What's hiding in the box?

For babies aged 15 to 18 months who learn English as their first language

Your baby will watch a video of a person peeking into a box and naming objects in the box. For some of the babies who participate in this study, the person will show some of the objects while naming them. For other babies, the objects will be named but never shown. We will also ask you to fill out a short vocabulary survey.

We want to understand if babies at 15-18 months can learn new word meanings without seeing the objects they stand for. If three familiar objects shown are fruits, can babies infer that the hidden object is also a fruit and learn its name? What happens if they can only hear the names of fruits but cannot see them? We want to understand how babies begin to use what they already know and what they see to learn new information about things they have never seen.

15 minutes

The compensation for the study is $5 dollars. We will send a $5 Amazon.com gift card within 2 weeks after the study is complete. To be eligible for compensation, the following criteria must be met: (1) your child must be in the age range for this study and be learning English as their first language; (2) you need to submit a valid video consent statement; (3) we need to see that there is a child with you in the study participation video. One child can only participate in the entire study sequence once.