Let’s decorate easter eggs!

For 4- to 6-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. Once the call begins, our researcher will introduce your child to two machines in an Easter egg factory. One machine paints the eggs, the other machine adds a gem. Your child will learn about both machines, and see an egg go into one machine, gets decorated, and immediately goes into the other machine. We will ask your child to think about what a decorated egg will look like after it comes out of both machines.

We're interested in how young children think about two-step operations. When something goes through two operations sequentially, we need to keep track of the result after the first operation, pass it to the next operation, and imagine the final outcome. It can be tricky to think about how something will be after two transformations, especially when changing the order of operations also changes the final product. While adults do this kind of reasoning all the time, we are curious when do young children start to think about two-step operations.

15 minutes

Within two weeks you will be sent a $5 gift card to Amazon.com. You will be compensated even if your child is unable to complete the whole study. However, we cannot compensate unless you attend the Zoom call with an age appropriate child who is able to do the study in English, and we cannot compensate the participation of a single child more than once.