Doctors, teachers, monkeys, and lions

For 5- 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. Your child watch a series of short videos of people talking to each other, using a new word. At the end of each video, your child will make a guess about what the new word means. Along the way, they'll play a fun map game to learn some facts about different kinds of animals.

In this study, we’re interested in how the language a child already knows--like words they know and the structure of a sentence--can help them learn brand-new words. We’re especially interested in words like adjectives, which can describe concrete properties like color, and abstract properties like emotions. Different adjectives place different restrictions on the kinds of sentences in which they can appear. For example, we can say that a child is "too little to do something" or that they are "eager to do something" but we cannot say that a chair is "too wooden to sit in." These are aspects of language we learn without being taught them! We'd like to know if children can use the information in these sentences to assign a meaning to new adjectives they encounter.

15 minutes

$5 Amazon.com gift card. We will email you an Amazon gift card within 1 week of the study. To be eligible for compensation, the following criteria must be met: (1) Your child must be in the age range for this study and must not have previously done this study; (2) You must have provided informed consent; and (3) your child must be visible during the video.