I wonder which one that is!

For 3.5- to 4-year-olds

This study will take place on a video call, live with a researcher! Clicking on the “Schedule a time to participate” button will send you to an online calendar where you can select a date and time that works for you. In the study, your child will interact with a live researcher and a friendly alien on screen named Weepo. Your child will see some images. Then Weepo will describe one of them using a brand-new word and some familiar words, and ask your child to pick the right image.

In this study, we’re interested in what young children know about the words we use to describe properties of things in the world. Some of these words place restrictions on the kind of objects and individuals they can describe, and the kinds of sentences they can appear in. For example, words like "sleepy" can only apply to animals and people, not tables and chairs. And we can say that a child is "too big for something" or "reluctant to do something" but we can't say a chair is "too wooden to sit in" or a table is "sturdy to hold something." This just sounds weird, and for a good reason connected to the way language works! Interestingly, this is the kind of thing we don’t teach young children (and may not realize ourselves!). We’d like to know how the language a child already knows can help them learn brand-new words that might share similar restrictions. We’re especially interested in words like adjectives, which can describe properties like color, shape, emotions. The more we know about how children interpret new adjectives, the more we understand about what supports language development.

15 minutes

$5 Amazon.com gift card. We will email you an Amazon gift card and a certificate of completion 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.