Learning and Teaching Categories!

For 4.5- to 5.5-year-old children who are hearing English at home.

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. On a Zoom call with a researcher, your child will see a series of differently colored and shaped objects and will hear a made-up category label associated with a few of those objects. They may also hear a description of the labeled objects. Your child will then be asked to teach others about the made-up category by choosing the objects they think best represent this category. Because we’re focusing on children hearing about category labels in English, we can only include children who are hearing English at home.

Young children encounter many different objects in their day-to-day lives, some of which are explicitly labeled or categorized, and many of which are not. We are interested in understanding how labeled and unlabeled objects inform how children form categories, especially when the labeled objects are not the most representative of their category. This study will also help us understand how children use category examples to teach others about that category.

10 minutes

As a token of appreciation, you will receive a $5 Amazon.com e-gift card within 2 weeks. 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.