Imagine That!

3- to 6-year-old children and their caregivers who are participating in Project GARDEN and are able to understand and answer questions in English. If you’re already in Project GARDEN and you want to see which study your child can do next, visit https://childrenhelpingscience.com/garden, click "Start Now", and select your child's name under "Find studies for..."

In this Project GARDEN study, your child will play two mini-games. In these games, your child will hear a few stories, imagine various things, and answer questions about those things. For example, your child might be asked to imagine a scenario and then answer questions about what they imagined or answer questions about whether different things are living and take up space!

We are interested in how children use their imagination and what beliefs they hold about various things in the world around them. Previous work has found that adults do not commit to basic aspects of their mental images, including features readily apparent in real images. Here, we investigate what basic properties children imagine in a mental image as well as which they do not. Previous studies have also found that children have strong intuitions about many things they encounter in their daily lives (e.g., that air is "nothing" and doesn't take up space). Children's intuitions about these things tend to differ from our scientific understanding (i.e., air is material and takes up space; you can fill a balloon with it). Here, we examine whether older children tend to show signs of cognitive conflict when answering questions where their intuition leads them astray.

15 minutes

$5 Amazon.com gift card. After you finish the study, we will email you an Amazon.com gift card within 1 week. To be eligible for compensation, the following criteria must be met: (1) your child must be in the age range for this study; (2) English is (one of) your child's first language(s); (3) you need to submit a valid video consent statement; (4) we need to see that there is a child with you in the study participation video. You can only receive compensation for this study once per child.