Can babies understand cause?

For 8 to 11 month 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. Your baby will watch videos depicting a hidden causal interaction: a ball will roll behind a wall and hit a cube that will crumble. After seeing this happen a few times, your baby will watch two new versions of the same event — but this time without the wall. In one version, the ball touches the cube before it crumbles. In the other version, the cube crumbles without being touched. We are interested in whether babies find the “no-touch” event surprising.

We are interested in how babies understand cause and effect. Do they expect objects to touch in order to make something happen, or are they surprised when something changes without contact? We are especially interested in whether certain kinds of changes—like objects that change on their own—lead babies to treat those objects more like “agents” (things that can act on their own and cause changes), and whether this affects what they expect those objects to do. We measure babies’ expectations by looking at how long they watch different events.

15 minutes

Each participant who is in the required age range and participated in the study will receive a $5 gift card from Amazon.com within two weeks after the date on which the study took place.