Cogito – Children's cognitive development

We are interested in the cognitive development of typical children. Our focus is on preschool children. We are interested in topics such as children's episodic memory, children's ability to identify objects, children as witnesses, children's social cognition, causal thinking and problem solving.


In 1996, we established the first experimental developmental psychology ‘lab’ in Denmark, and our laboratory facilities provide ample opportunity to carry out a wide range of experimental studies, including the use of eye tracking.

The studies were supported by external grants from the Danish Council for Independent Research (Culture and Communication) networks, the Danish National Research Foundation and the Velux Foundation.


Who we are?

Academic Staff

Professor and Head of Research Unit

Lab manager


PhD Students


Student assistants

Laura Teglhøj

Terese Hald Juul-Nyholm

Juliane Dueholm

Emilia Primdahl Vestergaard


External members

Toril S. Jensen


Tirill Fjellhaugen Hjuler


Alumni

(copy 33)

[Translate to English:]

Toril S. Jensen

(copy 32)

[Translate to English:]

Tirill Fjellhaugen Hjuler

(copy 34)

[Translate to English:]

Jonna J. Dahl

Publications

In press

  • Hjuler, T. F., Sonne, T., Kingo, O. S., Berntsen, D., & Krøjgaard, P. (in press). “Workman made noise in my room. Me kept my hands on my ears!” A diary study of spontaneous memories in 34- to 36-month-old children. Applied Cognitive Psychology.
  • Sonne, T., Kingo, O. S., Berntsen, D., & Krøjgaard, P. (in press). On the importance of contextual cues for spontaneous recall in 35- and 46-month-old children. Psychological Research.

2023

  • Hjuler, T. F., Sonne, T., Kingo, O. S., Berntsen, D., & Krøjgaard, P. (in press). “I can’t remember!” Three-year-olds struggle to strategically access encoded and consolidated memories. Cognitive Development.
  • Sonne, T., Kingo, O. S., Berntsen, D., & Krøjgaard, P. (in press). To ask or not to ask: Strategic, but not spontaneous recall, decreases by the passage of time in 46-month-olds’ memory of a unique event. Psychological Research.
  • Jensen, T. S., Sonne, T., Kingo, O. S., Berntsen, D., & Krøjgaard, P. (in press). Children below two years of age spontaneously recall an event with Magical Teddies. Cognitive Development.
  • Sonne, T., Kingo, O. S., & Krøjgaard, P. (2023). 6-, 10-, and 12-month-olds remember complex dynamic events across two weeks. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 229, 105627.

2022

  • Krøjgaard, P., Sonne, T., Kingo, O. S., & Berntsen, D. (2022). Spontaneous verbal recall: A new look at the mechanisms involved in episodic memory retrieval in young children. Developmental Review, 66, 101050.
  • Jensen. T. S., Berntsen, D., Kingo., O. S., & Krøjgaard, P. (2022). Distinct environmental cues trigger spontaneous recall of past events in three- and four-year-old children even after long delays. Child Development, 93, 941-955.
  • Svane, R. P., Zaman, W., Merrill, N., Krøjgaard, P., & Fivush, R. (2022). Gender differences in emotional reminiscing in a Scandinavian sample. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 63, 173-181.
  • Svane, R. P., Jensen, T. J., Hjuler, T. F., Sonne, T., Kingo, O. S., & Krøjgaard, P. (2022). Episodic future thinking in 35-, 47-, and 55-month-old children. Nordic Psychology, 74, 53-69.
  • Kingo, O. S., Sonne, T., & Krøjgaard, P. (2022). Predicting explicit memory for meaningful cartoons from visual paired comparison in infants and toddlers. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 215, 105316

2021

  • Sonne, T., Kingo, O. S., Berntsen, D., & Krøjgaard, P. (2021). Noting a difference: Change in social context prompts spontaneous recall in 46-month-olds, but not in 35.-month-olds. Psychological Research, 85, 939-950.
  • Sonne, T., Kingo, O. S., Berntsen, D., & Krøjgaard, P. (2021). Noting a difference: Change in social context prompts spontaneous recall in 46-month-olds, but not in 35.-month-olds. Psychological Research, 85, 939-950.
  • Svane, R. P., Olesen, M. J. R., Kingo, O. S., & Krøjgaard, P. (2021). Gender and parental involvement in parent-child reminiscing in a Scandinavian sample. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 62, 159-169.
  • Svane, R. P., Kingo, O. S., & Krøjgaard, P. (2021). A micro-analytic approach to parent-child reminiscing. Cognitive Development, 57, 101004.
  • Hjuler, T. F., Sonne, T., Kingo, O. S., Berntsen, D., & Krøjgaard, P. (2021). Real-time assessment of looking time at central environmental cues for spontaneous recall in 35-month-olds. Cognitive Development, 57, 100995.

2020

  • Sonne, T., Kingo, O. S., Berntsen, D., & Krøjgaard, P. (2020). Age affects strategic but not spontaneous recall in 35- and 46-month-old children. Journal of Cognition and Development, 21, 603-621.
  • Van der Kaap-Deeder, J., Soenens, B., Mouratidis, A., De Pauw, S., Krøjgaard, P., & Vansteenkiste, M. (2020). Towards a detailed understanding of preschool children’s memory-related functioning and emotion regulation: The role of parents’ observed reminiscence style, memory valence, and parental gender. Developmental Psychology, 56, 1996-1708.

2019

  • Bauer, P. J., Baker-Ward, L., Krøjgaard, P., Peterson, C., & Wang, Q. (2019). Evidence against depiction as fiction: A comment on “Fictional First Memories”. Psychological Science, 30, 1397-1399.
  • Krøjgaard, P., Sonne, T., Lerebourg, M., Lambek, R., & Kingo, O. S (2019). Eight-year-olds, but not six-year-olds, perform just as well as adults when playing Concentration: Resolving the enigma? Consciousness & Cognition, 69, 81-94.
  • Sonne, T., Kingo, O.S., Berntsen, D., & Krøjgaard, P. (2019). Thirty-five-month-old children have spontaneous memories despite change of context for retrieval. Memory, 27, 38-48.

2018

  • Sonne, T., Kingo, O. S., & Krøjgaard, P. (2018). Meaningful memory? Eighteen-month-olds only remember cartoons with a meaningful storyline. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 2388.

2017

  • Krøjgaard, P., Kingo, O.S., Jensen, T.S., & Berntsen, D. (2017). By-passing strategic retrieval: Experimentally induced spontaneous episodic memories in 35- and 46-month-old children. Consciousness and Cognition, 55, 91-105.
  • Partanen, E., Leminen, A., de Paoli, S., Bundgaard, A., Kingo, O.S., Krøjgaard, P., & Shtyrov, Y. (2017). Flexible, rapid and automatic neocortical word form acquisition mechanism in children as revealed by neuromagnetic brain response dynamics. NeuroImage, 155, 450-459.
  • Krøjgaard, P., Kingo, O.S., & Berntsen, D. (2017). Adults’ earliest memories of songs and melodies based on a large stratified sample. Memory Studies, 10, 210-226.
  • Brynskov, C., Eigsti, I-M, Jørgensen, M., Lemcke, S., Bohn, O-S, & Krøjgaard, P. (2017). Syntax and morphology in Danish-speaking children with autism spectrum disorder. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 47, 373-383.
  • Sonne, T., Kingo, O.S., & Krøjgaard, P. (2017). Bound to remember: Infants show superior memory for objects presented at event boundaries. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 58, 107-113.
  • Krøjgaard, P. (2017). On the Theorem of Correspondence. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 51, 29-38.

2016

  • Hayne, H., Jaeger, K., Sonne, T., & Gross, J. (2016). Visual attention to meaningful stimuli by 1- to 3-year-olds: implications for the measurement of memory. Developmental Psychobiology, 58, 808-816.
  • Sonne, T., Kingo, O.S., & Krøjgaard, P. (2016). Empty looks or paying attention? Exploring infants’ visual behavior during encoding of an elicited imitation task. Infancy, 21, 728-750.
  • Dahl, J.J., Kingo, O.S., & Krøjgaard, P. (2016). Twenty-four-month-olds' nonverbal memory for expected and unexpected versions of familiar events. Cognitive Development, 39, 168-180.
  • Krøjgaard, P. (2016). Keeping track of individuals: Insights from developmental psychology. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 50, 264-276.
  • Sonne, T., Kingo, O.S., & Krøjgaard, P. (2016). Occlusions at event boundaries during encoding have a negative effect on infant memory. Consciousness & Cognition, 41, 72-82.

2015

  • Dahl, J.J., Kingo, O.S., & Krøjgaard, P. (2015). The Magic Shrinking Machine revisited: The presence of props at recall facilitates memory in 3-year-olds. Developmental Psychology, 51, 1704-1716.
  • Kingo, O.S., & Krøjgaard, P. (2015). Eighteen-month-olds’ memory for short movies of simple stories. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 56, 151-156

2014

  • Krøjgaard, P., Kingo, O.S., Dahl, J.J., & Berntsen, D. (2014). That one makes things small": Experimentally induced spontaneous memories in 3.5-year-olds. Consciousness and Cognition, 30, 24-35.
  • Kingo, O.S., Staugaard, S.R., & Krøjgaard, P. (2014). Three-year-olds’ memory for a person met only once at the age of 12 months: Very long-term memory revealed by a late-manifesting novelty preference. Consciousness and Cognition, 24, 49-56.2013
  • Kingo, O.S, Berntsen, D., & Krøjgaard P. (2013). Adults’ earliest memories as a function of age, gender, and education in a large stratified sample. Psychology and Aging, 28, 646-653.
  • Krøjgaard, P., Kingo, O.S., Staugaard, S.R. (2013). Object individuation or object movement as attractor? A replication of the wide-screen/narrow-screen study by means of (a) standard looking time methodology, and (b) eye tracking. Child Development Research, 2013, 1-14.
  • Krøjgaard, P., & Berntsen, D. (2013). Editorial: An introduction to the Special Issue on Autobiographical Memory. Nordic Psychology, 62, 81-86.
  • Dahl, J. J., Sonne, T., Kingo, O. S., & Krøjgaard, P. (2013). On the Development of Episodic Memory: Two Basic Questions. Nordic Psychology, 62, 189-207.
  • Kingo, O.S., Bohn, A., & Krøjgaard, P. (2013). Warm-up questions on early childhood memories affect the reported age of earliest memories in late adolescence. Memory, 21, 280-284.

2013

  • Kingo, O.S, Berntsen, D., & Krøjgaard P. (2013). Adults’ earliest memories as a function of age, gender, and education in a large stratified sample. Psychology and Aging, 28, 646-653.
  • Krøjgaard, P., Kingo, O.S., Staugaard, S.R. (2013). Object individuation or object movement as attractor? A replication of the wide-screen/narrow-screen study by means of (a) standard looking time methodology, and (b) eye tracking. Child Development Research, 2013, 1-14.
  • Krøjgaard, P., & Berntsen, D. (2013). Editorial: An introduction to the Special Issue on Autobiographical Memory. Nordic Psychology, 62, 81-86.
  • Dahl, J. J., Sonne, T., Kingo, O. S., & Krøjgaard, P. (2013). On the Development of Episodic Memory: Two Basic Questions. Nordic Psychology, 62, 189-207.
  • Kingo, O.S., Bohn, A., & Krøjgaard, P. (2013). Warm-up questions on early childhood memories affect the reported age of earliest memories in late adolescence. Memory, 21, 280-284.
  • Kingo, O. S., & Krøjgaard, P. (2013). Eighteen-month-old infants generalize to analogue props across a two weeks retention interval in an elicited imitation paradigm. Child Development Research, 2013, 1-11.

2007-2012

  • Kingo, O. S., & Krøjgaard, P. (2012). Object function facilitates infants’ object individuation in a manual search task. Journal of Cognition and Development, 13, 152-173.
  • Kingo, O.S., & Krøjgaard, P. (2011). Object manipulation facilitates kind-based object individuation of shape-similar objects. Cognitive Development, 26, 87-103.
  • Krøjgaard, P. (2009). A direct comparison of infants’ use of featural and spatiotemporal information when individuating objects in a non-occlusion event monitoring design. European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 6, 641-665.
  • Krøjgaard, P., & Kingo, O.S. (2008). Metodiske overvejelser i forbindelse med undersøgelse af spædbørns kognitive udvikling: Anvendelse af computerdisplays og eye trackere. [Methodological concerns related to infant cognition research: the use of computer displays and eye tracking.] Psyke & Logos, 29, 488-498.
  • Krøjgaard, P. (2007). Comparing infants’ use of featural and spatio-temporal information in an object individuation task using a new event-monitoring design. Developmental Science, 10, 892-909.

Materials for researchers and practitioners

News article from the Lundbeck Foundation: Deep down in young children’s memories

How can we retrieve people’s earliest experiences from their memory? Professor of Developmental Psychology Peter Krøjgaard is looking for answers with a specially designed test that he and his colleagues use to study spontaneous memories in children aged three to four years.

News from Cogito 2023

This newsletter includes an article about the results of our project on children's memory from film clips and spontaneous memories in children

More about our work

Contact

If you’re interested in hearing more about the research unit and our activities, you are most welcome to contact: