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Moritz Daum

University of Zurich, Switzerland, Psychology, Faculty Member

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Address: University of Zurich
Department of Psychology
Developmental Psychology
Binzmühlestr. 14, Box 21
CH-8050 Zurich
Switzerland

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Robert Lickliter

Florida International University

Harvard University

Canadian University of Dubai

Villanova University

University of California, Merced

Jasper J van der Kemp

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Universidad Nacional de Colombia (National University of Colombia)

Macquarie University

Sonja Eisenbeiss

University of Cologne

Ruben López-Cano

Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya

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Papers by Moritz Daum

Gradual Route to Productivity: Evidence from Turkish Morphological Causatives

Becoming productive with grammatical categories is a gradual process in children's language devel... more Becoming productive with grammatical categories is a gradual process in children's language development. Here, we investigated this transition process by focusing on Turkish causatives. Previous research examining spontaneous and elicited production of Turkish causatives with familiar verbs attested the onset and early stages of productivity at ages 2 to 3 (Aksu-Koç & Slobin, 1985; Nakipoğlu et al., 2021). So far, however, we know very little about children's understanding of causatives with novel verbs. In the present study, we asked: (1) When does the generalization of causative morphology in a novel context emerge? and (2) What role does childdirected input play in this development? To answer the first question, we conducted comprehension-judgment experiments with children aged 2;6-6;1 1 using pseudo-verbs (Study 1 & 2). Results showed that children preferred the Turkish causative suffix-DIr over an unrelated or no suffix to denote caused events earliest at age 4;10. To answer the second question, we analyzed child-directed speech from a longitudinal corpus of Turkish language acquisition (Study 3). Results showed that when addressing children younger than age 3, caregivers used the-DIr suffix with little variation considering the overall variability of verbs they could utter. Overall, these findings suggest that productivity with morphological causatives in a novel context emerges in a later stage of acquisition. This later development might partly be accounted for by the insufficient variation of morphological causatives in the early input.

Developmental Psychology

Springer eBooks, 2022

The social side of curiosity

What's the point? Infants' and adults' perception of different pointing gestures

Adults and infants as young as 4 months old follow pointing gestures. Although adults are shown t... more Adults and infants as young as 4 months old follow pointing gestures. Although adults are shown to orient faster to index-finger pointing compared to other hand shapes, it is not known whether hand shapes influence infants' following of pointing. In this study, we used a spatial cueing paradigm on an eye tracker to investigate whether and to what extent adults and 12-month-old infants orient their attention in the direction of pointing gestures with different hand shapes: index finger, whole hand, and pinky finger. Results revealed that adults showed a cueing effect, that is, shorter saccadic reaction times (SRTs) to congruent compared to incongruent targets, for all hand shapes. However, they did not show a larger cueing effect triggered by the index finger. This contradicts previous findings and is discussed with respect to the differences in methodology. Infants showed a cueing effect only for the whole hand but not for the index finger or the pinky finger. Infants predominantly point with the whole hand prior to 12 months. The current results thus suggest that infants' perception of pointing gestures may be linked to their own production of pointing gestures. Infants may show a cueing effect by the conventional index-finger pointing shape later than their first year, possibly when they start to point predominantly with their index finger.

Understanding verbal indirect communication in monolingual and bilingual children

Cognitive Development, Jul 1, 2020

Indirect communication occurs when a speaker does not explicitly say what s/he means but rather o... more Indirect communication occurs when a speaker does not explicitly say what s/he means but rather only hints at it and the recipient has to make inferences to uncover the speaker's actual intentions. Even though the majority of the world's population is bi-or multilingual, the comprehension of indirect communication has so far mainly been tested in monolingual children. This is surprising given some recent evidence indicating advantages for bilingual children in various communicative competences. In the present study, monolingual and bilingual 3-year-old children (n = 142) interacted with a speaker who communicated her preferences for certain actions indirectly (e.g., when offered cereals or toast for breakfast, saying, "I do have jam" which can be understood as a request for the toast). To uncover the speaker's intended object, children needed to draw a relevance inference in order to connect what was said with the question under discussion. The results showed that monolingual and bilingual children did not differ in their understanding of the speaker's indirectly communicated intentions and that the exposure to more than one language did not influence children's ability to draw relevance inferences. Thus, our study replicates earlier findings on monolingual children's comprehension of indirect communication, that is, the 3-year-old children in the present study performed abovechance level with relevance inferences. Moreover, our study adds to the current debate about bilingual children's communicative competences by showing that the existence and amount of further language input does not affect the interpretation of indirect meanings. Thus, seeking relevance seems to be a quite general disposition from early on in ontogeny. 1. Introduction Understanding others' indirectly communicated social intentions is crucial for social coordination in everyday life. Indirect communication occurs when a speaker does not explicitly say what s/he means but rather only hints at it orin request situationsthe speaker's answer to a question seems to lack relevance to the question under discussion (

Experimentelle Handlungsforschung

Early sensitivity in bilinguals’ iconic gesture perception and production

We investigated monolingual and bilingual pre-schoolers' (N = 80) ability to understand other... more We investigated monolingual and bilingual pre-schoolers' (N = 80) ability to understand others' iconic gestures (gesture perception) and produce intelligible iconic gestures themselves (gesture production). Furthermore, we explored differences in parental iconic gesture frequency between the two language groups. In children's gesture perception task, the experimenter replaced the last word of every sentence with an iconic gesture. The child then was asked to choose one of four pictures that would match the gesture as well as the sentence. In the gesture production task, children meet a deaf puppet and were asked to indicate "with their hands" which objects the puppet should give them next. Finally, parental gesture frequency was observed during speech. No difference between monolingual and bilingual children in iconic gesture perception was found. In contrast, bilinguals produced more intelligible gestures than their monolingual peers. Additionally, bilingual children's parents gestured more during speech than parents of monolinguals. We suggest that bilinguals heightened sensitivity to their interaction partner supports their ability to produce intelligible gestures and results in a bilingual advantage in iconic gesture production.

Perception and production across the life span

Successful social interaction relies on the interaction partners' perception, anticipation, a... more Successful social interaction relies on the interaction partners' perception, anticipation, and understanding of others' actions. The perception of a particular action and the capability to produce this action share a common representational ground. So far, no study has explored the interrelation between action perception and production across the whole life span using the same tasks and the same measurement techniques. This study was designed to fill this gap. Participants between 3 and 80 years (N = 214) observed two multistep actions of different familiarity and then reproduced the according actions. Using eye tracking, we measured participants' action perception via their prediction of action goals during observation. To capture subtler perceptual processes, we additionally analysed the dynamics of gaze behaviour using recurrence quantification analysis (RQA). Action production was assessed via the accuracy of the participants' reproduction of the observed actions. No age-related differences were found for the perception of the familiar action, where participants of all ages could rely on previous experience. In the unfamiliar action, where the participants had less experience, action goals were predicted more frequently with increasing age. The RQA revealed that the recurrence in gaze behaviour was related to both, age and action production: Gaze behaviour was more recurrent (i.e. less variable) in very young and very old participants, and lower levels of recurrence were related to higher scores in action production across participants. Incorporating a life-span perspective, this study illustrates the dynamic nature of developmental differences in the associations of action production with action perception. This project contains: - The dataset analysed for this study. - A short wiki explaining the variables in the dataset. - The manuscript of the finished project.

Naiva förestellningar om bollens rörelsemängd bland professionella fotbollsspelare

ABSTRACT Inlägget når anfallspelaren, som går upp, nickar – utanför! Tre kognitionsforskare sökte... more

Das Misskonzept der Meister: intuitive Physik bei Fussballspielern

Jan Rauch und Moritz Daum befassen sich im folgenden Artikel mit den Gründen für fehlgeleitete Ko... more

Spielerisches Lernen – Mittels Spiel Wissen schaffen

www.skjp.ch Redaktion J o s e f S t a m m (L e i t u n g) W a l o D i c k S i m o n e D i e t s c... more www.skjp.ch Redaktion J o s e f S t a m m (L e i t u n g) W a l o D i c k S i m o n e D i e t s c h i P i s a n i H a n s h e i n i F o n t a n i v e P h i l i p p R a m m i n g Cartoons E r n s t M a t t i e l l o w w w. m a t t i e l l o. c h Layout/Druck Berti Druck AG, Rapperswil www.bertidruck.ch Auflage 1300 Exemplare P&E erscheint zweimal jährlich im Mai und November. Es bietet Raum für praktischen Erfahrungs-und Meinungsaustausch in der Kinder-und Jugendpsychologie, für grundsätzliche oder berufspolitische Reflexionen kinder-und jugendpsychologischer Tätigkeit sowie für fachlich wissenschaftliche Schwerpunktartikel. Beiträge werden von der Redaktion gern entgegengenommen (Redaktionsschluss 20. Februar/20. August). P&E paraît deux fois par an en mai et novembre. Son but est l'échange d'informations et la communication d'expériences, de réflexions fondamentales et même d'opinions sur la profession et l'activité pratique dans le domaine de la psychologie de l'enfance et de la adolescence. Il veut offrir à ses lecteurs la possibilité de donner leurs avis sous forme quiconque; soit comme articles, lettres, etc. Toute contribution peut être envoyée à l'adresse de la rédaction. (Clôture de la rédaction: 20 février/20 août). P&E appare due volte l'anno in maggio e in novembre. Ha lo scopo di permettere lo scambio d'esperienze e d'opinioni nel campo della psicologia dell'età dello sviluppo, di contribuire ad una riflessione e ad una discussione su argomenti proffesionali e inoltre di offrire ai propri lettori la possibilità di esprimere i propri convin-cimenti e le proprie idee sotto forma di articoli, lettere, ecc. Contributi possono essere inviati alla redazione. (Chiusura redazione 20 febbraio/20 agosto).

Unterschiede in Zielbewegungen nach sich vorhersagbar und sich nicht-vorhersagbar bewegenden Objekten

Discussion of the symposium "Action perception and action understanding: Developmental perspectives

Seeing household chemicals through the eyes of children—Investigating influential factors of preschoolers’ perception and behavior

Journal of Safety Research, Dec 1, 2022

Introduction: Children who encounter household chemicals run the risk of unintentional injury. Th... more Introduction: Children who encounter household chemicals run the risk of unintentional injury. The aim of this study was to understand which factors heighten children's attention or misguide their decisionmaking concerning household chemicals. We hypothesized that certain product attributes (i.e., label, packaging, closure types), storage context, and parental beliefs play a role in this setting. Method: We conducted a laboratory study with N = 114 children (M = 45 months, SD = 6.5) and their parents (M = 38 years, SD = 4.92). Children completed a series of behavioral tasks in which they had to choose between products with different attributes, identify products in different storage contexts, and sort household chemicals. Results: The results confirmed that the children preferred products with cartoonstyle labels compared to products without such labels. However, children's decision-making did not differ for products with different closure types (child-resistant vs sprayer-type closures). Regarding the storage context, our results showed that the children particularly struggled to identify dishwashing tabs when they were stored with other food items rather than household chemicals. In terms of parental beliefs, our study found that parents rated more household chemicals as child-safe than their children did. Practical Application: Parents should buy household chemicals with neutral labels and pay attention to how their household chemicals are stored. Manufacturers should consider potential adverse effects when developing new product designs.

Mothers Reveal More of Their Vocal Identity When Talking to Infants

Social Science Research Network, 2022

Kommentar der Fachgruppe Entwicklungspsychologie zum „Positionspapier zur Lage der Allgemeinen Psychologie“ der Fachgruppe Allgemeine Psychologie

Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich), 2016

Methoden der kognitiven Neurowissenschaften [Methods of cognitive neuroscience]

Neurophysiological correlates of the processing of reaching movements in development

Compatibility Effects in Young Children's Tool Use: Learning and Transfer

Child Development, Aug 31, 2020

An inherent component of tool-use actions is the transformation of the user's operating movement ... more An inherent component of tool-use actions is the transformation of the user's operating movement into the desired effect. In this study, the relevance of this transformation for young children's learning of tool-use actions was investigated. Sixty-four children at the age of 27-30 months learned to use levers which either simply extended (compatible transformation) or reversed (incompatible transformation) their operating movements. Data revealed a compatibility effect as well as transfer effects originating from the two different types of transformations. Furthermore, results suggest that young children's tool-use learning is not a uniform process, but has to be regarded individually depending on the type of transformation. We thank Manja Djordjevic and Lynn Pizzolato for their help with data acquisition and coding.

Special Issue on the “Interrelations between non-linguistic and linguistic representations of cognition and action in development”

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, Nov 1, 2016

Gradual Route to Productivity: Evidence from Turkish Morphological Causatives

Becoming productive with grammatical categories is a gradual process in children's language devel... more Becoming productive with grammatical categories is a gradual process in children's language development. Here, we investigated this transition process by focusing on Turkish causatives. Previous research examining spontaneous and elicited production of Turkish causatives with familiar verbs attested the onset and early stages of productivity at ages 2 to 3 (Aksu-Koç & Slobin, 1985; Nakipoğlu et al., 2021). So far, however, we know very little about children's understanding of causatives with novel verbs. In the present study, we asked: (1) When does the generalization of causative morphology in a novel context emerge? and (2) What role does childdirected input play in this development? To answer the first question, we conducted comprehension-judgment experiments with children aged 2;6-6;1 1 using pseudo-verbs (Study 1 & 2). Results showed that children preferred the Turkish causative suffix-DIr over an unrelated or no suffix to denote caused events earliest at age 4;10. To answer the second question, we analyzed child-directed speech from a longitudinal corpus of Turkish language acquisition (Study 3). Results showed that when addressing children younger than age 3, caregivers used the-DIr suffix with little variation considering the overall variability of verbs they could utter. Overall, these findings suggest that productivity with morphological causatives in a novel context emerges in a later stage of acquisition. This later development might partly be accounted for by the insufficient variation of morphological causatives in the early input.

Developmental Psychology

Springer eBooks, 2022

The social side of curiosity

What's the point? Infants' and adults' perception of different pointing gestures

Adults and infants as young as 4 months old follow pointing gestures. Although adults are shown t... more Adults and infants as young as 4 months old follow pointing gestures. Although adults are shown to orient faster to index-finger pointing compared to other hand shapes, it is not known whether hand shapes influence infants' following of pointing. In this study, we used a spatial cueing paradigm on an eye tracker to investigate whether and to what extent adults and 12-month-old infants orient their attention in the direction of pointing gestures with different hand shapes: index finger, whole hand, and pinky finger. Results revealed that adults showed a cueing effect, that is, shorter saccadic reaction times (SRTs) to congruent compared to incongruent targets, for all hand shapes. However, they did not show a larger cueing effect triggered by the index finger. This contradicts previous findings and is discussed with respect to the differences in methodology. Infants showed a cueing effect only for the whole hand but not for the index finger or the pinky finger. Infants predominantly point with the whole hand prior to 12 months. The current results thus suggest that infants' perception of pointing gestures may be linked to their own production of pointing gestures. Infants may show a cueing effect by the conventional index-finger pointing shape later than their first year, possibly when they start to point predominantly with their index finger.

Understanding verbal indirect communication in monolingual and bilingual children

Cognitive Development, Jul 1, 2020

Indirect communication occurs when a speaker does not explicitly say what s/he means but rather o... more Indirect communication occurs when a speaker does not explicitly say what s/he means but rather only hints at it and the recipient has to make inferences to uncover the speaker's actual intentions. Even though the majority of the world's population is bi-or multilingual, the comprehension of indirect communication has so far mainly been tested in monolingual children. This is surprising given some recent evidence indicating advantages for bilingual children in various communicative competences. In the present study, monolingual and bilingual 3-year-old children (n = 142) interacted with a speaker who communicated her preferences for certain actions indirectly (e.g., when offered cereals or toast for breakfast, saying, "I do have jam" which can be understood as a request for the toast). To uncover the speaker's intended object, children needed to draw a relevance inference in order to connect what was said with the question under discussion. The results showed that monolingual and bilingual children did not differ in their understanding of the speaker's indirectly communicated intentions and that the exposure to more than one language did not influence children's ability to draw relevance inferences. Thus, our study replicates earlier findings on monolingual children's comprehension of indirect communication, that is, the 3-year-old children in the present study performed abovechance level with relevance inferences. Moreover, our study adds to the current debate about bilingual children's communicative competences by showing that the existence and amount of further language input does not affect the interpretation of indirect meanings. Thus, seeking relevance seems to be a quite general disposition from early on in ontogeny. 1. Introduction Understanding others' indirectly communicated social intentions is crucial for social coordination in everyday life. Indirect communication occurs when a speaker does not explicitly say what s/he means but rather only hints at it orin request situationsthe speaker's answer to a question seems to lack relevance to the question under discussion (

Experimentelle Handlungsforschung

Early sensitivity in bilinguals’ iconic gesture perception and production

We investigated monolingual and bilingual pre-schoolers' (N = 80) ability to understand other... more We investigated monolingual and bilingual pre-schoolers' (N = 80) ability to understand others' iconic gestures (gesture perception) and produce intelligible iconic gestures themselves (gesture production). Furthermore, we explored differences in parental iconic gesture frequency between the two language groups. In children's gesture perception task, the experimenter replaced the last word of every sentence with an iconic gesture. The child then was asked to choose one of four pictures that would match the gesture as well as the sentence. In the gesture production task, children meet a deaf puppet and were asked to indicate "with their hands" which objects the puppet should give them next. Finally, parental gesture frequency was observed during speech. No difference between monolingual and bilingual children in iconic gesture perception was found. In contrast, bilinguals produced more intelligible gestures than their monolingual peers. Additionally, bilingual children's parents gestured more during speech than parents of monolinguals. We suggest that bilinguals heightened sensitivity to their interaction partner supports their ability to produce intelligible gestures and results in a bilingual advantage in iconic gesture production.

Perception and production across the life span

Successful social interaction relies on the interaction partners' perception, anticipation, a... more Successful social interaction relies on the interaction partners' perception, anticipation, and understanding of others' actions. The perception of a particular action and the capability to produce this action share a common representational ground. So far, no study has explored the interrelation between action perception and production across the whole life span using the same tasks and the same measurement techniques. This study was designed to fill this gap. Participants between 3 and 80 years (N = 214) observed two multistep actions of different familiarity and then reproduced the according actions. Using eye tracking, we measured participants' action perception via their prediction of action goals during observation. To capture subtler perceptual processes, we additionally analysed the dynamics of gaze behaviour using recurrence quantification analysis (RQA). Action production was assessed via the accuracy of the participants' reproduction of the observed actions. No age-related differences were found for the perception of the familiar action, where participants of all ages could rely on previous experience. In the unfamiliar action, where the participants had less experience, action goals were predicted more frequently with increasing age. The RQA revealed that the recurrence in gaze behaviour was related to both, age and action production: Gaze behaviour was more recurrent (i.e. less variable) in very young and very old participants, and lower levels of recurrence were related to higher scores in action production across participants. Incorporating a life-span perspective, this study illustrates the dynamic nature of developmental differences in the associations of action production with action perception. This project contains: - The dataset analysed for this study. - A short wiki explaining the variables in the dataset. - The manuscript of the finished project.

Naiva förestellningar om bollens rörelsemängd bland professionella fotbollsspelare

ABSTRACT Inlägget når anfallspelaren, som går upp, nickar – utanför! Tre kognitionsforskare sökte... more

Das Misskonzept der Meister: intuitive Physik bei Fussballspielern

Jan Rauch und Moritz Daum befassen sich im folgenden Artikel mit den Gründen für fehlgeleitete Ko... more

Spielerisches Lernen – Mittels Spiel Wissen schaffen

www.skjp.ch Redaktion J o s e f S t a m m (L e i t u n g) W a l o D i c k S i m o n e D i e t s c... more www.skjp.ch Redaktion J o s e f S t a m m (L e i t u n g) W a l o D i c k S i m o n e D i e t s c h i P i s a n i H a n s h e i n i F o n t a n i v e P h i l i p p R a m m i n g Cartoons E r n s t M a t t i e l l o w w w. m a t t i e l l o. c h Layout/Druck Berti Druck AG, Rapperswil www.bertidruck.ch Auflage 1300 Exemplare P&E erscheint zweimal jährlich im Mai und November. Es bietet Raum für praktischen Erfahrungs-und Meinungsaustausch in der Kinder-und Jugendpsychologie, für grundsätzliche oder berufspolitische Reflexionen kinder-und jugendpsychologischer Tätigkeit sowie für fachlich wissenschaftliche Schwerpunktartikel. Beiträge werden von der Redaktion gern entgegengenommen (Redaktionsschluss 20. Februar/20. August). P&E paraît deux fois par an en mai et novembre. Son but est l'échange d'informations et la communication d'expériences, de réflexions fondamentales et même d'opinions sur la profession et l'activité pratique dans le domaine de la psychologie de l'enfance et de la adolescence. Il veut offrir à ses lecteurs la possibilité de donner leurs avis sous forme quiconque; soit comme articles, lettres, etc. Toute contribution peut être envoyée à l'adresse de la rédaction. (Clôture de la rédaction: 20 février/20 août). P&E appare due volte l'anno in maggio e in novembre. Ha lo scopo di permettere lo scambio d'esperienze e d'opinioni nel campo della psicologia dell'età dello sviluppo, di contribuire ad una riflessione e ad una discussione su argomenti proffesionali e inoltre di offrire ai propri lettori la possibilità di esprimere i propri convin-cimenti e le proprie idee sotto forma di articoli, lettere, ecc. Contributi possono essere inviati alla redazione. (Chiusura redazione 20 febbraio/20 agosto).

Unterschiede in Zielbewegungen nach sich vorhersagbar und sich nicht-vorhersagbar bewegenden Objekten

Discussion of the symposium "Action perception and action understanding: Developmental perspectives

Seeing household chemicals through the eyes of children—Investigating influential factors of preschoolers’ perception and behavior

Journal of Safety Research, Dec 1, 2022

Introduction: Children who encounter household chemicals run the risk of unintentional injury. Th... more Introduction: Children who encounter household chemicals run the risk of unintentional injury. The aim of this study was to understand which factors heighten children's attention or misguide their decisionmaking concerning household chemicals. We hypothesized that certain product attributes (i.e., label, packaging, closure types), storage context, and parental beliefs play a role in this setting. Method: We conducted a laboratory study with N = 114 children (M = 45 months, SD = 6.5) and their parents (M = 38 years, SD = 4.92). Children completed a series of behavioral tasks in which they had to choose between products with different attributes, identify products in different storage contexts, and sort household chemicals. Results: The results confirmed that the children preferred products with cartoonstyle labels compared to products without such labels. However, children's decision-making did not differ for products with different closure types (child-resistant vs sprayer-type closures). Regarding the storage context, our results showed that the children particularly struggled to identify dishwashing tabs when they were stored with other food items rather than household chemicals. In terms of parental beliefs, our study found that parents rated more household chemicals as child-safe than their children did. Practical Application: Parents should buy household chemicals with neutral labels and pay attention to how their household chemicals are stored. Manufacturers should consider potential adverse effects when developing new product designs.

Mothers Reveal More of Their Vocal Identity When Talking to Infants

Social Science Research Network, 2022

Kommentar der Fachgruppe Entwicklungspsychologie zum „Positionspapier zur Lage der Allgemeinen Psychologie“ der Fachgruppe Allgemeine Psychologie

Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich), 2016

Methoden der kognitiven Neurowissenschaften [Methods of cognitive neuroscience]

Neurophysiological correlates of the processing of reaching movements in development

Compatibility Effects in Young Children's Tool Use: Learning and Transfer

Child Development, Aug 31, 2020

An inherent component of tool-use actions is the transformation of the user's operating movement ... more An inherent component of tool-use actions is the transformation of the user's operating movement into the desired effect. In this study, the relevance of this transformation for young children's learning of tool-use actions was investigated. Sixty-four children at the age of 27-30 months learned to use levers which either simply extended (compatible transformation) or reversed (incompatible transformation) their operating movements. Data revealed a compatibility effect as well as transfer effects originating from the two different types of transformations. Furthermore, results suggest that young children's tool-use learning is not a uniform process, but has to be regarded individually depending on the type of transformation. We thank Manja Djordjevic and Lynn Pizzolato for their help with data acquisition and coding.

Special Issue on the “Interrelations between non-linguistic and linguistic representations of cognition and action in development”

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, Nov 1, 2016