‘LüneLütten’ research project: Three-year-olds support research
2026-06-22 Using a small camera attached to a specially designed vest, children record themselves playing, eating and interacting with other people. The footage forms part of an international study currently being launched by Leuphana University Lüneburg, which, for the first time in developmental research, focuses on the children’s perspective.
What do children get up to throughout the day? What do they play with, who do they talk to, and what challenges do they face? Everyday situations have a major influence on children’s social and communicative development. The problem is that it is difficult for researchers to gain access to genuine, unfiltered family life. Until now, they have had to rely on parent questionnaires or staged observation scenarios. In the new, large-scale international study ‘Kinderblick’, things are being done differently for the first time: children are documenting their own family life on camera – undisturbed and authentically. The research project is led by Manuel Bohn, Professor of Developmental Psychology at Leuphana University Lüneburg.
“Until now, two aspects have been neglected in developmental research: genuine, unfiltered family life and the comparison of international data, particularly from non-Western countries. We want to close these research gaps in order to better understand how children learn language and social behaviour, and how this is similar or different across cultural boundaries,” says Manuel Bohn, who, prior to taking up his professorship in Lüneburg, had already conducted research at Stanford University and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
Over the next two years, 150 families with three-year-old children will be followed in each of Turkey, Kenya and Germany. In Germany, families from Lüneburg and the surrounding region are eligible to take part. The research team has only just begun writing to families to invite them to participate.
At the start of the study, around the child’s third birthday, a bodycam will record a typical day from the child’s perspective. The aim is to collect several thousand hours of video footage of all participating children. In addition, on the children’s third, fourth and fifth birthdays, the research team will observe specific skills to make developmental milestones tangible. AI-supported computer models will evaluate the results and analyse patterns, differences, similarities and country-specific characteristics.
Data protection is also a top priority in the study. The data will be analysed anonymously using a secure programme. Important for participating parents: there will be no judgement of their children’s everyday lives, and they will have the opportunity to view and delete the camera recordings themselves.
The research team is still looking for families from Lüneburg and the surrounding area with children born between 1 July 2023 and 30 June 2024 who would like to take part in the study and are willing to document their children’s daily lives.
The ‘Kinderblick Study’
The LüneLütten research team from the Department of Developmental Psychology at Leuphana University Lüneburg aims to understand how children develop between the ages of four and five. The international study is being conducted at three selected locations worldwide, one of which is Lüneburg. The study’s findings contribute to fundamental research in developmental psychology and provide insights that are important for educational work in nurseries and schools. The study is funded by the Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture and the Volkswagen Foundation.