What can you remember? Memory of Numbers, Pictures, and Stories

Children who live in the United States of America.

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, we are interested in how children remember the details of stories. Your child will play 3 memory games with a researcher over Zoom—a counting game, a picture game, and a storybook game. In the counting game, your child will hear and recite a series of numbers (e.g., 123). In the picture game, children will see and label pictures of a sun and a moon as either “night” or “day”. Finally, in the storybook game, children will listen to 6 ebook stories about different cartoon characters. Each storybook will have a different surprise ending (e.g., not surprising, a little surprising, or very surprising). Then they will answer multiple choice questions about each story assessing their memory for storybook event details (e.g., who, what, where and why).

Children use their expectations about the world to guide their exploration and learning. Notably, in instances where event outcomes are unexpected, children tend to pay more attention and, in some instances, have better memory for it. However, it remains unclear whether different levels of unexpectedness or surprise impact children's memory and learning differently. This study explores how different event outcomes impact children’s memory and learning of storybook content.

30 Minutes

$5 Amazon gift card (via perfectgift.com). Gift cards will be distributed within 7 business days. Children must be within the specified age range, remain visible throughout the duration of the study, and are limited to one gift card per child participant.