Information for parents, children, sample studies
Children studies
Welcome to the child research site of the Leipzig Research Center for Early Child Development (LFE)! We study linguistic, cognitive and emotional processes in infants and children up to 10 years of age. In the following pages you learn more about our work in the child research lab.
Due to the corona pandemic, we currently run some of our studies online. The “Kinder schaffen Wissen” platform was created for this purpose. You are welcome to take a look!
Study on Spatial Perception: How do children perceive the place of things? (german)
Further Information
Getting here Until construction work of our new lab rooms in done, we are running our studies at the child lab of our cooperating partner, the Max-Planck-Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI EVA) at Deutscher Platz 6. You can get there by car, bike or public transport. There is a parking lot next to the institute. The entrance is at the left side of the institute´s building. Please ring the bell at the gate and tell the receptionist that your child will be participating in a study. You will be let in immediately. Taking tram number 2 or 16, please get off at „Deutsche Nationalbibliothek“ and walk the remaining 3 minutes.
Arrive Please inform the reception when you arrive. A staff member will welcome you. Once you are in the lab, you and your child can take time to get situated. Tea or coffee will be available. Personnel will address any questions or concerns you may have regarding the study. Once you and your child feel comfortable and ready, the study will begin.
Research How do kids learn behavioral patterns from others? Is the capacity of empathy and the willingness of cooperation innate or socially learned? Are the mechanisms the same in other cultures? Our next of kin, the chimpansees, are they as good in imitating others as we are? These are only a few of the diverse questions that we come up with at the Leipzig Research Center of Early Childhood Development. Our research focus lies in cognitive and social abilities of humans and great apes. At the same time, we are interested in topics such as motivation, the capacity to empathize with others, group dynamics, emotion regulation and language acquisition. We conduct our studies not only in Germany, but in many other regions of the world.
Conclude We concentrate on the abilities of children as a whole. What are two-year-old children capable of? When does this ability start to develop? We do not ask these questions for each child, but we look at a large number of kids. In order to document the reactions and behavioral patterns, we record the experimenters and your child during the study. It goes without saying that these recordings will be used solely for scientific reasons.
Meet again We would gladly contact you again whenever another study in your child´s age range is planned. Of course, participation is always voluntary. It is up to you and your child to decide if you want to participate.
In Kindergarten/ After-school center With countless questions on the social development of children, we do not only do specially designed studies at our lab, we also work with children in their natural environment at the kindergartens or after-school centers. In Leipzig we cooperate with more than 100 kindergartens and a dozen after-school centers. For these studies we ask for additional consent.
