Up Down All Around!

For 5 - 8 month 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 baby will sit in either a high chair or on your lap and watch animated videos presented to them on your computer. The videos will involve an animated character struggling to climb a hill and an inanimate ball rolling up and down the same hill.

The purpose of this study is to explore whether infants are able to learn a new expectation about the behavior of an object by observing the actions of an agent. The babies will observe an agent struggle to climb a ramp, teaching them that it is costly for agents to climb ramps. Then we will test whether babies generalize this expectation to objects, by seeing if they look longer at videos of a ball rolling up or down the same ramp. If infants generalize their expectations from agents to objects, this would suggest that the cognitive systems babies use to reason about agents and objects rely on a shared understanding of the physical world. This research helps us better understand how babies perceive and understand the world around them.

15 minutes

Eligible participants will receive a $5 Amazon.com gift card no more than three days after the session. To be eligible for the gift card (1) your baby must be in the age range for this game (2) you must have provided informed consent (3) we will only provide one gift card per participant.