Who drew this?

For 4- to 7-year olds

This study will take place on a video call, live with a researcher! Clicking on the “Schedule a time to participate” button will send you to an online calendar where you can select a date and time that works for you.

In this study, you’ll be playing a simple game with your child that involves detecting who drew what. On each turn of the experiment, your child will see two characters, each of whom drew one thing. Then, a third thing appears in the middle, and your child will guess who they think drew the third thing.

In this study, we are interested in asking whether and how kids understand the “style” of pictures, and whether that can be understood separately from the picture’s content. For example, when we look at Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”, we see both its style — the blue and yellow palette, swirling textures, and dreamlike aura — and its content — a French village beneath a night’s sky. What about our minds makes that possible, and how does it develop in childhood? Here, we ask this question by measuring whether children prioritize style or content when they look at pictures.

15 minutes

Participants will receive a $5 gift card to Amazon.com as compensation. To be eligible for compensation, the child needs to be in the age range and the child needs to be visible throughout the study. You may receive compensation only once per child. We will send out this gift card within 1 week of the study's completion.