Thinking or Wanting? Guess What's on My Mind!

For 4- to 5-year-olds

During the study, you will fill out a brief survey about the language(s) your child hear regularly. Then, your child will watch 6 pairs of short videos, and choose which video matches a sentence. For example, in one video a girl discovers that a cookie box is empty, while in the other video the actor walks away thinking there are cookies inside. Your child then hears a sentence about what's going on in the actor's mind and chooses the matching video.

We are studying how children understand others' mental states, such as thinking and wanting, and ways to express them. This helps us understand how such expression is learned by children when these mental activities are highly abtract and not directly observable, unlike physical actions. This is important because past research has found that having a vocabulary for mental states are important for children to reason about others' and one's own mental processes.

15 minutes

To thank you for your participation, you will receive a $5 gift card for Amazon.com within one week from the study date. To be eligible for the gift card: (1) You need to be located in the U.S. (2) Your child must be in the age range for the study and present with you during the study. (3) You need to provide a valid consent statement, and (4) this needs to be the first time that your child is participating in this study.