# Our lab history

Development, learning, and social understanding connect the Curiosity and Learning Lab’s early work with research on people and artificial agents.

## Nuh Naci Yazgan University

Our lab began as the **Curiosity and Learning Lab** (_Merak ve Öğrenme Laboratuvarı_) at Nuh Naci Yazgan University in Kayseri. Burcu Ünlütabak led the lab. The Psychology Department records a public introduction to the lab on 5 April 2021.

The early work asked how children learn from people around them. The lab studied the questions preschoolers ask in everyday conversations, the role of families and social interaction in early science learning, children’s language and storytelling, and spatial thinking. During this period, Ünlütabak supervised a TÜBİTAK 2209-A student project on how family conversations about past experiences relate to early literacy.

The lab’s publication archive also records work on storybooks and children’s understanding of other minds, and on whether preschoolers in Türkiye and Belarus check surprising claims made by adults.

[Early lab archive](https://merakveogrenmelab.nny.edu.tr/?p=contents) · [2021 department report](https://psy.nny.edu.tr/files/files/PSY2021%20%C3%96z%20De%C4%9Ferlendirme%20Raporu.pdf) · [TÜBİTAK student project awards](https://tubitak.gov.tr/sites/default/files/4000/2209a_2020_2_destekler.pdf) · [Early publication list](https://merakveogrenmelab.nny.edu.tr/index.php?id=293&p=content)

## Yeditepe University

Ünlütabak joined Yeditepe University in 2022 and continued the Curiosity and Learning Lab there. Developmental psychology remained central. Her research and supervision during this period included how teachers in Türkiye and the United States answered children’s questions about COVID-19 and how play and shared reading relate to toddlers’ language and cognitive development.

The lab extended its work on children’s questions to digital devices. Ünlütabak led a TÜBİTAK 3501 project, grant **123K894**, on how children ask questions of adults and voice assistants and how family beliefs relate to their questions. The project supported the [social robot study](/research/related-work.md#children-and-social-robots) and the [voice assistant preprint](/research/children-voice-assistants.md). In the voice assistant study, an experimenter used a Wizard-of-Oz interface to select prepared answers and control how much information they provided.

In parallel, Ünlütabak and Onur Bal applied methods from developmental psychology to language models. Their 2025 paper tested GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 on tasks about what characters believe in Turkish and English. The study grew out of the lab’s earlier interest in how people make sense of other minds.

[Yeditepe lab listing](https://itbf.yeditepe.edu.tr/en/psychology-department/research) · [Academic and thesis record](https://yeditepe.edu.tr/en/academic-staff/2897) · [Study on children’s questions to teachers](https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0307475) · [TÜBİTAK project](/research/child-inquiry-project.md) · [Language model study](/research/theory-of-mind.md)

## Seminars and workshops

In February 2024, Ünlütabak spoke at Bilkent University about how family and culture shape children’s search for information from people and voice assistants. In December 2024, she and Bal contributed to a Yeditepe workshop on AI in education. Ünlütabak spoke about AI tools for teaching and personalized learning. Bal spoke about automated assessment and feedback.

On 16 June 2026, Ünlütabak and students helped organize a workshop at Yeditepe on children’s curiosity, parenting, and intelligent technologies. Researchers from several universities discussed topics including how social robots might fit into children’s lives.

[Bilkent seminar](https://w3.bilkent.edu.tr/www/psyc-semineri-sociocultural-influences-on-childrens-information-seeking-with-humans-and-voice-assistants-burcu-unlutabak-1230-12-subat-2024-en/) · [YU-LEARNT workshop report](https://yulearnt.yeditepe.edu.tr/sites/default/files/YU-LEARNT-2024%20Faaliyet%20Raporu-TR_0.pdf#page=14) · [2026 workshop report](https://www.mindlangtech.com/research/)

## Curtainplate Laboratories today

Curtainplate carries these connected lines of research forward. Development, learning, language, and social understanding remain central. Research with children is a major part of the lab, alongside work on adults’ information seeking and interactions with AI.

Some studies observe people interacting with technology. Others test language models directly on tasks about beliefs and knowledge. These different methods serve a shared interest in how understanding takes shape.

[Explore our research](/research.md) · [Meet the team](/people.md)

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