Developmental Psychology - Maria Pflüger

Maria Pflüger has been working in the department of developmental psychology since 2020. Her doctoral work focuses on aspects of early theory of mind, in particular children’s early understanding of action goals in the context of transient action-effects as well as on questions regarding functional object-use (tool use). For her investigations she uses imitation, eye-tracking and pupillometry.

From 2013 to 2019 Maria studied psychology at the University of Bamberg (B.Sc. & M.Sc.). During her studies, she worked at the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LifBi, Bamberg) in the working group “Early Childhood Education”, where she coded early parent-child-interactions for video-data of the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS). Based on this, she worked on her Master’s thesis, „Social disparities and early mother-child-interaction”, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Sabine Weinert.

Publications

Pflüger, M., Buttelmann, D., & Elsner, B. (2024). How children come to (not) detect and apply multiple functions for objects: Rethinking perseveration and functional fixedness. Cognition, 251, 105902. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105902

Conference contributions

Pflüger, M., Buttelmann, D., & Elsner, B. (2024, July 9-11). "Wow, that is amazing!" - 18-month-olds can extract transient action effects as the reason for adult's emotional expressions [Poster presentation]. International Congress of Infant Studies, Glasgow, Scotland. Link

Pflüger, M., Buttelmann, D., & Elsner, B. (2023, October 4-6). Do 18-month-olds perceive adults' emotional expressions as goal-directed when the goal is a transient action effect? [Poster presentation]. Crossing the borders: The interplay of language, cognition, and the brain in early human development, Potsdam, Germany. Link

Pflüger, M., & Elsner, B. (2023, September 3-6). Pupillometry in early social cognition [Conference presentation]. 15. Fachgruppentagung Entwicklungspsychologie (EPSY) der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Psychologie, Berlin, Germany. (Co-chair of the symposium "Pupillometry in developmental research: Different perspectives on conceptual and methodological considerations" together with Marlena Mayer (Uni Hamburg)) Link

Pflüger, M. , Buttelmann, D., & Elsner, B. (2023, September 3-6). Can you do something that makes me happy? Perspective taking during social interactions in 2-year-olds [Poster presentation]. 15. Fachgruppentagung Entwicklungspsychologie (EPSY) der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Psychologie, Berlin, Germany. Link

Pflüger, M. , Buttelmann, D., & Elsner, B. (2023, August 23-25). Do 18-month-olds relate an adult's emotional expressions to transient action effects? [Poster presentation]. 8^th Lancaster International Conference on Infant and Early Child Development, Lancaster, UK. Link

Pflüger, M. , Buttelmann, D., & Elsner, B. (2023, January 5-7). 18-month-olds' sensitivity to adult's (in)congruencies in their emotional reaction towards action effects - A violation-of-exepectation eye-tracking study [Poster presentation]. 13^th Annual Budapest CEU Conference on Cognitive Development, Budapest, Hungary. Link

Pflüger, M., Buttelmann, D., & Elsner, B. (2022, September 5-10). 18-month-olds' understanding of others' preferences regarding action effects – an eye-tracking study [Poster presentation]. 52. Kongress der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Psychologie, Hildesheim, Germany. Link

Pflüger, M., Buttelmann, D., & Elsner, B. (2022, August 24-26). Do 18-month-olds understand others' individual preferences for action-effects? Findings from a violation-of-expectation eye-tracking study [Poster presentation]. 7^th Lancaster International Conference on Infant and Early Child Development, Lancaster, U.K. Link

Pflüger, M., Buttelmann, D., & Elsner, B. (2022, July 7-10). 24-month-olds' understanding of preferences for action-effects in a functional tool-use task [Poster presentation]. International Congress of Infant Studies, Ottawa, Canada. Link

Teaching

Seminar (B.Sc.): "How do you think the child is feeling right now?" - the development of perspective-taking abilities, Summer Term 2023

Seminar (B.Sc.): Classics of Developmental Psychology, Winter Term 2022/23

Seminar (B.Sc.): Parent-Child-Interaction, Summer Term 2022

Seminar (B.Sc.): Classics of Developmental Psychology, Winter Term 2021/22