Which thing is Weepo looking for?

For 2-year-olds

This study will take place on a video call, with a live researcher! Clicking on the “Schedule a time to participate” button will send you to an online calendar through our lab's Bookings page where you can select a date and time that works for you. During the study, your child will interact with one of our researchers and character on screen who is practicing their words. Your child will see some images, then the character will describe one, and ask your child to find it by pointing to an image.

In this study, we’re interested in what young children know about the words we use to describe certain kinds of actions. Some actions are ones we can easily see, like jumping or hugging. Others, like imagining or forgetting or are not readily observable. This second set of action words, or verbs, are harder to learn and take longer to acquire in child development, because they place restrictions on the kind of actions they pick out—and this is the kind of thing we don’t teach children! For example, we don't tell them that their blanket or their sippy cup can't regret or believe something. We are investigating whether two-year-olds have this knowledge, because it helps us understand what young children know about these words when they first acquire them, and what has to be learned later on.

15 minutes

US $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.