Current Projects

Overview

At the Early Language and Experience Lab, we investigate how infants and young children learn from what other people tell them. We think this is an important question because so much of what we know comes from other people - through direct conversations, from overhearing others, from reading books and newspapers, to using the internet and television. From the many words offered by their parents and others, children learn about language, social values, past and future events, what town they live in, the names of their parents, the geography of the world, scientific discoveries, and many other domains that play important roles in their lives.

As adults, we are very good at learning from others. For example, many of us believe the Pythagorean's theorem, that nothing goes faster than light, and that dinosaurs are birds. But we would also admit that we could not justify or provide evidence for any of these beliefs if asked. We believe these things not because of observations we've made or proofs we've discovered, but because we have heard about them from people we trust, people who we suspect could ground their beliefs in convincing arguments. At the same time, we know that we don't trust everyone. We often doubt claims for various reasons - the source might be notoriously unreliable, the claim may not square with other things we know, the source might be joking or showing signs of insincerity.

How do children determine when to trust and when not to trust what others tell them?

TRUTH (24-month-olds)

In this study, we investigate toddler's abilities to reason about other people in terms of their previous reliability. To study this question, we first present children with someone who is either accurate or inaccurate when discussing a series of common objects (e.g., spoon, car, duck). Afterwards, children are asked to learn new words from this person. We are interested in whether even very young children, who are still in the midst of learning language, might learn new words more readily from a reliable source of information as compared to someone who has made mistakes. We are also exploring whether children take into account the attitude that a speaker has toward their claim. So if the speaker who was inaccurate was playing a 'pretend' or 'silly game', would that also elicit mistrust?

AMERICAN SIGN LANGUAGE (26-month-olds)

We are using this study to help us better understand children's understanding of language.  We would like to know if children are able to learn words from a speaker of American Sign Language and if they transfer those labels to an English speaker. If you were to come in, your child would first play for five minutes with an ASL signer or an English speaker while you answered a few questions about your child's vocabulary. Then, your child would play a "game" with either an English speaker or ASL signer in which they will be asked to identify small objects such as a baby shoe and drop them down a cardboard chute. Finally, a second English speaker will come in to play the same game with your child. We hope to gain a greater understanding of children's understanding of language.

UPDATING (30- & 36-month-olds)

In collaboration with Patricia Ganea at Boston University, we are investigating whether a person's past reliability influences toddlers' willingness to update their information about an object. To study this question, the children play a hiding game with two people. During the initial hiding game, children either discover that the person is very forgetful when providing information about where a toy is hidden or they discover that she always gets it right. Then children help hide a toy on their own, leave the room, and the same person tells them that the toy has now been moved to a new location. When children come back into the room, where do they search for the toy? Do they look where they hid it, and disregard the person's testimony, or do they accept her testimony, look in the new location and update their memory for the toy's location?

EXECUTIVE FUNCTION (3- & 4-year-olds)

In this study we are looking at the relation between two abilities that develop in preschoolers.  One is the ability to monitor and control behavior, sometimes called "executive function."  We examine executive function by presenting children with some computer games that measure different aspects of these abilities.  The other skill we are interested in, and we think might be related to executive function, is the ability to learn information from others, particularly when one person is more trustworthy than another.  To measure this, children see familiar objects and then hear two different people label that object, one accurately and one inaccurately.  We are interested to see if children assess people for their trustworthiness and if so, whether they use that information in future learning situations.

PRETEND (3- & 4-year-olds)

In this study, we are interested to see how children’s word-learning is affected by the context in which words are presented to them. We are asking whether children are willing to learn new words for objects that they already have names for during a game of pretend play. Your child will participate in a painting activity in which an adult will label objects with words that will be new to your child; for example, they will call a paintbrush a “blicket.” There will also be a farm game in which the adult will label some animals with new words. Your child will then be asked to name some of the objects and to choose between several objects from a tray when asked for the “blicket.” We want to find out if children are willing to learn these new names in a game of pretend play.

STRATEGY (3- & 7-year-olds)

In this study we are looking at learning in young children and their ability to trust or doubt a speaker. We are interested in seeing if children can recognize motive and if they use this information to make decisions within the context of a game. You child will play a short game with the experimenter where the objective of the game is to collect the most treats. These are hidden behind one of two boxes. Your child will be given information from the experimenter, who can see the contents of each box, as to the location of the treats. Your child will then be asked to choose a box. If the child chooses correctly, he or she will get the treats. If your child chooses incorrectly, the treats go to the experimenter. We are interested in seeing whether children are willing follow the testimony of the speaker who has a motive (i.e., they would like to win the game) to provide them with false information.

If you have a young child and would like to find out more information about participating, please call the lab at 612-624-8822, email Dr. Koenig at mkoenig@umn.edu or click on the lab email link on the left hand side of the page.