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[rivka]

Yesterday Alex participated in her second study at the Johns Hopkins Laboratory for Child Development. This one was a lot more interesting than the first one, both for me and for Alex.

They're studying the development of numerical reasoning by taking advantage of infants' tendency to look longer at things that are new or surprising. Previous research has shown that quite young infants appear to be able to "add" small numbers - if you let an infant watch two toy mice travel behind a screen, and then you lift up the screen, the infant will look at the scene longer if only one mouse is there than if both mice are visible as expected. This study used a variant of that protocol.

Alex sat in a highchair in front of a puppet theater that had a cardboard screen in the middle of the stage. From one side of the screen, the experimenter rolled out a blue circle with a hole in the middle. It rolled back behind the screen, and then, smoothly completing the arc, a solid blue circle rolled out the other side. The circles rolled back and forth once more, and then the experimenter got Alex's attention and lifted up the screen. Sometimes both circles were there, and sometimes just one - either the solid circle or the circle with a hole in it. Alex was videotaped the whole time; later, some poor undergraduate will watch the video and time how long she looked at things.

As a reward for participating, she got a onesie with the Johns Hopkins logo flanked by two cartoon giraffes, plus a very fancy award certificate. More importantly, though, she had a good time charming everyone on the lab staff and testing out the acoustics of a brick tunnel we walked through on campus. And the research assistant who was our experimenter turned out to be a public health major who was very, very excited by the research that I'm doing. She asked if she could e-mail me for more information. If she does, I think I'll also ask if she babysits. Alex loved her.

Comments

[rivka.livejournal.com]

What was Henry's study about?

[chargirlgenius.livejournal.com]

They were measuring stress and anxiety when faced with new situations. They put a little electrode cap on him, sensors for blink rate, breathing, and heart rate, and showed him new toys, played a tape of voices, etc. They took a saliva sample for cortisol afterwards, and had me test him the next day at the same time. They test at 4 months, 14 months, and 24 months, and do an overnight sleep study at 10 months. They also interview both parents on their stress and anxiety levels.

Considering the new baby will be showing up right around the 14 month mark, I hope we can figure out a way to still participate.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Whoo, that sounds very cool.