Gert Westermann

Gert Westermann is Professor and Head of the Department of Psychology at Lancaster University. His research in developmental cognitive science uses eye tracking, EEG, and computational modeling to study infant learning, curiosity-driven exploration, and neuroconstructivist principles linking brain development to cognition.

Research Focus:

• Curiosity-Based Learning: Mechanisms of infant exploration and intrinsic motivation.
• Object/Word Learning: How infants integrate sensory information to form categories and acquire language.
• Neuroconstructivism: Computational models of brain-cognition relationships (e.g., verb inflection processing).

His lab is funded by ESRC, Leverhulme Trust, and British Academy. Recent publications explore curiosity, language acquisition, and neurodiversity, emphasizing empirical and computational approaches.

Doctoral Advisees: Claudia Gaele, Hambel Willow.