Research

Since Inwe was a little over a year old, I have been allowing her to participate in the studies at the Child Language & Learning Laboratory. Larien has also participated. I suppose I'll let Finwe participate as well.

Today, I took Inwe to participate in a language study. The focus was on how children learn words. I didn't get to see her to the study because there was an on-going study for Larien's age group. It was a study that Inwe had done when she was two years old.

I remember this particular study because of Inwe's reaction to the directions. The child watches a DVD of two people. One is pretending to eat food and the other is really eating food. The child cannot see the food. For adults, it is easy to tell who is pretending, and it turns out that for most two year olds it is also easy to know who is eating the real food. When Inwe did the study, it was my job to ask her to get the bowl with the food. Instead of grabbing like other two year olds, Inwe said, "The purple one" or "the red one". She would not grab the bowl. I had to continually remind her that she could grab the bowl with the food.

The study was a bit altered for Larien. In this version of the Who is Pretending study (my name), Larien had to choose where the toy was--not the food. The research associate showed Larien the bowls: one with food and the other with the toy. The the bowls were removed, covered, and placed in front of the televsion for the role playing. Larien got all of them correct, but the last one was hard because she really wanted the grapes in the bowl. She initially chose the bowl with the food and then proceeded to tell the graduate student, "I knew that the toy was in the other bowl. I wanted the grapes!" I'm glad the video was still rolling.

The graduate student told me afterwards that the twist with the version Larien did was that the children now had to inhibit their desire for food. On video, it is clear that even the youngest participants lick their lips while watching the person really eating the food.

I have no idea how this research will help anyone, but it is interesting to see my children participate.