Babies' Relationships with Their Caregivers

For babies from 8 months and 0 days to 9 months and 30 days, who are based in the US

This study will take place on a video call, live with a researcher! Clicking on the “Participate Now!” button will send you to an online calendar where you can select a date and time that works for you. Before the study, we will ask you to make a short 15-second video using your webcam. For the video, you need to say ’Hey Baby’ as though you’re talking to your baby. If you agree to participate, we will send you instructions on making the video, which should take under 5 minutes to create. In this Zoom-based study, your baby will watch videos of you. We’re interested in how babies understand about the social interactions of their caregivers.

In this study, we are interested in whether babies form expectations about what their caregivers will do next. Prior research suggests that babies are sensitive to social interactions, but we still know relatively little about how they understand the social goals of their parents and caregivers. In this study, we will have you look toward one puppet over another and ask whether babies would be more surprised when you’ll look toward a new puppet, depending on how the puppets had responded to you.

20 minutes

Babies will receive a $5 online gift card and an optional certificate of participation within 24 hours of participating. To receive the gift card and certificate, the baby must be within the age range for our study, and the parents and guardians must have created the videos by 12pm EST the day before the study session. We can compensate participants with Amazon US gift cards, or with alternative online gift cards (e.g., Target). We’ll ask you about what gift cards work for your family, and we’ll work with our lab manager to get you a suitable gift card.