Children's Understanding of Common Ground in Relationships

For 4- to 9-year-olds

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. In this Zoom-based study, your child will see some scenarios where characters interacting with each other. We'll ask your child questions about how the characters are interacting and the relationship between the characters.

Young children are sometimes not sensitive to ambiguity in communication. The present study asks how children think about common ground and communication. For example, do children understand that people who use under-informative speech may have interacted before? This research will shed light on how children make sense of relationships from speech.

15-20 minutes

Children will receive a $5 online gift card and (if requested) a certificate of participation, within 24 hours of participating over Zoom. To receive the gift card and certificate, the child must be within the age range for our study. Each child will only receive one gift card. We can compensate participants with an Amazon US gift card, or with an alternative online gift card. 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.