Help Our Friends Find What They're Looking For!

For 3-year-olds who are learning English at home. Participants must be located in the United States and hearing English speech at least 40% of the time. Each child may only participate in this study once.

In this study, your child will see many familiar objects, some labeled with familiar English-language words and some labeled with a made-up new word. We will follow several characters around as they talk about objects they want to find. We will ask your kid to point to the objects they see on the screen and for you to select the option they pointed to on the screen. Afterwards, there will be some quick questions about your child and their exposure to different languages.

Children have lots of ways to learn new words. For example, if a child hears the word "let's eat the snickerdoodle" without knowing it's a cookie, what parts of a sentence do they use to help them find out what a snickerdoodle may be? We also know that keeping a word consistently in a story may help kids remember what it means. In this study, we will compare when a word is present throughout the story or not. Additionally, we want to see if children may or may not use verbs that help them guess what a new word may be referring to, as well as if that new word is consistently present. We will give them some familiar and made-up word labels, along with verbs, to help them figure out what picture may match.

15 minutes

As a token of appreciation, you will receive a $5 Amazon.com e-gift card within 2 weeks of completing this study. You are eligible for this payment if your child meets all the eligibility criteria, is present in the Consent Video at the start of the study, and has not participated in the study before.