Scale Errors
We have recently documented something that has never before been reported
in the scientific literature (although you may have observed it in your
own home). After repeatedly seeing toddlers try to sit down on a
tiny chair in a scale model in the lab, we decided to study this remarkable
behavior. We now have considerable evidence (on videotape) that
toddlers sometimes misestimate, to an astonishing degree, the relation
between the size of their own body and an object.
In this research, children between 18 and 30 months come to the lab
and play with some large toys—a car they can get into, a chair they can
sit in, and a slide they can climb up and go down. Then, while the
child is out of the room, these large objects are replaced with miniature
replicas exactly like them except for size.
We find that children often try to perform the same actions on the
miniature objects that they had done with the full-sized ones: They try
to get into the miniature car and to go down the tiny slide. This
research tells us that young children’s knowledge about objects and what
you do with them sometimes causes them to lose track of the fundamental
difference between the real object and a replica. In the coming
year, we plan to do several studies that we hope will give us a better
understanding of this very intriguing aspect of young children’s behavior.
Click here
to see children participating in this study. Each child is trying
unsuccessfully to play on a toy that is too small!
Parents, visit www.childbehaviorsurvey.com for an interesting survey
designed to find out how common scale errors are. Responding to the survey should only take a few minutes
and would provide us with very important information!.
Back to Top
Learning from Picture Books: Infants and Toddlers
Most parents assume that their infants and toddlers learn a great deal
from their experience with picturebooks. They expect, for example,
that after hours of conversation about pictures of zoo animals that their
children have never seen, the children will recognize and know something
about those animals on their first trip to a zoo. However, surprisingly
little research has been done on this important topic.
We are currently studying what young children learn through picturebook interactions with adults, and we are particularly interested in their ability to apply what they learn to the real world. In some of the studies, children look at books containing some pictures of novel objects along with pictures of familiar ones, and the research assistant labels and talks about all the pictures. We then show the children real versions of the novel objects to see if they transfer what they learned from the book to the real objects. In other studies, we are interested in whether children recognize that objects in pictures not only share the same label as the real world object but also share the same properties. For example, children read a book about a puppet who plays with a ball that lights up and a box that does nothing when he shakes it. After reading the book, the child sees the objects that were depicted in the book and has to indicate which one lights up.
We have an extensive series of studies planned on this general topic.For
example, we are interested in whether children learn about labels, properties,
and information better from pictures or from real objects. Also, we want to know
whether children can transfer what they learn from pictures to objects and vice
versa. Additionally, varying the time between the picture book exposure and the
transfer test will enable us to find out how long children can remember
information they just learned from a book. Varying how realistic the pictures are
tell us if children are more likely to recognize a real object after seeing a
realistic color photo versus a simple line drawing like those in many children’s
books. We also plan to examine how fantasy context (dogs driving cars, children
riding on flying carpets) affects what children learn from a book.
Learning from Picture Books: Young Children
Choosing the appropriate children’s book can be a difficult task. Children’s books
targeted towards preschool-aged children incorporate many different features such
as pop-up elements and cartoon pictures. Although it is important for books to
appeal to young children, it is also possible that overly elaborate aesthetic
features may distract children from learning the material in the books. We are
interested in exploring what specific features may be helpful or distracting to
young children when it comes to learning.
Thus far, we have found that 2.5- 3 year-olds learn alphabet letters and
numbers better when they are taught with a book that is relatively plain in
presentation than from books that have extraneous features, specifically pop-up
and complex pictures. We are interested in exploring this research further by
seeing if parents approach reading these various types of books differently.
Perhaps they would read a pop-up book more for entertainment and a plain book more
for teaching. We are also investigating if pop-up features are more helpful for
learning other types of information, such as picture recognition and factual
information. Knowing what features are appropriate for different functions is
essential to how we educate young children.
Because many young children--from infants to preschoolers--spend a great deal of
time in picture book interactions with parents, siblings, and teachers, it should
be valuable to know more about what helps them to learn from those experiences.
Back to Top
Displaced References
When an infant who has little or no productive speech
hears the name of a familiar person ("Where is daddy?") or object ("Where
is your ball?"), does hearing that word brings its referent to mind?
The ability to represent objects through words and to think about objects
in their absence takes us beyond here-and-now and has an important role in
communication.
The present research examines whether children can comprehend references
to absent objects before they can make such utterances in speech. Infants
may display their understanding of references to absent objects through nonverbal
behaviors.
In some of the studies, children play with a stuffed animal for about 5
minutes and they are taught a name for the animal. Then the stuffed
animal is put out of view behind a couch. Then we sit down with the
child and we read a book about the out-of-view animal. We want to see
whether children direct behaviors (e.g., looking, pointing, searching for)
toward the absent animal when they hear the name of the animal. This
research will help us understand children's symbolic development of language.
Back to Top
Beliefs about Physical Transformations
Although even infants understand a great deal about the physical world, we
have been discovering that older (preschool and early elementary school)
children are surprisingly willing to believe that all sorts of impossible transformations
can actually occur. In previous research in our lab, children watched as an
experimenter demonstrated that either a highly technical looking machine or a
decorated cardboard box could transform toys in a variety of impossible ways,
making big toys turn little and turning toys and pictures into real objects.
To find out what the children actually believe about what
they see the machine appear to do, the parent who accompanies
them to our lab asks them questions about their session with the “transformation machine.”
We have found that until seven, children are willing to believe that the machine
can transform the toys and until six that the box can. Using a similar procedure
we are currently exploring whether children are willing to believe that the
transformation machine can make live animals transform in a number of
impossible ways. We are interested in whether children are more willing to
believe that animals or inanimate objects can undergo such transformations.
We are also currently exploring just how much children have to see to be convinced.
For example, would children be willing to believe the transformations are possible if
they just hear about them but do not see them actually occur?
This research is helping us understand more about the development of
children’s beliefs about reality.
Back to Top
As young children explore the world, we also want to explore theirs. In the CSC, we are always busy conducting several different studies
on development in the first few years of life. Almost all of our
studies focus on cognitive development, and many are designed to tell us
more about how young children come to understand and use symbols.
Here are some of the projects that are currently under way in the lab.
preparedness in children. Research with infants and young children
who have little to no experience with snakes is crucial to testing
the relevance of the theory in humans. We found that infants match
the image of a moving snake with the sound of a fearful voice while
matching the image of a non-snake with a happy voice. Thus, babies
find something natural about the relation between a frightened voice
and a snake. Currently, we are further investigating this idea by
looking at the specific features of snakes that lead to this
differential responding.
One of the most important areas of development for young children is
to figure out the wide range of symbolic objects that are important in our
daily lives. Young children frequently encounter pictures, replica
toys, models, and a variety of other objects that stand for something other
than themselves. In some studies, we examine whether toddlers understand
the relation between a scale model and a full-sized room. To do so,
we hide a miniature toy in the model while the child watches, and then we
ask the child to find a larger toy that is hidden in the corresponding place
in the room. 