Hi / Salut / Namaste! Which puppet would you prefer as your friend?

This study is for children aged 4 or 5 years old who are based in the U.S. Your child must be within this age range on the day of your study appointment.
Your child must be primarily exposed to English 90-100% of the time to be eligible for this study. If your child is exposed to any other languages (for example if they interact regularly with people who speak another language), it should ideally be minimal, or less than 10% of the time.
Your child must not have participated in this study before, in order to be eligible.

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 child will watch videos of pairs of puppets speaking different languages and will be asked which one they would prefer to have as their friend. They will later also be shown puppets speaking in either one or two languages and will be asked a few questions about these puppets that help us understand children’s beliefs about bilingualism.

This study aims to explore whether children prefer characters who speak the same language as them or who speak a different language to them. Additionally, the study will explore whether children believe that puppets that speak more than one language can communicate with more people. This is important for understanding children’s friendship preferences based on language, and will set the stage for a future study that will explore ways to build linguistic diversity. The study is a replication of past work, but uses puppet speakers instead of humans.

15 minutes

Children will receive a $5 gift card for Amazon.com and certificate of participation within 3 days of participating over Zoom. To receive the gift card and certificate, your child must be 4 or 5 years old and a monolingual English-speaker (exposed to English 90-100% of the time). Also, your child must be visible at some point in the appointment, and we will only award one gift card per child. Compensation is not dependent on your child’s performance in or completion of the study tasks.