Current Studies

Please note you'll need a laptop or desktop computer (not a mobile device) running Chrome or Firefox to participate.

Meet the Wuggles!

For 3- to 4-year-olds who hear English at home

Your child will play a game that involves matching pictures of alien “wuggles” based on their emotions.

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Let's Draw!

For 4- and 5-year-old children

Your child will watch a short video about a girl named Ana. Then your child will draw a picture. To participate, your child will need two blank sheets of white 8.5” x 11” paper (US Letter Size) and a regular pencil with an eraser.

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Find the cause!

For babies ages 15 to 19 months of age.

In this study, your child will be shown short videos, where some objects make a machine light up and play music, and others do not. Then the objects are sorted into different boxes based on whether they made the machine work. At the end of the study, your baby will see some new objects and we will measure where on the screen they look. We are interested in whether babies predict which box the new objects will be sorted in.

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Do Babies Prefer Real Human Faces?

for babies ages 6 months to 1 year!

Your baby will see two faces on a screen saying “ba”. We’re interested in seeing which of these two faces your baby prefers. There’s nothing you have to do other than let these videos play while we record your baby's looking. Please note: for this study, you will need a high chair or stroller for your baby to sit in!

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What's counting for babies?

For babies age 14 to 19 months.

In this study, your baby will watch different numbers of toys being pointed at and labeled in different ways (such as "one, two, three" or "this, this, this"). We are interested in how babies react to different types of activities that resemble counting.

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Rhythm and Dance Study

For five- and six-year-olds who speak English

In this study, you will complete a short survey about your child's experience with music, and then two tasks. In Task 1, your child will listen to cartoon animals playing the drums and pick the animals who are the best drummers for dancing (8-10 minutes). In Task 2, your child will dance along with drumming (about 5 minutes). For this, you will need to set up a "dance space" for your child to keep them in the camera frame, and for their safety while dancing. For the dance space, you could use a rug or foam mats on the floor, mark a space with masking tape, or set some pillows in a circle. The space should be at least 4' x 4' (approx. 1.2m x 1.2m).

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Can you hear me now?

5-year-olds with normal hearing

In this study, your child will watch videos of a dragon saying sentences. After each sentence is said, they will be asked to repeat what they heard. Some of the sentences may be more difficult to hear, either by being presented in noise, or by being distorted in some manner.

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Scene and Heard!

For babies ages 11.5 to 13.5 months. Because the study has a language component, there should be a native English speaker in the home.

In this study, your child will watch several videos of one kind of scene (like a forest) labeled with a made-up word. Then, another example of that type of scene will be presented side-by-side with a new kind of scene (like a field). Your child might also see scrambled scenes. We use these to see how much a scene’s structure — versus its colors and textures alone — might help babies to categorize it. We’re interested in whether language draws babies’ attention to the information that differs between different kinds of scenes. Babies tend to look longer at things they find interesting, so we will measure how long your child looks at each scene to see if they find one more interesting than the other.

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Bouncing Balls

for babies ages 4 to 8 months

Your child will see two balls bouncing on a screen and hear a gentle impact sound! We’re interested in seeing which of these two balls your child prefers to look at. There’s nothing you have to do other than let these videos play for your child. Please note: for this study, you will need a high chair or stroller for your child to sit in!

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Little Drummers - Exploring toddlers sense of rhythm

For 2- to 2.5-year old children.

To measure their sense of rhythm toddlers will be asked to bang on a flat surface with and without a musical accompaniment (takes 3 minutes). We will then ask you to complete an online survey, which includes some fun interactive games to try with your little one (this can be done at a later time).

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Investigating Early Food Thoughts

For babies 10-13 months of age

Your baby will see a series of seven short videos. Some of these videos will depict fruit-like objects and common household objects that move out from behind a screen onto a stage and back behind the screen. Other videos will depict an actor interacting with those same objects. We’re interested in whether your child will look at the food-like objects differently from the common household ones. There’s nothing you have to do other than let these videos play while we record your baby's looking.

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See numbers, hear numbers!

For babies age 3 to 5 months.

In this study, your baby will hear different numbers of sounds, and watch movies with different numbers of shapes in them. We are interested in how well babies can match the numbers they hear to the numbers they see.

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Art Class Storytime!

For 3- through 8-year-olds who speak English as a native language. Bilingual children are welcome to participate as long as one of their native languages is English.

Your child will listen to a set of four art-themed stories illustrated by cheerful pictures. Throughout each story, your child will be asked to answer six questions about events in the story.

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Noisy Sentences

For 3 year olds and 5 year olds who mostly hear English

In this study, your child will hear some sentences with some noises while they are looking at cartoon images of everyday items, animals, and people. We want to see what pictures your child looks at during this time. We will also ask you (the parent) to close your eyes or turn around to avoid influencing your child's responses.

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Which face will your baby recognize?

For 5-month-old and 12-month-old full-term infants (at least 38 weeks of gestational age) who are regularly exposed to English language

Your baby will watch short videos of two people reciting children's stories. The sound will either match just one of them, or neither. We will then show your baby pictures of the same people, or a novel face. We want to see which faces your baby will pay more attention to.

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Where's The Ball?

For 3-year-olds who speak English.

Your child will watch a video of a woman who will say hello and invite them to play a game. She will bring out two boxes and pull four colored balls out of each box. Your child will be asked to ‘touch’ which box they think has a *new* ball hidden inside! (P.S. there is no wrong answer!)

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Let's go fishing!

For children aged 11 through 13

Your child will play a fishing game. They will be asked to use the mouse to choose which pond they want to fish in. We will explain the rules of the game to your child in the form of a story and check that they understand before they start playing.

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Logic for babies

For babies aged 13-16 months

Over and over, your child will see a symbol, then a pair of shapes. Depending on the symbol, one of the two shapes will dance around after a few seconds. We are interested in whether your child starts to “predict” which shape is going to move by looking at it.

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Hmm... What Do You Hear?

For children between 4 years, 6 months old and 5 years, 6 months old whose only native language is English, and who reside in the US.

Your child will see a series of on-screen images and will hear portions of spoken language while sitting on your lap. In the first phase (about 5 minutes), your child will see a single image on-screen. In the second phase (also about 5 minutes), two images will appear on-screen, and your child will be asked to point to the image that they heard, and you will then click on the image your child pointed to. At the end of the study, there is a brief survey.

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Learn an alien language!

4-to-8-year-old children who speak English (Bilingual children are also welcomed to participate as long as one of their native languages is English!)

In this experiment, your child will watch a group of alien creatures describing objects in an alien language. Then, your child will be asked to answer ten questions to help humans learn the alien language.

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ALIENating Speech Sounds

For 5- to 12-month-old babies who are hearing mostly English (90-100% of the time ) OR who are hearing both English and another language (at least 30% of each). US/Canada only.

In this study, your baby will watch cartoon aliens labeling objects. First they will see familiar objects being labeled (e.g., banana) and then unfamiliar objects being labeled. The unfamiliar objects will be labeled with speech sounds that can be difficult to tell apart. Lastly, your baby will watch dancing rainbow dots while hearing sequences of the two speech sounds, and we will measure how long they look at the screen. Before the video for your baby, there is a brief task for you the parent: selecting the sounds you hear.

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Look at the Keet!

For 14 - to 16-month-olds (+/- 15 days) who live in mainland UK and who are learning only English.

Your baby will watch some short animated videos that introduce unfamiliar objects. Then we will show two objects at the same time and say the name of just one of them. We want to see which object your baby chooses to look at. At the end of the study is a questionnaire about the words your baby understands and says. Please choose a time of day that you think your baby will be the happiest!

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Cue the Music!

For 10-month-old monolingual babies who are hearing English (at least 90-100% ), OR 10-month-old bilingual babies who are hearing English and Cantonese/ Mandarin (at least 30% English, and 20% Cantonese or Mandarin); US/Canada only.

In this study, your baby will first be enjoying short clips of women singing a tune to them (and hopefully you'll enjoy it as well!) in English, Cantonese, or Mandarin. Then, your child will listen to a series of language sounds while looking at rainbow dots.

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Babies & Emotional faces!

For babies between 2-months and 24-months

Your baby will start by seeing a woman with a happy face followed by pairs of faces: the same expression and a different one. We want to see which faces babies prefer more and how age changes these preferences. We will ask you (the parent) to close your eyes during the presentation of these pairs to avoid influencing your baby's responses.

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Smiles and Masks

For babies ages 4 to 12 months

In this study, your baby will see pictures of 8 different faces shown on the left and right side of the screen. In some pictures, the same woman’s face will be shown; in other pictures two different women will be shown. Sometimes both or just one of the women is wearing a face mask; other times she will show a friendly smile. We are interested in which picture your baby prefers to look at. Before your baby looks at the pictures, we will ask you two questions about your baby’s experience seeing people wearing face masks.

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Guess who's mentioned!

For 5-year-olds with normal hearing whose native language is English only and who reside in US

Your child will watch videos of two people and will listen to sentences in which one of these individuals is named. We are examining whether children associate names with faces.

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Baby see, Baby do: Pilot Study

For full-term newborn babies (0-6 weeks old, born at 38+ weeks). Expecting a child? Congratulations! If you'd like to be reminded about this study after your due date, copy and paste the following URL into your browser, enter your due date, press send, and we'll take it from there! https://tinyurl.com/babydo-later

Did you know that babies notice when you make fun faces? In this study, you and your baby will play a short imitation game and we will look to see if your baby copies the faces you make! We will also ask you some questions on experiences that new parents may have to see if that might influence the faces babies make.

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Looking for more ways to contribute to research from home? Check out Children Helping Science for even more studies!