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Research |
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 AUTUMN 2011  |
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Verb Movies |
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Metaphor |
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| Time Understanding | |
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| Click here to view Movies for Description Studies |
Research
We study the behavior of children from infancy through childhood, using engaging, age-appropriate activities. The studies we are working on for this quarter are listed below. For more information about what happens when a child comes in to participate, please visit our Parents page. To read about some of our recent studies, check out our latest newsletter (Spring 2011) .
We are currently working on the following studies:
• Verb Movies
• Metaphors
. Time Understanding
Verb Movies
Age range: 2 year olds
This study is looking at children's early understanding of the meanings of verb endings such as -ING and -ED. These small pieces of language have very complicated and abstract meanings, but children usually say them pretty regularly in their early language. We want to know if the children really understand what these endings mean. To find out, we show children pairs of movies and measure which one they look at when they hear the different verb endings.
Metaphor
Age range: 3 year olds
This study is looking at children's understanding of words which are used metaphorically. For example, a word like LONG can be used to talk about the size of something in space (this is a long piece of string) but it can also be used to talk about the extent of something in time (the movie lasted for a long time). We are interested in how children learn to connect these metaphorically connected uses of the word, and how they categorize new words about space and time.
Time Understanding
Age range: 5 year olds
This study is looking at children's understanding of time, especially the difference ways that we talk about time in language. For example, sometime we indicate time with subtle grammatical differences (the difference between she walked and she is walking) and other times we use content words that describe conventional time spans (for an hour, next week). In this task, children will learn how to use a timeline and are asked to place events on the line. We are interested in children's ability to sequence events and to distinguish between the past, present and future.
Click here to view Movies for Description Studies