Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology
Deutscher Platz 6
D-04103 Leipzig
GERMANY

  Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology (http://www.eva.mpg.de/psycho/)

Description of Research Interests:

Major research interests in processes of social cognition, social learning, and communication from developmental, comparative, and cultural perspectives - especially aspects related to language and its acquisition. Current theoretical focus on processes of shared intentionality. Empirical research mainly with human children from 1 to 4 years of age and great apes.

For your reading enjoyment:

Tomasello, M. (in press). Why We Cooperate. MIT Press

Tomasello, M. (2008). Origins of Human Communication. MIT Press.

Tomasello, M. (2003). Constructing a Language: A Usage-Based Theory of Language Acquisition. Harvard University Press.

Tomasello, M. (1999). The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition. Harvard University Press.

Tomasello, M. & Call, J. (1997). Primate Cognition. Oxford University Press.

Some recent publications (downloadable):

Liszkowski, U., Schäfer, M., Carpenter, M., & Tomasello, M. (2009). Prelinguistic infants, but not chimpanzees, communicate about absent entities. Psychological Science, 20(5), 654-660 [pdf]

Vaish, A., Carpenter, M., & Tomasello, M. (2009). Sympathy through affective perspective taking and its relation to prosocial behavior in toddlers. Developmental Psychology, 45(2), 534–543 [pdf]

Call, J. & Tomasello, M. (2008). Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind? 30 years later. Trends in Cognitive Science, 12, 187-192. [pdf]

Dittmar, M., Abbot-Smith, K., Lieven, E., & Tomasello, M. (2008). German children’s comprehension of word order and case marking in causative sentences. Child Development, 79(4), 1152-1167. [pdf]

Kaminski, J, Call, J., & Tomasello, M. (2008). Chimpanzees know what others know, but not what they believe. Cognition, 109, 224-234. [pdf]

Liszkowski, U. , Carpenter, M., & Tomasello, M. (2008). Twelve-month-olds communicate helpfully and appropriately for knowledgeable and ignorant partners. Cognition, 108, 732-739. [pdf]

Rakoczy, H., Warneken, F., & Tomasello, M. (2008). The sources of normativity: Young children’s awareness of the normative structure of games. Developmental Psychology, 44, 875-81. [pdf]

Tomasello, M. (2008). How are humans unique? New York Times Magazine, May 25, 2008. [online]

Tomasello, M. & Warneken, F. (2008). Share and share alike. Nature, 454, 1057-58. [pdf]

Warneken, F. & Tomasello, M. (2008). Extrinsic Rewards Undermine Altruistic Tendencies in 20-Month-Olds. Developmental Psychology,  44 (6), 1785–1788. [pdf]

Tomasello, M. (2007). For human eyes only. New York Times Op-Ed, January 13, 2007. [online]

Tomasello, M., Carpenter, M., & Lizskowski, U., (2007).  A new look at infant pointing. Child Development, 78, 705-22 [pdf]

Herrmann, E., Call, J., Lloreda, M., Hare, B., & Tomasello, M. (2007). Humans have evolved specialized skills of social cognition:The cultural intelligence hypothesis.  Science, 317, 1360-1366. [pdf]

Jensen, K., Call, J., & Tomasello, M. (2007).  Chimpanzees are rational maximizers in an ultimatum game.  Science, 318, 107-109. [pdf]

Jensen, K., Call, J., & Tomasello, M. (2007). Chimpanzees are vengeful but not spiteful. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104, 13046-13050. [pdf]

Moll, H., & Tomasello, M. (2007). How 14- and 18- month-olds know what others have experienced.  Developmental Psychology, 43, 309-317. [pdf]

Moll, H., & Tomasello, M. (2007). Co-operation and human cognition: The Vygotskian intelligence hypothesis.  Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 362, 639-648. [pdf]

Hare, B., Call, J., & Tomasello, M. (2006). Chimpanzees deceive a human competitor by hiding. Cognition, 101, 495-514 [pdf]

Melis, A., Hare, B., & Tomasello, M. (2006). Chimpanzees recruit the best collaborators. Science, 31 ,1297 - 1300. [pdf]

Tomasello, M. (2006). Acquiring linguistic constructions. In D. Kuhn & R. Siegler (Eds.), Handbook of Child Psychology. New York: Wiley. [pdf]

Warneken, F., Chen. F., & Tomasello, M. (2006). Cooperative activities in young children and chimpanzees. Child Development, 3, 640-663. [pdf]

Warneken, F. & Tomasello, M. (2006). Altruistic helping in human infants and young chimpanzees. Science, 31, 1301 - 1303. [pdf]

Behne, T., Carpenter, M., & Tomasello, M. (2005). One-year-olds comprehend the communicative intentions behind gestures in a hiding game. Developmental Science, 8, 492 - 499. [pdf]

Hare, B., & Tomasello, M. (2005). Human-like social skills in dogs? Trends in Cognitive Science, 9, 439-444. [pdf]

Tomasello, M., Carpenter, M., Call, J., Behne, T., & Moll, H. (2005). Understanding and sharing intentions: The origins of cultural cognition. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 28, 675 - 691. [pdf]

Tomasello, M. (2004). What kind of evidence could refute the UG hypothesis? Studies in Language, 28, 642-44. [pdf]

Tomasello, M. & Stahl, D. (2004). Sampling children's spontaneous speech: How much is enough? Journal of Child Language, 31, 101-121. [pdf]