Predictive visual-spatial abilities and motor skills beyond infancy

Project A7 investigates whether the crucial relation between visual-spatial abilities and motor skills persists or changes beyond infancy. First, by using longitudinal and cross-sectional approaches we will study the developmental course of this relation from infancy to 3 and 6 years of age. Second, by using training studies (motor training vs control groups), we will determine whether the hypothesized relation between motor skills and visual-spatial prediction can also be observed in infants and preschool children with potentially impaired predictive abilities due to premature birth. Third, we will use eye- and motion tracking methods in real-life experimental settings to investigate the association between children’s predictive visual-spatial abilities and their motor skills in natural everyday action tasks

former project-related publications

Degé, F., Kubicek, C., & Schwarzer, G. (2015). Associations between musical abilities and precursors of reading in preschool aged children. Frontiers in Psychology, 6(August), 1–10. find paper

Dillmann, J., Freitag, C., Holve, K., Schweinfurth, S., Lorenz, B., Schwarzer, G. (2017). Die motorische Entwicklung von Kindern mit frühkindlichem Innenschielen. Klinische Monatsblätter für Augenheilkunde, 234(10), 1228-1234. find paper

Dillmann, J., Gehb, G., Peterlein, C. D., & Schwarzer, G (2019). Joint visual attention and locomotor experience: A longitudinal study of infants with treated idiopathic clubfoot. Infant and Child Development, 28(2), e2118. find paper

Dillmann, J., Peterlein, CD. & Schwarzer, G. (2018). A longitudinal study of motor and cognitive development in infants with congenital idiopathic clubfoot. Journal of Motor Learning and Development, 6(S1), 24-43. find paper

Dillmann, J., Schwarzer, G., & Peterlein, C.D. (2019). Motor and cognitive functioning in children treated for idiopathic clubfoot at the age of 3 years. BMC Pediatrics, 19(1), 1-6. find paper

Gehb, G., Kubicek, C., Jovanovic, B. & Schwarzer, G (2019). The positive influence of manual object exploration on predictive grasping for a moving object in 9-month-old infants. Journal of Vision, 19(14). find paper

Gerhard, T. M., & Schwarzer G. (2018). Impact of rotation angle on crawling and non-crawling 9-month-old infants' mental rotation ability. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 170, 45-56. find paper

Gerhard, T., Culham, J., & Schwarzer, G (2021). Manual exploration of objects is related to 7-monthold infants' visual preference for real objects. Infant Behavior and Development, 62, 101512. find paper

Gerhard, T.M., Culham, J.C. & Schwarzer, G. (2016). Distinct visual processing of real objects and pictures of those objects in 7- to 9-month-old infants. Frontiers in Psychology, 7(827), 1-9. find paper

Gerhard-Samunda, T. M., Jovanovic, B., & Schwarzer, G. (2021). Role of manually-generated visual cues in crawling and non-crawling 9-month-old infants’ mental rotation. Cognitive Development, 59, 101053. find paper

Jovanovic, B. & Schwarzer, G. (2017). The development of the grasp-height effect as a measure of efficient action planning in children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 153, 74-82. find paper

Jovanovic, B., Filk, J., & Schwarzer, G. (2021). The influence of tool use experience on efficient grasping in children. European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 1-16. find paper

Kelch, A., Schwarzer, G., Gehb, G., & Jovanovic, B. (2021). How 9-month-old crawling infants profit from visual-manual rotations in a mental rotation task. Infant Behavior and Development, 65, 101642. find paper

Kolling, T., Lamm B., Vierhaus M., Knopf, M., Lohaus, A., Fassbender, I., Freitag, C., Graf, F., Teubert, M., Schwarzer, G., & Keller, H. (2014). Differential Development of Motor Abilities in Western Middle-Class and Cameroonian Nso Infants. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 45(9), 1502-1508. find paper

Kubicek , C. & Schwarzer , G. (2017). On the relation between infants’ spatial object processing and their motor skills. Journal of Motor Learning and Development, 1-31. find paper

Kubicek , C., Gervain, J., Hillairet de Boisferon, A., Pascalis, O., Loevenbruck, H., & Schwarzer, G. (2014b). The influence of infant-directed speech on 12-month-olds' intersensory perception of fluent speech. Infant Behavior and Development, 37(4), 644-651. find paper

Kubicek, C., Gehb, G., Jovanovic, B., & Schwarzer, G. (2019). Training of 7-month-old infants' manual object exploration skills: Effects of active and observational experience. Infant Behavior and Development, 57, 101353. find paper

Kubicek, C., Hillairet de Boisferon, A., Dupierrix, E., Pascalis, O., Loevenbruck, H., Gervain, J., & Schwarzer, G. (2014a). Cross-modal matching of audio-visual German and French fluent speech in infancy. PLoS ONE, 9(2), e89275. find paper

Kubicek, C., Jovanovic, B., & Schwarzer, G. (2017a). How manual object exploration is associated with 7- to 8-month-old infants’ visual prediction abilities in spatial object processing. Infancy, 22(6), 857-873. find paper

Kubicek, C., Jovanovic, B., & Schwarzer, G. (2017b). The relation between crawling and non-crawling 9-month-old infants' visual prediction abilities in spatial object processing. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 158, 64-76. find paper

Lohaus, A., Lamm, B., Keller, H., Teubert, M., Fassbender, I., Glüer, M. Borchert, S., Vöhringer, I., Teiser, J., Freitag, C., Suhrke, J., Knopf, M. & Schwarzer, G. (2014). Gross and fine motor differences between Cameroonian and German children aged 3 to 40 months: Results of a cross-cultural longitudinal study. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 45(8), 1328-1341. find paper

Preißler, L., Jovanovic, B., Munzert, J., Schmidt, F., Fleming, R.W. & Schwarzer, G. (2021). Effects of visual and visual-haptic perception of material rigidity on reaching and grasping in the course of development. Acta Psychologica, 221, 103457. find paper

Ransburg, N., Reiser, M., Munzert, J., Jovanovic, B. & Schwarzer, G. (2017). Concurrent anticipation of two object dimensions during grasping in 10-month-old infants: A quantitative analysis. Infant Behavior and Development, 42, 164-174. find paper

Schwarzer, G. (2014). How motor and visual experience shape infants' processing of objects and faces. Child Development Perspectives, 8(4), 213-217. find paper

Schwarzer, G., Jovanovic, B. Kubicek, C. & Hegele, M. (2018a). Introduction: Object Processing and Motor Development. Journal of Motor Learning and Development, 6(S1), 1-5. find paper

Schwarzer, G., Jovanovic, B., Kubicek, C. & Hegele, M. (2018). Object processing and motor development. Supplemental Issue, Journal of Motor Learning and Development, 6(S1). find paper

Sensoy, Ö., Culham, J. C., & Schwarzer, G. (2021). The advantage of real objects over matched pictures in infants' processing of the familiar size of objects. Infant and Child Development, e2234. find paper

Sensoy, Ö., Culham, J.C., & Schwarzer, G. (2020). Do infants show knowledge of the familiar size of everyday objects? Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 195, 104848. find paper

Suhrke, J., Freitag, C., Lamm, B., Teiser, J., Poloczek, S., Fassbender, I., Teubert, M., Voehringer, I., Keller, H., Knopf, M., Lohaus, A. & Schwarzer, G. (2015). Experience with headwear influences the other-race effect in 4-year-old children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 137, 156-163. find paper