars from both global domains. Given the design of our task, we conclude that processes of category identification are more likely to account for our findings than processes of on-line category formation during the experimental session. Y1 - 2010 SN - 0387-7604 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Elsner, Birgit T1 - Tools and goals : a social-cognition perspective on infant learning of object function Y1 - 2009 SN - 978-1-405-16217-3 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Pfeifer, Caroline A1 - Elsner, Birgit T1 - Preschoolers' encoding of rational actions - the role of task features and verbal information JF - Journal of experimental child psychology N2 - In the current study, we first investigated whether preschoolers imitate selectively across three imitation tasks. Second, we examined whether preschoolers' selective imitation is influenced by differences in the modeled actions and/or by the situational context. Finally, we investigated how verbal cues given by the model affect preschoolers' imitation. Participants (3- to 5-year-olds) watched an adult performing an unusual action in three imitation tasks (touch light, house, and obstacle). In two conditions, the model either was or was not restricted by situational constraints. In addition, the model verbalized either the goal that was to be achieved, the movement, or none of the action components. Preschoolers always acted on the objects without constraints. Results revealed differences in preschoolers' selective imitation across the tasks. In the house task, they showed the selective imitation pattern that has been interpreted as rational, imitating the unusual action more often in the no-constraint condition than in the constraint condition. In contrast, in the touch light task, preschoolers imitated the unusual head touch irrespective of the model's constraints or of the verbal cues that had been presented. Finally, in the obstacle task, children mostly emulated the observed goal irrespective of the presence of the constraint, but they increased their imitation of the unusual action when the movement had been emphasized. Overall, our data suggest that preschoolers adjust their imitative behavior to context-specific information about objects, actions, and their interpretations of the model's intention to teach something. KW - Rational imitation tasks KW - Ostensive communication KW - Verbal cues KW - Preschoolers KW - Context-specific task features KW - Social cognition Y1 - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2012.12.005 SN - 0022-0965 SN - 1096-0457 VL - 116 IS - 2 SP - 532 EP - 544 PB - Elsevier CY - San Diego ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Elsner, Birgit A1 - Jeschonek, Susanna A1 - Pauen, Sabina T1 - Event-related potentials for 7-month-olds' processing of animals and furniture items JF - Developmental cognitive neuroscience : a journal for cognitive, affective and social developmental neuroscience N2 - Event-related potentials (ERPs) to single visual stimuli were recorded in 7-month-old infants. In a three-stimulus oddball paradigm, infants watched one frequently occurring standard stimulus (either an animal or a furniture item) and two infrequently occurring oddball stimuli, presenting one exemplar from the same and one from the different super-ordinate category as compared to the standard stimulus. Additionally, visual attributes of the stimuli were controlled to investigate whether infants focus on category membership or on perceptual similarity when processing the stimuli. Infant ERPs indicated encoding of the standard stimulus and discriminating it from the two oddball stimuli by larger Nc peak amplitude and late-slow-wave activity for the infrequent stimuli. Moreover, larger Nc latency and positive-slow-wave activity indicated increased processing for the different-category as compared to the same-category oddball. Thus, 7-month-olds seem to encode single stimuli not only by surface perceptual features, but they also regard information of category membership, leading to facilitated processing of the oddball that belongs to the same domain as the standard stimulus. KW - Category identification KW - Infants (age: 7 months) KW - Event-related potentials KW - Visual stimulus processing KW - Recognition memory Y1 - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2012.09.002 SN - 1878-9293 VL - 3 IS - 1 SP - 53 EP - 60 PB - Elsevier CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Gottwald, Janna M. A1 - Elsner, Birgit A1 - Pollatos, Olga T1 - Good is up-spatial metaphors in action observation JF - Frontiers in psychology N2 - Positive objects or actions are associated with physical highness, whereas negative objects or actions are related to physical lowness. Previous research suggests that metaphorical connection ("good is up" or "bad is down") between spatial experience and evaluation of objects is grounded in actual experience with the body. Prior studies investigated effects of spatial metaphors with respect to verticality of either static objects or self-performed actions. By presenting videos of object placements, the current three experiments combined vertically-located stimuli with observation of vertically-directed actions. As expected, participants' ratings of emotionally-neutral objects were systematically influenced by the observed vertical positioning, that is, ratings were more positive for objects that were observed being placed up as compared to down. Moreover, effects were slightly more pronounced for "bad is down," because only the observed downward, but not the upward, action led to different ratings as compared to a medium-positioned action. Last, some ratings were even affected by observing only the upward/downward action, without seeing the final vertical placement of the object. Thus, both, a combination of observing a vertically-directed action and seeing a vertically-located object, and observing a vertically-directed action alone, affected participants' evaluation of emotional valence of the involved object. The present findings expand the relevance of spatial metaphors to action observation, thereby giving new impetus to embodied-cognition research. KW - embodied cognition KW - spatial metaphors KW - emotional valence KW - action observation KW - action perception Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01605 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 6 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Bondü, Rebecca A1 - Elsner, Birgit T1 - Justice Sensitivity in Childhood and Adolescence JF - Social development N2 - Individuals differ in their sensitivity toward injustice. Justice-sensitive persons perceive injustice more frequently and show stronger responses to it. Justice sensitivity has been studied predominantly in adults; little is known about its development in childhood and adolescence and its connection to prosocial behavior and emotional and behavioral problems. This study evaluates a version of the justice sensitivity inventory for children and adolescents (JSI-CA5) in 1472 9- to 17-year olds. Items and scales showed good psychometric properties and correlations with prosocial behavior and conduct problems similar to findings in adults, supporting the reliability and validity of the scale. We found individual differences in justice sensitivity as a function of age and gender. Furthermore, justice sensitivity predicted emotional and behavioral problems in children and adolescents over a 1- to 2-year period. Justice sensitivity perspectives can therefore be considered as risk and/or protective factors for mental health in childhood and adolescence. KW - justice sensitivity KW - development KW - conduct problems KW - prosocial behavior Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/sode.12098 SN - 0961-205X SN - 1467-9507 VL - 24 IS - 2 SP - 420 EP - 441 PB - Wiley-Blackwell CY - Hoboken ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kaduk, Katharina A1 - Elsner, Birgit A1 - Reid, Vincent M. T1 - Discrimination of animate and inanimate motion in 9-month-old infants - An ERP study JF - Developmental cognitive neuroscience : a journal for cognitive, affective and social developmental neuroscience N2 - Simple geometric shapes moving in a self-propelled manner, and violating Newtonian laws of motion by acting against gravitational forces tend to induce a judgement that an object is animate. Objects that change their motion only due to external causes are more likely judged as inanimate. How the developing brain is employed in the perception of animacy in early ontogeny is currently unknown. The aim of this study was to use ERP techniques to determine if the negative central component (Nc), a waveform related to attention allocation, was differentially affected when an infant observed animate or inanimate motion. Short animated movies comprising a marble moving along a marble run either in an animate or an inanimate manner were presented to 15 infants who were 9 months of age. The ERPs were time-locked to a still frame representing animate or inanimate motion that was displayed following each movie. We found that 9-month-olds are able to discriminate between animate and inanimate motion based on motion cues alone and most likely allocate more attentional resources to the inanimate motion. The present data contribute to our understanding of the animate-inanimate distinction and the Nc as a correlate of infant cognitive processing. KW - Infant KW - EEG/ERP KW - Nc KW - Attention KW - Animacy Y1 - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2013.05.003 SN - 1878-9293 SN - 1878-9307 VL - 6 IS - 5 SP - 14 EP - 22 PB - Elsevier CY - Oxford ER - TY - GEN A1 - Gottwald, Janna M. A1 - Elsner, Birgit A1 - Pollatos, Olga T1 - Good is up-spatial metaphors in action observation T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - Positive objects or actions are associated with physical highness, whereas negative objects or actions are related to physical lowness. Previous research suggests that metaphorical connection ("good is up" or "bad is down") between spatial experience and evaluation of objects is grounded in actual experience with the body. Prior studies investigated effects of spatial metaphors with respect to verticality of either static objects or self-performed actions. By presenting videos of object placements, the current three experiments combined vertically-located stimuli with observation of vertically-directed actions. As expected, participants' ratings of emotionally-neutral objects were systematically influenced by the observed vertical positioning, that is, ratings were more positive for objects that were observed being placed up as compared to down. Moreover, effects were slightly more pronounced for "bad is down," because only the observed downward, but not the upward, action led to different ratings as compared to a medium-positioned action. Last, some ratings were even affected by observing only the upward/downward action, without seeing the final vertical placement of the object. Thus, both, a combination of observing a vertically-directed action and seeing a vertically-located object, and observing a vertically-directed action alone, affected participants' evaluation of emotional valence of the involved object. The present findings expand the relevance of spatial metaphors to action observation, thereby giving new impetus to embodied-cognition research. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 422 KW - embodied cognition KW - spatial metaphors KW - emotional valence KW - action observation KW - action perception Y1 - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-406281 IS - 422 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Hommel, Bernhard A1 - Elsner, Birgit T1 - Acquisition, represention, and control of action Y1 - 2009 SN - 978-0-19-530998-0 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Elsner, Birgit A1 - Pfeifer, Caroline T1 - Movement or goal Goal salience and verbal cues affect preschoolers' imitation of action components JF - Journal of experimental child psychology N2 - The impact of goal salience and verbal cues given by the model on 3- to 5-year-olds' reproduction of action components (movement or goal) was investigated in an imitation choice task. Preschoolers watched an experimenter moving a puppet up or down a ramp, terminating at one of two target objects. The target objects were either differently colored plastic bowls (low-salient group) or sociofunctionally relevant objects (high-salient group). While demonstrating the action in several trials, the model verbalized either the movement, the goal, both the movement and the goal, or none of the components. Children imitated the action on a second ramp with reversed positions of the target objects, so they needed to decide whether to reproduce the observed movement or the observed end state. In the high-salient group, preschoolers preferentially imitated the goal component, whereas in the low-salient group, they did not show a preference for one of the components. Across trials, preschoolers preferentially imitated the goal when this component or both components were verbalized, whereas they showed no preference when the movement or none of the components was emphasized. Yet, verbal cues seemed to have stronger effects in the low-salient condition. We conclude that sociofunctional salience of action goals and communicative cues of the model affect young children's representation of observed actions, leading to a selective reproduction of those action components that are relevant to the child. KW - Imitation KW - Verbal cues KW - Goal salience KW - Preschoolers KW - Early social cognition KW - Action representation Y1 - 2012 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2012.02.010 SN - 0022-0965 VL - 112 IS - 3 SP - 283 EP - 295 PB - Elsevier CY - San Diego ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Elsner, Birgit A1 - Schellhas, Bernd T1 - The acquisition of flexible tool use in preschoolers the impact of prior experience JF - Zeitschrift für Psychologie = Journal of psychology N2 - To investigate how preschoolers acquire a tool use strategy and how they adapt their tool use to a changed situation, 2- to 4-year-olds were asked to retrieve chips from a transparent box with a rod, either by stabbing and lifting through a top opening or by pushing through a front and a back opening. In both conditions, about 40% of the children acquired effective tool use by individual learning, and 90% of the other children learned this by observing only one demonstration. When confronted with a changed situation (i.e., previous opening covered, alternative opening uncovered), children perseverated with the recently learned, but now ineffective tool use strategy. Neither age nor acquisition type of the first strategy affected preschoolers' perseverations. Results indicate that prior tool use experiences have differential effects in situations that require either transferring known functions to novel objects or using a familiar tool for an alternative purpose. KW - tool use KW - preschoolers (2-4 years) KW - learning KW - transfer KW - action planning Y1 - 2012 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1027/2151-2604/a000090 SN - 2190-8370 VL - 220 IS - 1 SP - 44 EP - 49 PB - Hogrefe CY - Göttingen ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Groppe, Karoline A1 - Elsner, Birgit T1 - The influence of hot and cool executive function on the development of eating styles related to overweight in children JF - Appetite : multidisciplinary research on eating and drinking N2 - Studies linking executive function (EF) and overweight suggest that a broad range of executive functions might influence weight via obesity-related behaviors, such as particular eating styles. Currently, however, longitudinal studies investigating this assumption in children are rare. We hypothesized that lower hot and cool EF predicts a stronger increase in eating styles related to greater weight gain (food approach) and a weaker increase in eating styles related to less weight gain (food avoidance) over a 1-year period. Hot (delay of gratification, affective decision-making) and cool (attention shifting, inhibition, working memory updating) EF was assessed experimentally in a sample of 1657 elementary-school children (German school classes 1-3) at two time points, approximately one year apart. The children's food-approach and food-avoidance behavior was rated mainly via parent questionnaires at both time points. As expected, lower levels of hot and cool EF predicted a stronger increase in several food-approach eating styles across a 1-year period, mainly in girls. Unexpectedly, poorer performance on the affective decision-making task also predicted an increase in certain food-avoidance styles, namely, slowness in eating and satiety responsiveness, in girls. Results implicate that lower EF is not only seen in eating-disordered or obese individuals but also acts as a risk factor for an increase in particular eating styles that play a role in the development of weight problems in children. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. KW - Hot/cool executive function KW - Development of eating behavior KW - Food approach KW - Food avoidance KW - Overweight KW - Middle childhood Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2014.12.203 SN - 0195-6663 SN - 1095-8304 VL - 87 SP - 127 EP - 136 PB - Elsevier CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Elsner, Birgit A1 - Pfeifer, Caroline A1 - Parker, Charlene A1 - Hauf, Petra T1 - Infants' perception of actions and situational constraints - an eye-tracking study JF - Journal of experimental child psychology N2 - Rational action understanding requires that infants evaluate the efficiency of a movement in achieving a goal with respect to situational constraints. In contrast, recent accounts have highlighted the impact of perceptual characteristics of the demonstrated movement or constraints to explain infants' behavior in so-called rational imitation tasks. The current study employed eye tracking to investigate how 13- to 15-month-old infants distribute their visual attention to different aspects of an action demonstration. In three tasks (touchlight, house, and obstacle), infants watched videos in which a model performed an unusual action while she was or was not restricted by situational constraints. Infants' overall looking to the demonstration as well as looking to four segments of the video (initial segment, constraint demonstration, action performance, and final segment) and to specific areas (constraint area of interest [AOI] and action AOI) was analyzed. Overall, infants looked longer at the demonstration in the constraint condition compared with the no-constraint condition. The condition differences occurred in the two video segments where the constraint or action was displayed and were especially profound for the constraint AOI. These findings indicate that infants processed the situational constraints. However, the pattern of condition differences varied slightly in the three tasks. In sum, the data imply that infants process perceptual characteristics of the movement or constraints and that low-level perceptual processes interact with higher level cognitive processes in infants' action perception. KW - Eye tracking KW - Infant action processing KW - 13-to 15-month-old infants KW - Visual attention KW - Rational action understanding KW - Motor resonance account Y1 - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2012.11.014 SN - 0022-0965 SN - 1096-0457 VL - 116 IS - 2 SP - 428 EP - 442 PB - Elsevier CY - San Diego ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Patzwald, Christiane A1 - Elsner, Birgit T1 - Do as I say - or as I do?! BT - How 18-and 24-month-olds integrate words and actions to infer intentions in situations of match or mismatch JF - Infant behavior & development : an international and interdisciplinary journal N2 - Infants use behavioral and verbal cues to infer another person’s action intention. However, it is still unclear how infants integrate these often co-occurring cues depending on the cues’ coherence (i.e., the degree to which the cues provide coherent information about another’s intention). This study investigated how 18- and 24-month-olds’ (N = 88 per age group) action selection was influenced by varying the coherence of a model’s verbal and behavioral cues. Using a between-subjects design, infants received six trials with different stimulus objects. In the conditions Congruent, Incongruent, and Failed-attempt, the model uttered a telic verb particle that was followed by a matching or contradicting goal-directed action demonstration, or by a non goal-directed slipping motion, respectively. In the condition Pseudo-word, a nonsense word was combined with a goal-directed action demonstration. Infants’ action selection indicated an adherence to the verbal cue in Congruent, Incongruent, and Failed-attempt, and this was stronger in 24- than 18-month-olds. Additionally, in Incongruent and Failed-attempt, patterns of cue integration across the six trials varied in the two age groups. Regarding the behavioral cue, infants in Congruent and Pseudo-word preferentially followed this cue in both age groups, which also suggested a rather unspecific effect of the verbal cue in Congruent. Relatively longer first action-latencies in Incongruent and Failed-attempt implied that these types of coherence elicited higher cognitive demands than in Congruent and Pseudo-word. Results are discussed in light of infants’ flexibility in using social cues, depending on the cue’s coherence and on age-related social-cognitive differences. KW - Social cues KW - Social learning KW - Infancy KW - Action KW - Verbs KW - Imitation Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infbeh.2019.03.004 SN - 0163-6383 SN - 1879-0453 VL - 55 SP - 46 EP - 57 PB - Elsevier CY - New York ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Groppe, Karoline A1 - Elsner, Birgit T1 - Executive function and weight status in children BT - a one-year longitudinal perspective JF - Child neuropsychology : a journal on normal and abnormal development in childhood and adolescence N2 - There is considerable evidence for an association between obesity and impaired executive function (EF) in adolescents and adults. However, little research has examined EF in overweight or obese children. Furthermore, data on EF in underweight individuals is lacking. In addition, there is no consensus on the directionality of the relationship between Body Mass Index (BMI) and EF, and longitudinal studies are rare. Thus, the present study examined whether children differ in their performance on a battery of EF tasks depending on their weight status (underweight, normal-weight, overweight), and investigated the longitudinal cross-lagged associations between EF and BMI. Hot EF (delay of gratification, affective decision-making), cool EF (attention shifting, inhibition, working memory [WM] updating), and BMI were assessed in 1,657 German elementary-school children at two time points, approximately one year apart. Overweight children exhibited slightly poorer attention shifting, WM updating, and affective decision-making abilities as compared to normal-weight children. Unexpectedly, they did not show any deficits in inhibition or delay of gratification. EF levels of underweight children did not differ significantly from those of normal-weight children. Furthermore, poor attention shifting and enhanced affective decision-making predicted a slightly higher BMI one year later, and a higher BMI also predicted poorer attention shifting and WM updating one year later. The latter association between BMI and subsequent EF scores, however, diminished when controlling for socioeconomic status. Results indicate that hot and cool EF plays a role in the weight development of children, and might be a promising factor to address in preventive interventions. KW - Hot and cool executive function KW - Overweight KW - Underweight KW - Middle childhood KW - Longitudinal Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/09297049.2015.1089981 SN - 0929-7049 SN - 1744-4136 VL - 23 IS - 2 SP - 129 EP - 147 PB - Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group CY - Abingdon ER - TY - GEN A1 - Hilton, Matt A1 - Räling, Romy A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell A1 - Elsner, Birgit T1 - Parallels in Processing Boundary Cues in Speech and Action T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - Speech and action sequences are continuous streams of information that can be segmented into sub-units. In both domains, this segmentation can be facilitated by perceptual cues contained within the information stream. In speech, prosodic cues (e.g., a pause, pre-boundary lengthening, and pitch rise) mark boundaries between words and phrases, while boundaries between actions of an action sequence can be marked by kinematic cues (e.g., a pause, pre-boundary deceleration). The processing of prosodic boundary cues evokes an Event-related Potentials (ERP) component known as the Closure Positive Shift (CPS), and it is possible that the CPS reflects domaingeneral cognitive processes involved in segmentation, given that the CPS is also evoked by boundaries between subunits of non-speech auditory stimuli. This study further probed the domain-generality of the CPS and its underlying processes by investigating electrophysiological correlates of the processing of boundary cues in sequences of spoken verbs (auditory stimuli; Experiment 1; N = 23 adults) and actions (visual stimuli; Experiment 2; N = 23 adults). The EEG data from both experiments revealed a CPS-like broadly distributed positivity during the 250 ms prior to the onset of the post-boundary word or action, indicating similar electrophysiological correlates of boundary processing across domains, suggesting that the cognitive processes underlying speech and action segmentation might also be shared. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 579 KW - Closure Positive Shift (CPS) KW - Event-related Potentials (ERP) KW - speech segmentation KW - action segmentation KW - prosodic boundary cues KW - prosody processing KW - kinematic boundary cues KW - action processing Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-437975 SN - 1866-8364 IS - 579 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Lensing, Johanna Nele A1 - Elsner, Birgit T1 - Development of hot and cool executive functions in middle childhood BT - Three-year growth curves of decision making and working memory updating JF - Journal of experimental child psychology N2 - Although middle childhood is an important period for the development of hot and cool executive functions (EFs), longitudinal studies investigating trajectories of childhood EF development are still limited and little is known about predictors for individual developmental trajectories. The current study examined the development of two typical facets of cool and hot EFs over a 3-year period during middle childhood, comparing a younger cohort (6- and 7-year-olds at the first wave [T1]; n = 621) and an older cohort (8- and 9-year olds at T1; n = 975) of children. "Cool" working memory updating (WM) was assessed using a backward digit span task, and "hot" decision making (DM) was assessed using a child variant of the Iowa Gambling Task. Linear latent growth curve analyses revealed evidence for developmental growth as well as interindividual variance in the initial level and rate of change in both EF facets. Initial level of WM was positively associated with age (both between and within cohorts), socioeconomic status, verbal ability, and processing speed, whereas initial levels of DM were, in addition to a (potentially age-related) cohort effect, exclusively predicted by gender, with boys outperforming girls. None of the variables predicted the rate of change, that is, the developmental trajectories. However, younger children, as compared with older children, had slightly steeper WM growth curves over time, hinting at a leveling off in the development of WM during middle childhood. In sum, these data add important evidence to the understanding of hot and cool EF development during middle childhood. (C) 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. KW - Cognitive development KW - Middle childhood KW - Hot and cool executive functioning KW - Working memory updating KW - Decision making KW - Growth curve models Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2018.04.002 SN - 0022-0965 SN - 1096-0457 VL - 173 SP - 187 EP - 204 PB - Elsevier CY - New York ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Patzwald, Christiane A1 - Curley, Charlotte A. A1 - Hauf, Petra A1 - Elsner, Birgit T1 - Differential effects of others' emotional cues on 18-month-olds' preferential reproduction of observed actions JF - Infant behavior & development : an international and interdisciplinary journal N2 - Infants use others' emotional signals to regulate their own object-directed behavior and action reproduction, and they typically produce more actions after having observed positive as compared to negative emotional cues. This study explored infants' understanding of the referential specificity of others' emotional cues when being confronted with two actions that are accompanied by different emotional displays. Selective action reproduction was measured after 18-month-olds (N = 42) had observed two actions directed at the same object, one of which was modeled with a positive emotional expression and the other with a negative emotional expression. Across four trials with different objects, infants' first actions matched the positively-emoted actions more often than the negatively-emoted actions. In comparison with baseline-level, infants' initial performance changed only for the positively-emoted actions, in that it increased during test. Latencies to first object-touch during test did not differ when infants reproduced the positively- or negatively-emoted actions, respectively, indicating that infants related the cues to the respective actions rather than to the object. During demonstration, infants looked relatively longer at the object than at the model's face, with no difference in positive or negative displays. Infants during their second year of life thus capture the action-related referential specificity of others' emotional cues and seem to follow positive signals more readily when actively selecting which of two actions to reproduce preferentially. KW - Emotion KW - Action KW - Infancy KW - Social cues KW - Social learning Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infbeh.2018.04.002 SN - 0163-6383 SN - 1879-0453 VL - 51 SP - 60 EP - 70 PB - Elsevier CY - New York ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Hilton, Matthew A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell A1 - Elsner, Birgit T1 - Kinematic boundary cues modulate 12-month-old infants’ segmentation of action sequences BT - an ERP study JF - Neuropsychologia : an international journal in behavioural and cognitive neuroscience N2 - Human infants can segment action sequences into their constituent actions already during the first year of life. However, work to date has almost exclusively examined the role of infants' conceptual knowledge of actions and their outcomes in driving this segmentation. The present study examined electrophysiological correlates of infants' processing of lower-level perceptual cues that signal a boundary between two actions of an action sequence. Specifically, we tested the effect of kinematic boundary cues (pre-boundary lengthening and pause) on 12-month-old infants' (N = 27) processing of a sequence of three arbitrary actions, performed by an animated figure. Using the Event-Related Potential (ERP) approach, evidence of a positivity following the onset of the boundary cues was found, in line with previous work that has found an ERP positivity (Closure Positive Shift, CPS) related to boundary processing in auditory stimuli and action sequences in adults. Moreover, an ERP negativity (Negative Central, Nc) indicated that infants' encoding of the post-boundary action was modulated by the presence or absence of prior boundary cues. We therefore conclude that 12-month-old infants are sensitive to lower-level perceptual kinematic boundary cues, which can support segmentation of a continuous stream of movement into individual action units. KW - Action segmentation KW - Kinematic boundary processing KW - ERPs KW - Boundary cues Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2021.107916 SN - 0028-3932 SN - 1873-3514 VL - 159 PB - Elsevier CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Hilton, Matt A1 - Räling, Romy A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell A1 - Elsner, Birgit T1 - Parallels in Processing Boundary Cues in Speech and Action JF - Frontiers in Psychology N2 - Speech and action sequences are continuous streams of information that can be segmented into sub-units. In both domains, this segmentation can be facilitated by perceptual cues contained within the information stream. In speech, prosodic cues (e.g., a pause, pre-boundary lengthening, and pitch rise) mark boundaries between words and phrases, while boundaries between actions of an action sequence can be marked by kinematic cues (e.g., a pause, pre-boundary deceleration). The processing of prosodic boundary cues evokes an Event-related Potentials (ERP) component known as the Closure Positive Shift (CPS), and it is possible that the CPS reflects domaingeneral cognitive processes involved in segmentation, given that the CPS is also evoked by boundaries between subunits of non-speech auditory stimuli. This study further probed the domain-generality of the CPS and its underlying processes by investigating electrophysiological correlates of the processing of boundary cues in sequences of spoken verbs (auditory stimuli; Experiment 1; N = 23 adults) and actions (visual stimuli; Experiment 2; N = 23 adults). The EEG data from both experiments revealed a CPS-like broadly distributed positivity during the 250 ms prior to the onset of the post-boundary word or action, indicating similar electrophysiological correlates of boundary processing across domains, suggesting that the cognitive processes underlying speech and action segmentation might also be shared. KW - Closure Positive Shift (CPS) KW - Event-related Potentials (ERP) KW - speech segmentation KW - action segmentation KW - prosodic boundary cues KW - prosody processing KW - kinematic boundary cues KW - action processing Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01566 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 10 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Bondü, Rebecca A1 - Hannuschke, Marianne A1 - Elsner, Birgit A1 - Gollwitzer, Mario T1 - Inter-individual stabilization of justice sensitivity in childhood and adolescence JF - Journal of research in personality KW - Justice sensitivity KW - Stabilization KW - Latent-state-trait modeling KW - Childhood KW - Adolescence Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2016.06.021 SN - 0092-6566 SN - 1095-7251 VL - 64 SP - 11 EP - 20 PB - Elsevier CY - San Diego ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Lensing, Johanna Nele A1 - Elsner, Birgit T1 - Cool executive functioning predicts not only mean levels but also individual 3-year growth trajectories of zBMI in elementary-school children JF - International Journal of Behavioral Development N2 - Executive functions (EFs) may help children to regulate their food-intake in an “obesogenic” environment, where energy-dense food is easily available. There is mounting evidence that overweight is associated with diminished hot and cool EFs, and several longitudinal studies found evidence for a predictive effect of hot EFs on children’s bodyweight, but longitudinal research examining the effect of cool EF on weight development in children is still scarce. The current 3-year longitudinal study examined the effect of a latent cool EF factor, which was based on three behavioral EF tasks, on subsequent mean levels and 3-year growth trajectories of body-mass-index z-scores (zBMI). Data from a large sample of children, with zBMI ranging from normal weight to obesity (n = 1474, aged 6–11 years at T1, 52% girls) was analyzed using structural-equation modeling and linear latent growth-curve modeling. Cool EF at the first wave (T1) negatively predicted subsequent zBMI and zBMI development throughout the 3-year period in middle childhood such that children with better EF had a lower zBMI and less steep zBMI growth. These effects were not moderated by the children’s age or gender. In conclusion, as early as in middle childhood, cool EFs seem to support the self-regulation of food-intake and consequently may play a causal role in the multifactorial etiology of overweight. KW - BMI development KW - zBMI KW - middle childhood KW - cool executive functioning KW - self-regulation KW - longitudinal KW - growth-curve model Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1177/0165025419833818 SN - 0165-0254 SN - 1464-0651 VL - 43 IS - 4 SP - 351 EP - 362 PB - Sage Publ. CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schönebeck, Maria A1 - Elsner, Birgit T1 - ERPs reveal perceptual and conceptual processing in 14-month-olds' observation of complete and incomplete action end-states JF - Neuropsychologia : an international journal in behavioural and cognitive neuroscience N2 - Infants in the second year of life not only detect the visible goals or end-states of other people's action, but they also seem to be able to infer others’ underlying intentions. The present study used event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate the biological basis of infants’ processing of others’ goal-directed actions, with special regard to the involvement of bottom-up perceptual and top-down conceptual processes. In an adaptation of the behavioral re-enactment procedure, 14-month-olds were first familiarized with either full demonstrations (FD), failed attempts (FA), or arbitrary (AA) object-directed actions. Next, ERPs were measured while all infants saw the same two pictures of the end-states of the full demonstration (complete end-state) and the failed attempt (incomplete end-state). In the time-windows related to perceptual processing (100–200 ms after stimulus onset) and to conceptual processing (300–700 ms), ERP negativity over frontal and central regions was higher for the complete than for the incomplete end-state in the FD and FA conditions. When comparing the FA and AA conditions, this pattern of results occurred only for the conceptual time domain. Moreover, beginning slow-wave activity (700–1000 ms) differed for the end-state pictures in the three conditions, suggesting differential encoding demands. Together, the electrophysiological data indicate that infants in the second year of life use bottom-up perceptual as well as top-down conceptual processing to give meaning to others' goal-directed actions. KW - Event-related potentials (ERPs) KW - Infancy KW - Re-enactment task KW - Action processing KW - Failed actions KW - Action end-state Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2017.10.026 SN - 0028-3932 SN - 1873-3514 VL - 126 SP - 102 EP - 112 PB - Elsevier CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Patzwald, Christiane A1 - Matthes, Daniel A1 - Elsner, Birgit T1 - Eighteen-month-olds integrate verbal cues into their action processing BT - evidence from ERPs and mu power JF - Infant behavior & development : an international and interdisciplinary journal N2 - Behavioral research has shown that infants use both behavioral cues and verbal cues when processing the goals of others' actions. For instance, 18-month-olds selectively imitate an observed goal-directed action depending on its (in)congruence with a model's previous verbal announcement of a desired action goal. This EEG-study analyzed the electrophysiological underpinnings of these behavioral findings on the two functional levels of conceptual action processing and motor activation. Mid-latency mean negative ERP amplitude and mu-frequency band power were analyzed while 18-month-olds (N = 38) watched videos of an adult who performed one out of two potential actions on a novel object. In a within-subjects design, the action demonstration was preceded by either a congruent or an incongruent verbally announced action goal (e.g., "up" or "down" and upward movement). Overall, ERP negativity did not differ between conditions, but a closer inspection revealed that in two subgroups, about half of the infants showed a broadly distributed increased mid-latency ERP negativity (indicating enhanced conceptual action processing) for either the congruent or the incongruent stimuli, respectively. As expected, mu power at sensorimotor sites was reduced (indicating enhanced motor activation) for congruent relative to incongruent stimuli in the entire sample. Both EEG correlates were related to infants' language skills. Hence, 18-month-olds integrate action-goal-related verbal cues into their processing of others' actions, at the functional levels of both conceptual processing and motor activation. Further, cue integration when inferring others' action goals is related to infants' language proficiency. KW - EEG KW - infancy KW - social cues KW - verbs KW - action processing KW - social learning KW - event-related potentials (ERPs) KW - Mu power KW - motor activation Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infbeh.2019.101414 SN - 0163-6383 SN - 1879-0453 VL - 58 PB - Elsevier CY - New York ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Austin, Gina A1 - Bondü, Rebecca A1 - Elsner, Birgit T1 - Executive function, theory of mind, and conduct-problem symptoms in middle childhood JF - Frontiers in psychology N2 - Studies show relations between executive function (EF), Theory of Mind (ToM), and conduct-problem (CP) symptoms. However, many studies have involved cross-sectional data, small clinical samples, pre-school children, and/or did not consider potential mediation effects. The present study examined the longitudinal relations between EF, ToM abilities, and CP symptoms in a population-based sample of 1,657 children between 6 and 11 years (T1: M = 8.3 years, T2: M = 9.1 years; 51.9% girls). We assessed EF skills and ToM abilities via computerized tasks at first measurement (T1), CP symptoms were rated via parent questionnaires at T1 and approximately 1 year later (T2). Structural-equation models showed a negative relation between T1 EF and T2 CP symptoms even when controlling for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms and other variables. This relation was fully mediated by T1 ToM abilities. The study shows how children's abilities to control their thoughts and behaviors and to understand others' mental states interact in the development of CP symptoms. KW - executive functions KW - theory of mind KW - conduct-problem symptoms KW - middle KW - childhood KW - longitudinal Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00539 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 11 PB - Frontiers Media CY - Lausanne ER - TY - GEN A1 - Rohlf, Helena L. A1 - Holl, Anna K. A1 - Kirsch, Fabian A1 - Krahé, Barbara A1 - Elsner, Birgit T1 - Longitudinal Links between Executive Function, Anger, and Aggression in Middle Childhood T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - Previous research has indicated that executive function (EF) is negatively associated with aggressive behavior in childhood. However, there is a lack of longitudinal studies that have examined the effect of deficits in EF on aggression over time and taken into account different forms and functions of aggression at the same time. Furthermore, only few studies have analyzed the role of underlying variables that may explain the association between EF and aggression. The present study examined the prospective paths between EF and different forms (physical and relational) and functions (reactive and proactive) of aggression. The habitual experience of anger was examined as a potential underlying mechanism of the link between EF and aggression, because the tendency to get angry easily has been found to be both a consequence of deficits in EF and a predictor of aggression. The study included 1,652 children (between 6 and 11 years old at the first time point), who were followed over three time points (T1, T2, and T3) covering 3 years. At T1, a latent factor of EF comprised measures of planning, rated via teacher reports, as well as inhibition, set shifting, and working-memory updating, assessed experimentally. Habitual anger experience was assessed via parent reports at T1 and T2. The forms and functions of aggression were measured via teacher reports at all three time points. Structural equation modeling revealed that EF at T1 predicted physical, relational, and reactive aggression at T3, but was unrelated to proactive aggression at T3. Furthermore, EF at T1 was indirectly linked to physical aggression at T3, mediated through habitual anger experience at T2. The results indicate that deficits in EF influence the later occurrence of aggression in middle childhood, and the tendency to get angry easily mediates this relation. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 382 KW - executive function KW - anger KW - relational aggression KW - reactive aggression KW - proactive aggression KW - childhood KW - longitudinal study Y1 - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-409471 IS - 382 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Rohlf, Helena L. A1 - Holl, Anna K. A1 - Kirsch, Fabian A1 - Krahé, Barbara A1 - Elsner, Birgit T1 - Longitudinal Links between Executive Function, Anger, and Aggression in Middle Childhood JF - Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience N2 - Previous research has indicated that executive function (EF) is negatively associated with aggressive behavior in childhood. However, there is a lack of longitudinal studies that have examined the effect of deficits in EF on aggression over time and taken into account different forms and functions of aggression at the same time. Furthermore, only few studies have analyzed the role of underlying variables that may explain the association between EF and aggression. The present study examined the prospective paths between EF and different forms (physical and relational) and functions (reactive and proactive) of aggression. The habitual experience of anger was examined as a potential underlying mechanism of the link between EF and aggression, because the tendency to get angry easily has been found to be both a consequence of deficits in EF and a predictor of aggression. The study included 1,652 children (between 6 and 11 years old at the first time point), who were followed over three time points (T1, T2, and T3) covering 3 years. At T1, a latent factor of EF comprised measures of planning, rated via teacher reports, as well as inhibition, set shifting, and working-memory updating, assessed experimentally. Habitual anger experience was assessed via parent reports at T1 and T2. The forms and functions of aggression were measured via teacher reports at all three time points. Structural equation modeling revealed that EF at T1 predicted physical, relational, and reactive aggression at T3, but was unrelated to proactive aggression at T3. Furthermore, EF at T1 was indirectly linked to physical aggression at T3, mediated through habitual anger experience at T2. The results indicate that deficits in EF influence the later occurrence of aggression in middle childhood, and the tendency to get angry easily mediates this relation. KW - executive function KW - anger KW - relational aggression KW - reactive aggression KW - proactive aggression KW - childhood KW - longitudinal study Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2018.00027 SN - 1662-5153 VL - 12 IS - 27 SP - 1 EP - 14 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Meixner, Johannes M. A1 - Warner, Greta J. A1 - Lensing, Johanna Nele A1 - Schiefele, Ulrich A1 - Elsner, Birgit T1 - The relation between executive functions and reading comprehension in primary-school students BT - a cross-lagged-panel analysis JF - Early Childhood Research Quarterly N2 - Higher-order cognitive skills are necessary prerequisites for reading and understanding words, sentences and texts. In particular, research on executive functions in the cognitive domain has shown that good executive functioning in children is positively related to reading comprehension skills and that deficits in executive functioning are related to difficulties with reading comprehension. However, developmental research on literacy and self-regulation in the early school years suggests that the relation between higher-order cognitive skills and reading might not be unidirectional, but mutually interdependent in nature. Therefore, the present longitudinal study explored the bidirectional relations between executive functions and reading comprehension during primary school across a 1-year period. At two time points (T1, T2), we assessed reading comprehension at the word, sentence, and text levels as well as three components of executive functioning, that is, updating, inhibition, and attention shifting. The sample consisted of three sequential cohorts of German primary school students (N = 1657) starting in first, second, and third grade respectively (aged 6-11 years at T1). Using a latent cross-lagged-panel design, we found bidirectional longitudinal relations between executive functions and reading comprehension for second and third graders. However, for first graders, only the path from executive functioning at T1 to reading comprehension at T2 attained significance. Succeeding analyses revealed updating as the crucial component of the effect from executive functioning on later reading comprehension, whereas text reading comprehension was most predictive of later executive functioning. The potential processes underlying the observed bidirectional relations are discussed with respect to developmental changes in reading comprehension across the primary years. KW - Reading Comprehension KW - Executive Functions KW - Longitudinal Study KW - Latent Variable Analysis KW - Cross-Lagged-Panel Design KW - Bidirectional Relations Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2018.04.010 SN - 0885-2006 SN - 1873-7706 VL - 46 SP - 62 EP - 74 PB - Elsevier CY - New York ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zimmermann, Matthias A1 - Horn-Conrad, Antje A1 - Scholz, Jana A1 - Elsner, Birgit A1 - Schubarth, Wilfried A1 - Engel, Silke A1 - Blaum, Niels A1 - Rößling, Claudia A1 - Mikulla, Stefanie T1 - Portal - Spezial 2020: Corona BT - Das Potsdamer Universitätsmagazin N2 - Corona. Schon mal gehört? Noch Weihnachten 2019 hätten viele ahnungslos geantwortet: „Nö.“ Besser Informierte hätten zurückgefragt: „Meinst du die Korona – den Hof um die Sonne?“ Und ganz Schlaue hätten gesagt: „Klar, trink ich gern.“ Doch spätestens seit Februar beherrscht das Virus die Nachrichten, seit März auch unser Leben. Nach und nach mussten wir alle lernen, uns (wieder) richtig die Hände zu waschen und die „Niesetikette“ zu befolgen, Abstand zu halten, zu Hause zu arbeiten oder zu lernen, Masken zu tragen oder gar zu nähen – und überhaupt: uns mit dem Ausnahmezustand, der zum Dauerzustand zu werden droht, zu arrangieren. Aber wie macht das eine ganze Universität – mit 21.000 Studierenden, mehr als 4.500 Beschäftigten, Tausenden Kursen, Praktika, Prüfungen und Forschungsprojekten? Wie hält man einen Tanker an – in voller Fahrt – und rüstet ihn um für einen pandemiesicheren Betrieb? Die zurückliegenden Wochen haben gezeigt: Es geht. Inzwischen läuft mit dem Sommersemester 2020 das erste Online-Semester der Hochschulgeschichte. Auch das hätte Ende 2019 niemand für möglich gehalten, schon gar nicht so bald. Das Referat für Presse- und Öffentlichkeitsarbeit musste wie alle Unibereiche lernen, mit den ungewöhnlichen Umständen umzugehen, die mal bedrohlich, mal lästig, mal ermüdend und mal eben einfach nur umständlich wirkten. Wir haben uns bemüht, so gut es ging, zu informieren – darüber was sich tat, was getan werden musste und konnte. Und was kommt. Doch wir wollten noch mehr wissen: Was sagen die Potsdamer Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftler zur Corona- Pandemie, ihren Auswirkungen und Folgen, aber auch dazu, was sich dagegen tun lässt? Wie genau funktioniert eine Universität unter den besonderen Umständen? Wie wird gearbeitet, studiert, geforscht? Wie verlagert man ein ganzes Semester in den Online-Betrieb? Auf der Suche nach Antworten auf diese und viele weitere Fragen ist eine Vielzahl von Texten entstanden, die wir nach und nach auf der Webseite der UP veröffentlicht haben als „Beiträge aus der Universität Potsdam zur Corona-Pandemie“.* Eine gekürzte Auswahl dieser Texte haben wir für diese „Portal Spezial“ zusammengestellt. Nicht, weil wir über nichts anderes als den Corona-Virus mehr reden wollen, sondern weil wir dokumentieren wollen, dass die Universität Potsdam durch die Pandemie keineswegs in einen Dornröschenschlaf versetzt wurde. Vielmehr entstanden durch das Engagement vieler Forschender, Studierender und Beschäftigter zahlreiche Initiativen, Ideen, Projekte, Strukturen und Neuerungen, die zeigen: Die Universität Potsdam lässt sich nicht unterkriegen! Deshalb hoffen wir, dass die Lektüre des Heftes Ihnen trotz der weiterhin herausfordernden Umstände Freude und Mut macht. (Die Texte entstanden alle im März/April 2020, als viele Entwicklungen noch am Anfang standen und ihr Verlauf nicht absehbar war. Wir haben sie dennoch unverändert aufgenommen, um diese Phase und die Reaktion der Wissenschaft darauf zu dokumentieren.) T3 - Portal: Das Potsdamer Universitätsmagazin - Spezial 2020 Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-481430 SN - 1618-6893 IS - Spezial 2020 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Holl, Anna Katharina A1 - Kirsch, Fabian A1 - Rohlf, Helena L. A1 - Krahe, Barbara A1 - Elsner, Birgit T1 - Longitudinal reciprocity between theory of mind and aggression in middle childhood JF - International Journal of Behavioral Development N2 - Theory of mind is one of the most important cognitive factors in social information-processing, and deficits in theory of mind have been linked to aggressive behavior in childhood. The present longitudinal study investigated reciprocal links between theory of mind and two forms of aggression – physical and relational – in middle childhood with three data waves over 3 years. Theory of mind was assessed by participants’ responses to cartoons, and physical and relational aggression were assessed through teacher reports in a community sample of 1657 children (mean age at Time 1: 8 years). Structural equation modeling analyses showed that theory of mind was a negative predictor of subsequent physical and relational aggression, both from Time 1 to Time 2 as well as from Time 2 to Time 3. Moreover, relational aggression was a negative predictor of theory of mind from Time 1 to Time 2. There were no significant gender or age differences in the tested pathways. The results suggest that reciprocal and negative longitudinal relations exist between children’s theory of mind and aggressive behavior. Our study extends current knowledge about the development of such relations across middle childhood. KW - Aggressive behavior KW - theory of mind KW - middle childhood KW - longitudinal study KW - relational aggression KW - physical aggression Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1177/0165025417727875 SN - 0165-0254 SN - 1464-0651 VL - 42 IS - 2 SP - 257 EP - 266 PB - Sage Publ. CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Gumbsch, Christian A1 - Adam, Maurits A1 - Elsner, Birgit A1 - Butz, Martin V. T1 - Emergent goal-anticipatory gaze in infants via event-predictive learning and inference JF - Cognitive science N2 - From about 7 months of age onward, infants start to reliably fixate the goal of an observed action, such as a grasp, before the action is complete. The available research has identified a variety of factors that influence such goal-anticipatory gaze shifts, including the experience with the shown action events and familiarity with the observed agents. However, the underlying cognitive processes are still heavily debated. We propose that our minds (i) tend to structure sensorimotor dynamics into probabilistic, generative event-predictive, and event boundary predictive models, and, meanwhile, (ii) choose actions with the objective to minimize predicted uncertainty. We implement this proposition by means of event-predictive learning and active inference. The implemented learning mechanism induces an inductive, event-predictive bias, thus developing schematic encodings of experienced events and event boundaries. The implemented active inference principle chooses actions by aiming at minimizing expected future uncertainty. We train our system on multiple object-manipulation events. As a result, the generation of goal-anticipatory gaze shifts emerges while learning about object manipulations: the model starts fixating the inferred goal already at the start of an observed event after having sampled some experience with possible events and when a familiar agent (i.e., a hand) is involved. Meanwhile, the model keeps reactively tracking an unfamiliar agent (i.e., a mechanical claw) that is performing the same movement. We qualitatively compare these modeling results to behavioral data of infants and conclude that event-predictive learning combined with active inference may be critical for eliciting goal-anticipatory gaze behavior in infants. KW - Infancy KW - Goal-anticipatory gaze KW - Computational model KW - Event cognition KW - Active inference Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.13016 SN - 1551-6709 VL - 45 IS - 8 PB - Wiley-Blackwell CY - Malden, Mass. ER - TY - GEN A1 - Elsner, Birgit A1 - Adam, Maurits T1 - Infants' goal prediction for simple action events BT - the role of experience and agency cues T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - Looking times and gaze behavior indicate that infants can predict the goal state of an observed simple action event (e.g., object-directed grasping) already in the first year of life. The present paper mainly focuses on infants' predictive gaze-shifts toward the goal of an ongoing action. For this, infants need to generate a forward model of the to-be-obtained goal state and to disengage their gaze from the moving agent at a time when information about the action event is still incomplete. By about 6 months of age, infants show goal-predictive gaze-shifts, but mainly for familiar actions that they can perform themselves (e.g., grasping) and for familiar agents (e.g., a human hand). Therefore, some theoretical models have highlighted close relations between infants' ability for action-goal prediction and their motor development and/or emerging action experience. Recent research indicates that infants can also predict action goals of familiar simple actions performed by non-human agents (e.g., object-directed grasping by a mechanical claw) when these agents display agency cues, such as self-propelled movement, equifinality of goal approach, or production of a salient action effect. This paper provides a review on relevant findings and theoretical models, and proposes that the impacts of action experience and of agency cues can be explained from an action-event perspective. In particular, infants' goal-predictive gaze-shifts are seen as resulting from an interplay between bottom-up processing of perceptual information and top-down influences exerted by event schemata that store information about previously executed or observed actions. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 725 KW - action events KW - infant action-goal prediction KW - infant gaze behavior KW - eye tracking KW - feedforward processes KW - perception of agency cues Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-516657 SN - 1866-8364 IS - 1 SP - 45 EP - 62 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Eiteljoerge, Sarah F. V. A1 - Adam, Maurits A1 - Elsner, Birgit A1 - Mani, Nivedita T1 - Word-object and action-object association learning across early development JF - PLoS one N2 - Successful communication often involves comprehension of both spoken language and observed actions with and without objects. Even very young infants can learn associations between actions and objects as well as between words and objects. However, in daily life, children are usually confronted with both kinds of input simultaneously. Choosing the critical information to attend to in such situations might help children structure the input, and thereby, allow for successful learning. In the current study, we therefore, investigated the developmental time course of children’s and adults’ word and action learning when given the opportunity to learn both word-object and action-object associations for the same object. All participants went through a learning phase and a test phase. In the learning phase, they were presented with two novel objects which were associated with a distinct novel name (e.g., “Look, a Tanu”) and a distinct novel action (e.g., moving up and down while tilting sideways). In the test phase, participants were presented with both objects on screen in a baseline phase, then either heard one of the two labels or saw one of the two actions in a prime phase, and then saw the two objects again on screen in a recognition phase. Throughout the trial, participants’ target looking was recorded to investigate whether participants looked at the target object upon hearing its label or seeing its action, and thus, would show learning of the word-object and action-object associations. Growth curve analyses revealed that 12-month-olds showed modest learning of action-object associations, 36-month-olds learned word-object associations, and adults learned word-object and action-object associations. These results highlight how children attend to the different information types from the two modalities through which communication is addressed to them. Over time, with increased exposure to systematic word-object mappings, children attend less to action-object mappings, with the latter potentially being mediated by word-object learning even in adulthood. Thus, choosing between different kinds of input that may be more relevant in their rich environment encompassing different modalities might help learning at different points in development. Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0220317 SN - 1932-6203 VL - 14 IS - 8 PB - PLoS CY - San Fransisco ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Eiteljoerge, Sarah Fe Vivian A1 - Adam, Maurits A1 - Elsner, Birgit A1 - Mani, Nivedita T1 - Consistency of co-occurring actions influences young children’s word learning learning JF - Royal Society Open Science N2 - Communication with young children is often multimodal in nature, involving, for example, language and actions. The simultaneous presentation of information from both domains may boost language learning by highlighting the connection between an object and a word, owing to temporal overlap in the presentation of multimodal input. However, the overlap is not merely temporal but can also covary in the extent to which particular actions co-occur with particular words and objects, e.g. carers typically produce a hopping action when talking about rabbits and a snapping action for crocodiles. The frequency with which actions and words co-occurs in the presence of the referents of these words may also impact young children’s word learning. We, therefore, examined the extent to which consistency in the co-occurrence of particular actions and words impacted children’s learning of novel word–object associations. Children (18 months, 30 months and 36–48 months) and adults were presented with two novel objects and heard their novel labels while different actions were performed on these objects, such that the particular actions and word–object pairings always co-occurred (Consistent group) or varied across trials (Inconsistent group). At test, participants saw both objects and heard one of the labels to examine whether participants recognized the target object upon hearing its label. Growth curve models revealed that 18-month-olds did not learn words for objects in either condition, and 30-month-old and 36- to 48-month-old children learned words for objects only in the Consistent condition, in contrast to adults who learned words for objects independent of the actions presented. Thus, consistency in the multimodal input influenced word learning in early childhood but not in adulthood. In terms of a dynamic systems account of word learning, our study shows how multimodal learning settings interact with the child’s perceptual abilities to shape the learning experience. KW - word learning KW - actions KW - consistency KW - variability KW - cross-domain influences Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.190097 SN - 2054-5703 VL - 6 IS - 8 PB - Royal Society CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Elsner, Birgit A1 - Adam, Maurits T1 - Infants’ goal prediction for simple action events BT - the role of experience and agency cues JF - Topics in cognitive science / Cognitive Science Society N2 - Looking times and gaze behavior indicate that infants can predict the goal state of an observed simple action event (e.g., object-directed grasping) already in the first year of life. The present paper mainly focuses on infants' predictive gaze-shifts toward the goal of an ongoing action. For this, infants need to generate a forward model of the to-be-obtained goal state and to disengage their gaze from the moving agent at a time when information about the action event is still incomplete. By about 6 months of age, infants show goal-predictive gaze-shifts, but mainly for familiar actions that they can perform themselves (e.g., grasping) and for familiar agents (e.g., a human hand). Therefore, some theoretical models have highlighted close relations between infants' ability for action-goal prediction and their motor development and/or emerging action experience. Recent research indicates that infants can also predict action goals of familiar simple actions performed by non-human agents (e.g., object-directed grasping by a mechanical claw) when these agents display agency cues, such as self-propelled movement, equifinality of goal approach, or production of a salient action effect. This paper provides a review on relevant findings and theoretical models, and proposes that the impacts of action experience and of agency cues can be explained from an action-event perspective. In particular, infants' goal-predictive gaze-shifts are seen as resulting from an interplay between bottom-up processing of perceptual information and top-down influences exerted by event schemata that store information about previously executed or observed actions. KW - Action events KW - Infant action‐ goal prediction KW - Infant gaze KW - behavior KW - Eye tracking KW - Feedforward processes KW - Perception of KW - agency  cues Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/tops.12494 SN - 1756-8765 VL - 13 IS - 1 SP - 45 EP - 62 PB - Wiley CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Adam, Maurits A1 - Elsner, Birgit T1 - The impact of salient action effects on 6-, 7-, and 11-month-olds’ goal-predictive gaze shifts for a human grasping action JF - PLOS ONE N2 - When infants observe a human grasping action, experience-based accounts predict that all infants familiar with grasping actions should be able to predict the goal regardless of additional agency cues such as an action effect. Cue-based accounts, however, suggest that infants use agency cues to identify and predict action goals when the action or the agent is not familiar. From these accounts, we hypothesized that younger infants would need additional agency cues such as a salient action effect to predict the goal of a human grasping action, whereas older infants should be able to predict the goal regardless of agency cues. In three experiments, we presented 6-, 7-, and 11-month-olds with videos of a manual grasping action presented either with or without an additional salient action effect (Exp. 1 and 2), or we presented 7-month-olds with videos of a mechanical claw performing a grasping action presented with a salient action effect (Exp. 3). The 6-month-olds showed tracking gaze behavior, and the 11-month-olds showed predictive gaze behavior, regardless of the action effect. However, the 7-month-olds showed predictive gaze behavior in the action-effect condition, but tracking gaze behavior in the no-action-effect condition and in the action-effect condition with a mechanical claw. The results therefore support the idea that salient action effects are especially important for infants' goal predictions from 7 months on, and that this facilitating influence of action effects is selective for the observation of human hands. KW - attention KW - eye movements KW - infants perception KW - mechanisms KW - origins Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0240165 SN - 1932-6203 VL - 15 IS - 10 PB - Public Library of Science CY - San Fransisco ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Adam, Maurits A1 - Reitenbach, Ivanina A1 - Elsner, Birgit T1 - Agency cues and 11-month-olds’ and adults’ anticipation of action goals JF - Cognitive Development N2 - For the processing of goal-directed actions, some accounts emphasize the importance of experience with the action or the agent. Other accounts stress the importance of agency cues. We investigated the impact of agency cues on 11-month-olds’ and adults’ goal anticipation for a grasping-action performed by a mechanical claw. With an eyetracker, we measured anticipations in two conditions, where the claw was displayed either with or without agency cues. In two experiments, 11-month-olds were predictive when agency cues were present, but reactive when no agency cues were presented. Adults were predictive in both conditions. Furthermore, 11-month-olds rapidly learned to predict the goal in the agency condition, but not in the mechanical condition. Adults’ predictions did not change across trials in the agency condition, but decelerated in the mechanical condition. Thus, agency cues and own action experience are important for infants’ and adults’ online processing of goal-directed actions by non-human agents. KW - Infants KW - Eyetracking KW - Action processing KW - Anticipatory gaze shifts KW - Agency Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2017.02.008 SN - 0885-2014 SN - 1879-226X VL - 43 SP - 37 EP - 48 PB - Elsevier CY - New York ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Adam, Maurits A1 - Elsner, Birgit T1 - Action effects foster 11-month-olds’ prediction of action goals for a non-human agent JF - Infant behavior & development : an international and interdisciplinary journal N2 - Action effects have been stated to be important for infants’ processing of goal-directed actions. In this study, 11-month-olds showed equally fast predictive gaze shifts to a claw’s action goal when the grasping action was presented either with three agency cues (self-propelled movement, equifinality of goal achievement and a salient action effect) or with only a salient action effect, but infants showed tracking gaze when the claw showed only self-propelled movement and equifinality of goal achievement. The results suggest that action effects, compared to purely kinematic cues, seem to be especially important for infants' online processing of goal-directed actions. KW - Infancy KW - Eye tracking KW - Goal anticipation KW - Action effects KW - Agency cues Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infbeh.2018.09.002 SN - 0163-6383 SN - 1879-0453 VL - 53 SP - 49 EP - 55 PB - Elsevier CY - New York ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Adam, Maurits A1 - Gumbsch, Christian A1 - Butz, Martin V. A1 - Elsner, Birgit T1 - The impact of action effects on infants’ predictive gaze shifts for a non-human grasping action at 7, 11, and 18 months JF - Frontiers in psychology N2 - During the observation of goal-directed actions, infants usually predict the goal at an earlier age when the agent is familiar (e.g., human hand) compared to unfamiliar (e.g., mechanical claw). These findings implicate a crucial role of the developing agentive self for infants' processing of others' action goals. Recent theoretical accounts suggest that predictive gaze behavior relies on an interplay between infants' agentive experience (top-down processes) and perceptual information about the agent and the action-event (bottom-up information; e.g., agency cues). The present study examined 7-, 11-, and 18-month-old infants' predictive gaze behavior for a grasping action performed by an unfamiliar tool, depending on infants' age-related action knowledge about tool-use and the display of the agency cue of producing a salient action effect. The results are in line with the notion of a systematic interplay between experience-based top-down processes and cue-based bottom-up information: Regardless of the salient action effect, predictive gaze shifts did not occur in the 7-month-olds (least experienced age group), but did occur in the 18-month-olds (most experienced age group). In the 11-month-olds, however, predictive gaze shifts occurred only when a salient action effect was presented. This sheds new light on how the developing agentive self, in interplay with available agency cues, supports infants' action-goal prediction also for observed tool-use actions. KW - infancy KW - predictive gaze behavior KW - eye tracking KW - tool-use actions KW - agency cues KW - developing agentive self KW - non-human grasping Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.695550 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 12 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Günther, Oliver A1 - Schüle, Manja A1 - Zurell, Damaris A1 - Jeltsch, Florian A1 - Roeleke, Manuel A1 - Kampe, Heike A1 - Zimmermann, Matthias A1 - Scholz, Jana A1 - Engbert, Ralf A1 - Elsner, Birgit A1 - Schlangen, David A1 - Agrofylax, Luisa A1 - Georgi, Doreen A1 - Weymar, Mathias A1 - Wagener, Thorsten A1 - Bookhagen, Bodo A1 - Eibl, Eva P. S. A1 - Korup, Oliver A1 - Oswald, Sascha Eric A1 - Thieken, Annegret A1 - van der Beek, Peter T1 - Portal Wissen = Exzellenz JF - Portal Wissen: Das Forschungsmagazin der Universität Potsdam N2 - Was nicht nur gut oder sehr gut ist, nennen wir gern exzellent. Aber was meint das eigentlich? Vom lateinischen „excellere“ kommend, beschreibt es Dinge, Personen oder Handlungen, die „hervor-“ oder „herausragen“ aus der Menge, sich „auszeichnen“ gegenüber anderen. Mehr geht nicht. Exzellenz ist das Mittel der Wahl, wenn es darum geht, der Erste oder Beste zu sein. Und das macht auch vor der Forschung nicht halt. Wer auf die Universität Potsdam schaut, findet zahlreiche ausgezeichnete Forschende, hervorragende Projekte und immer wieder auch aufsehenerregende Erkenntnisse, Veröffentlichungen und Ergebnisse. Aber ist die UP auch exzellent? Eine Frage, die 2023 ganz sicher andere Wellen schlägt als vielleicht vor 20 Jahren. Denn seit dem Start der Exzellenzinitiative 2005 gelten als – wörtlich – exzellent jene Hochschulen, denen es gelingt, in dem umfangreichsten Förderprogramm für Wissenschaft in Deutschland einen Zuschlag zu erhalten. Egal ob in Form von Graduiertenschulen, Forschungsclustern oder – seit Fortsetzung des Programms ab 2019 unter dem Titel „Exzellenzstrategie“ – ganzen Exzellenzuniversitäten: Wer im Kreis der Forschungsuniversitäten zu den Besten gehören will, braucht das Siegel der Exzellenz. In der gerade eingeläuteten neuen Wettbewerbsrunde der „Exzellenzstrategie des Bundes und der Länder“ bewirbt sich die Universität Potsdam mit drei Clusterskizzen um Förderung. Ein Antrag kommt aus der Ökologie- und Biodiversitätsforschung. Ziel ist es, ein komplexes Bild ökologischer Prozesse zu zeichnen – und dabei die Rolle von einzelnen Individuen ebenso zu betrachten wie das Zusammenwirken vieler Arten in einem Ökosystem, um die Funktion der Artenvielfalt genauer zu bestimmen. Eine zweite Skizze haben die Kognitionswissenschaften eingereicht. Hier soll das komplexe Nebeneinander von Sprache und Kognition, Entwicklung und Lernen sowie Motivation und Verhalten als dynamisches Miteinander erforscht werden – wobei auch mit den Erziehungswissenschaften kooperiert wird, um verknüpfte Lernund Bildungsprozesse stets mitzudenken. Der dritte Antrag aus den Geo- und Umweltwissenschaften nimmt extreme und besonders folgenschwere Naturgefahren und -prozesse wie Überschwemmungen und Dürren in den Blick. Die Forschenden untersuchen die Extremereignisse mit besonderem Fokus auf deren Wechselwirkung mit der Gesellschaft, um mit ihnen einhergehende Risiken und Schäden besser einschätzen sowie künftig rechtzeitig Maßnahmen einleiten zu können. „Alle drei Anträge zeichnen ein hervorragendes Bild unserer Leistungsfähigkeit“, betont der Präsident der Universität, Prof. Oliver Günther, Ph.D. „Die Skizzen dokumentieren eindrucksvoll unser Engagement, vorhandene Forschungsexzellenz sowie die Potenziale der Universität Potsdam insgesamt. Allein die Tatsache, dass sich drei schlagkräftige Konsortien in ganz unterschiedlichen Themenbereichen zusammengefunden haben, zeigt, dass wir auf unserem Weg in die Spitzengruppe der deutschen Universitäten einen guten Schritt vorangekommen sind.“ In diesem Heft schauen wir, was sich in und hinter diesen Anträgen verbirgt: Wir haben mit den Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftlern gesprochen, die sie geschrieben haben, und sie gefragt, was sie sich vornehmen, sollten sie den Zuschlag erhalten und ein Cluster an die Universität holen. Wir haben aber auch auf die Forschung geschaut, die zu den Anträgen geführt hat und die schon länger das Profil der Universität prägt und ihr national wie international Anerkennung eingebracht hat. Wir stellen eine kleine Auswahl an Projekten, Methoden und Forschenden vor, um zu zeigen, warum in diesen Anträgen tatsächlich exzellente Forschung steckt! Übrigens: Auch „Exzellenz“ ist nicht das Ende der Fahnenstange. Immerhin lässt sich das Adjektiv exzellent sogar steigern. In diesem Sinne wünschen wir exzellentestes Vergnügen beim Lesen! T3 - Portal Wissen: Das Forschungsmagazin der Universität Potsdam [Deutsche Ausgabe] - 02/2023 Y1 - 2023 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-611440 SN - 2194-4245 IS - 02/2023 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Günther, Oliver A1 - Schüle, Manja A1 - Zurell, Damaris A1 - Jeltsch, Florian A1 - Roeleke, Manuel A1 - Kampe, Heike A1 - Zimmermann, Matthias A1 - Scholz, Jana A1 - Mikulla, Stefanie A1 - Engbert, Ralf A1 - Elsner, Birgit A1 - Schlangen, David A1 - Agrofylax, Luisa A1 - Georgi, Doreen A1 - Weymar, Mathias A1 - Wagener, Thorsten A1 - Bookhagen, Bodo A1 - Eibl, Eva P. S. A1 - Korup, Oliver A1 - Oswald, Sascha Eric A1 - Thieken, Annegret A1 - van der Beek, Peter T1 - Portal Wissen = Excellence JF - Portal Wissen: The research magazine of the University of Potsdam N2 - When something is not just good or very good, we often call it excellent. But what does that really mean? Coming from the Latin word “excellere,” it describes things, persons, or actions that are outstanding or superior and distinguish themselves from others. It cannot get any better. Excellence is the top choice for being the first or the best. Research is no exception. At the university, you will find numerous exceptional researchers, outstanding projects, and, time and again, sensational findings, publications, and results. But is the University of Potsdam also excellent? A question that will certainly create a different stir in 2023 than it did perhaps 20 years ago. Since the launch of the Excellence Initiative in 2005, universities that succeed in winning the most comprehensive funding program for research in Germany have been considered – literally – excellent. Whether in the form of graduate schools, research clusters, or – since the program was continued in 2019 under the title “Excellence Strategy” – entire universities of excellence: Anyone who wants to be among the best research universities needs the seal of excellence. The University of Potsdam is applying for funding with three cluster proposals in the recently launched new round of the “Excellence Strategy of the German Federal and State Governments.” One proposal comes from ecology and biodiversity research. The aim is to paint a comprehensive picture of ecological processes by examining the role of single individuals as well as the interactions among many species in an ecosystem to precisely determine the function of biodiversity. A second proposal has been submitted by the cognitive sciences. Here, the complex coexistence of language and cognition, development and learning, as well as motivation and behavior will be researched as a dynamic interrelation. The projects will include cooperation with the educational sciences to constantly consider linked learning and educational processes. The third proposal from the geo and environmental sciences concentrates on extreme and particularly devastating natural hazards and processes such as floods and droughts. The researchers examine these extreme events, focusing on their interaction with society, to be able to better assess the risks and damages they might involve and to initiate timely measures in the future. “All three proposals highlight the excellence of our performance,” emphasizes University President Prof. Oliver Günther, Ph.D. “The outlines impressively document our commitment, existing research excellence, and the potential of the University of Potsdam as a whole. The fact that three powerful consortia have come together in different subject areas shows that we have taken a good step forward on our way to becoming one of the top German universities.” In this issue, we are looking at what is in and behind these proposals: We talked to the researchers who wrote them. We asked them about their plans in case their proposals are successful and they bring a cluster of excellence to the university. But we also looked at the research that has led to the proposals, has long shaped the university’s profile, and earned it national and international recognition. We present a small selection of projects, methods, and researchers to illustrate why there really is excellent research in these proposals! By the way, “excellence” is also not the end of the flagpole. After all, the adjective “excellent” even has a comparative and a superlative. With this in mind, I wish you the most excellent pleasure reading this issue! T3 - Portal Wissen: The research magazine of the University of Potsdam [Englische Ausgabe] - 02/2023 Y1 - 2023 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-611456 SN - 2198-9974 IS - 02/2023 ER -