How do babies think about disappearing objects?

For babies ages 10 to 15 months who reside in the US and are exposed to English. Each participant can only participate in this study once.

Your child will see short video clips of an object falling behind one of two screens for a repeated number of times. The screens will lower to reveal the object's location. Later, your child will see similar video clips of the same object or different object falling behind one of two screens. The screens will lower and reveal the object's location. They can either reappear behind the same screen where they disappeared, or reappear behind a different screen. Your child may also see videos of the objects making sounds. We will measure your child’s looking time at each video clips to see if they are surprised by a particular outcome.

We want to understand how flexibly babies adapt to new physical rules. Even young infants believe in the continuity principle, which states that objects move continuously in space and cannot reappear in a different place without moving there. We are interested in whether infants can learn new rules that violate the continuity principle through viewing counter-evidence.

15 minutes

Within a week after you participate in this study, we will email you a $5 Amazon.com gift card which you can redeem at amazon.com. To be eligible for the gift card: 1) your child must be in the age range for this study, 2) you need to submit a valid consent statement, and 3) we need to see that there is a child with you.