Studies

Expectations in infants (4- & 6-month-olds)

Expectations help us organize our thoughts about the world. We are interested in what the expectations about objects are for infants from 4-6 months. In this study infants will have recognize a signal (a bear or a clown) and use this information to identify a pattern. If infants figure out that the bear and clown are signals for future events then they will start to anticipate the next item in the pattern. How do we know when infants are anticipating? We use a very sensitive camera to monitor their eye movements and a computer program helps us figure out how long the baby looked at each area of the computer screen.

Object recognition in infants (5-month-olds)

Are these two teapots the same?

When you look at this tea pot from two different angles how do you know that they are the same teapot? Rotating images in your head is something that as an adult you do with little effort, however, babies around 5 months are just starting to figure out that objects viewed from different angles are still the same object. In this study we show the baby simple shapes (squares and triangles) and based on how long they look at each shape we can tell if they can tell the difference between objects or tell the difference between different views of the same object.

Attention in infants (7- to 9-month-olds)

In this study, we teach infants to look at one picture in order to get other pictures on a computer screen to change. Focusing attention on one object and understanding the relationships between objects is very easy for adults but may be a challenge for young infants. The purpose of this project is to see how attention changes from 7-9 months of age. How can we tell what the baby is paying attention to? We use the same camera and computer as in the 4-6 month-old study!

Television learning in infants (14- to 36-month-olds)

What do babies learn from television? This is currently a big question in every parents mind. We use infants natural tendency to imitate to measure differences in behavior when a gesture is presented on a video versus presented by a live person. So far we are finding that infants up to 30 months learn better when a live person shows them a gesture than when they have to learn it from a video. To complete our media exposure survey Click here!

Target Location (3-5 years old)

This study employs a Where's Waldo type game to see what type of distractions slow down the identification of a target object. In this study kids will get to play our video game on a touch sensitive computer.

Contour Detection (3-5 years old)

How well do children detect an edge (contour) when there is a lot of distracting information in the environment? It was once thought that the ability to detect contours developed in infancy but it turns out that even older kids have trouble with this task sometimes. This study uses a touchscreen game where the child will have to identify a circle when it is surrounded by distracting information.

Image Reconstruction (3-5 years old)

When looking through a dirty window or glass streaked with raindrops how do you still manage to identify the image on the other side? We are curious if preschool age children are as good as adults at identifying distorted images. We are also interested in what information children use to identify distorted images and if that information is the same as what is used by adults. How do we know what kids are looking at? We use the same highly sensitive camera used in the infant studies to monitor and measure the child's eye movements.

Face recognition in children (7.5- to 8.5-year-olds)

Did you know that kids use a completely different strategy to recognize faces than adults? Adults rely on spacing information (for example, the distance between nose and mouth) while children rely on recognition of specific features (eyes, nose, mouth). We are interested in figuring out when children start to recognize faces like adults.

To test what strategy kids use we have them identify faces as 'same or different' using a touch sensitive computer screen. We measure how quickly respond and the number of errors made to determine what strategy kids are using.