Author: Marina Bazhydai

Our newly published paper on active learning and communication in infants and toddlers is now in Infancy journal: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/infa.70072

Led by Didar, this research documented how toddlers in the second year of life actively initiate interactions with their caregivers through different gestures (reach, point, give, hold out) and do so to meet a range of communicative goals, such as sharing interest, attention, or emotion, requesting an object or an action, seeking information or help, and even giving information. In sum, 1-2-year-olds communicate with others with increasingly complex intentions: to actively share, seek and transmit information to learn about the world.

New paper in Developmental Science! https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/desc.70101

We find that infants just under 2 years of age are adept at learning new words – both in active and passive modes of learning. We did not find an advantage for word learning when children had a choice what to learn about over when the learning events were presented to them in a passive manner.

We are excited to be a part of the new ManyBabies project – on infant curiosity. Learn more here: https://manybabies.org/MB7/

Dr Marina Bazhydai and Dr Mathilde Prenevost, in collaboration with Professor Candice Satchwell from the University of Lancashire, hosted the workshop on the study of curiosity funded by the Methods North West. It served as inaugural interdisciplinary workshop into the nature and study of curiosity, welcoming over 70 experts from across the UK to the collaborative event. The idea for the event was was borne out of the Leverhulme Trust funded project The Curiosity Battery, a five-year endeavour being jointly undertaken by Lancaster University and Dr Lily FitzGibbon at the University of Stirling to better understand and measure curiosity and how it impacts our wellbeing.

Read more here.

New paper published in the special issue on Children’s teaching, Young Children’s Transmission of Information following Self-discovery and Instruction. Our study showed that children at the age of 2 tend to preferentially share information with someone who is less knowledgeable than them after they have been instructed themselves, rather after having learned it through independent exploration. However, 5-year-olds did not show such preference and tended to teach information both self-discovered and taught to them.

Marina and Mathilde presented the Imagination Cave – a VR experience public engagement exhibit presented at the annual Lancaster University run event, the Campus in the City, in collaboration with the ISS Innovation Hub. Over 50 members of the public visited the Imagination Cave!

Elena Altmann, a formed PhD student, has published two of her papers this month on infant curiosity. Check them out:

News blog: https://portal.lancaster.ac.uk/portal/news/article/first-measure-of-infant-curiosity-as-an-early-trait-or-individual-difference

Altmann, E. C., Bazhydai, M., Karadağ, D., & Westermann, G. (2025). The Infant and Toddler Curiosity Questionnaire: A validated caregiver-report measure of curiosity in children from 5 to 24 months. Infancy. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/infa.70001?af=R

News blog: https://portal.lancaster.ac.uk/portal/news/article/exploring-baby-curiosity-lancaster-study-reveals-how-infants-actively-sample-new-information

Altmann, E. C., Bazhydai, M., Westermann, G. (2025). Curious Choices: Infants’ moment-to-moment information sampling is driven by their exploration history. Cognition. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105976

Marina and Malcolm presented at the Budapest CEU Conference on Cognitive Development: https://bcccd.org/

Our Curiosity Battery research project has now launched and the website is live – check it out: https://www.curiosity-battery.co.uk

Marina and Dr Elena Altmann completed a pilot research project with young people in KS3&4 who went on educational trips as part of their extra curriculum learning. The study was commissioned by the Next Generation Travel. We found promising evidence for the positive effect of educational trips as alternative learning environments on young people’s curiosity, sense of wonder and desire to learn. Read more about the study here.