Help Zooma the Alien learn a new language!

5- to 8-year-old children with typical hearing and vision (corrected is fine, e.g., glasses or hearings aids) who learn English as their first language and reside in the United States.

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. On a Zoom call with a researcher, your child will play a space game, helping our alien friend Zooma practice speaking in a new language called Zilly. Your child will listen to Zooma speaking Zilly and then answer questions about whether Zooma said things correctly.

We are interested in whether children can learn the rules of a language just by listening to someone speaking it. Researchers already know that children can learn rules when the examples they hear consistently follow a rule. We want to know what happens when the language input is inconsistent and changes — for example, when children first hear examples that follow a rule and then hear more exceptions to that rule, which reflects important challenges in real-world language learning.

20 minutes

As a token of appreciation, you will receive a $5 Amazon.com e-gift card within one week of participation. You are eligible for this payment if (1) your child meets all the eligibility criteria, and (2) your child has not participated in the study before.