Following Friends

For 5-6-year-old children who speak English as a native language.

In this study, your child will watch some videos of simple shapes representing characters and objects in a grid world. In each trial, your child will watch a video in which these characters move in particular ways, motivated by underlying social or object goals. After watching each video, your child will then be asked who or what one of the characters likes more based on how the characters acted in the previous video.

At the beginning of the study your child will complete practice trials with feedback. At the end of the study, your child will be asked to explain out loud how they chose their answers.

From a young age, we are able to recognize that the actions of other people are motivated by different goals, e.g. to reach for objects or to befriend others.

This study investigates how children interpret the actions of a character, represented by a simple, 2D animated shape. Do children expect this character's actions to be socially motivated or directed to a goal object?

Previous research has demonstrated that babies can recognize both social and object-directed goals underlying the actions of simple animated characters. The current study builds on these findings by examining how young children make similar inferences, comparing patterns of social reasoning across babies, children, and adults.

20 minutes

We will email you a $5 gift card (redeemable only on Amazon.com) within approximately three business days of participating in the study. To be eligible for the gift card, your child must be in the age range for this study, you need to submit a valid consent statement, and we need to see that there is a child with you. But we will send a gift card even if you do not finish the whole study or we are not able to use your child's data. We can only compensate children for participating in this study once.