Experiments
At the Cognitive Development Lab, we run a number of experiments in order to study a wide range of behaviors and characteristics. All of our experiments are short, safe, and fun!
The Animal Game
Generalization from the known to the unknown, or inductive inference, is crucially important for human cognition. Even infants are capable of simple inductive generalizations, however the mechanisms of induction early in development remain contested. In our research, we present children with simple induction problems and examine which sources of information they rely on to make inferences.
The Moving Objects Game
The world around us is complex, and maintaining focused attention can sometimes be challenging, even for adults. In this project, we will ask children to play a game in which they will see several objects moving on a computer screen. Children will be asked to watch a particular object while ignoring the rest. When the objects stop moving and disappear, children will be asked to point to the screen location last visited by the object they were watching.
The Guessing Game
Generalization from the known to the unknown, or inductive inference, is crucially important for human cognition. When performing generalizations, young children are often influenced by the visual similarity of presented objects. We try to find out whether children are also influenced by the phonological similarity of presented labels.
The Memory Game
When performing generalizations, young children often pay attention to different sources of information than adults. For example, adults may be more likely to notice whether presented entities belong to the same kind, whereas children may be more likely to notice whether presented entities look alike. Comparing performance on this surprise recognition memory task will help us understand to which sources of information participants paid attention.