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Current Studies

Dr. Zelazo is the principal supervisor in each of these studies.

Executive Function Training in the Preschool Years

Age Range: 3-4 year olds
Primary Investigator: Nhi Thai, Jacob Anderson
Other Investigators: Leah Parks, Jessica Neuman

We are looking at how young children can learn to do better on tasks involving flexible thinking. During the first visit, your child will play a computerized sorting game involving sorting pictures into one of two categories based on a specific dimension (e.g. shape). During the second visit, your child will receive some kind of training or practice with this task-switching game. During the third session, your child will play another sorting game and other related tasks within the cognitive domain. Event-related neural potentials will be recorded using the EEG system.

The Effects of Attention Training in Early Childhood

Age Range: 3-5 year olds
Primary Investigator: Dr. Kristy Lyons, Anna Johnson
Other Investigators: William Blechschmidt, Jessica Neuman

The purpose of this study is to find out how extra practice with different kinds of attention training activities (for example, paying attention to one’s thoughts, feelings, or body) affects preschoolers’ cognitive and social development. In particular, we hope to find out how attention training improves three general abilities: (1) the ability to regulate one’s thoughts and behavior (for example, being better able to sit still for longer periods of time to pay attention in class), (2) the ability to understand other people’s thoughts or feelings (for example, being able to identify which emotions another child is feeling) and increased concern and helping of others (for example, being more likely to share with a child in need), and (3) the ability to regulate one’s stress reactions (for example, so that when one becomes stressed one can calm oneself down, so that one’s body doesn’t remain highly stressed for long periods of time). Our long-term goal is to be able to develop a set of simple activities that can be implemented in preschool classrooms to optimize attention, self-regulation, and social skills, to help children be better ready to be successful in their preschool classrooms and to increase school readiness for when children start attending elementary school. This study is taking place at local area preschools, but if you'd like more information about similar studies, please let us know, and we can tell you about similar opportunities that will be happening in the lab this summer and fall.

The Development of Self-Understanding

Age Range: 18-64 year olds
Primary Investigator: Nhi Thai
Other Investigators: Max Shinn

Our goal is to assess variations in self-experience, or the way in which one subjectively experiences events and other people in relation to oneself. The longer-term goal is to characterize a post-personal experience of the self and how it develops. During the one hour session, we will evaluate the significance of self-relevant feedback and other measures that covary with this response, including executive function, emotion regulation, and psychological distancing. Participants will perform tasks such as taking a personality test, put together tangrams, sort objects according to specific rules, evaluate emotional pictures, and recall certain memories from their past.

Development of Uncertainty Monitoring

Age Range: 8-14 year olds
Primary Investigator: Dr. Kristen Lyons

This study explores how children make decisions, why children tend to make better decisions as they get older, and why different people make different kinds of choices. In this study, children view pictures and make decisions about them (for example, deciding what a picture shows or deciding if they have seen a picture before), and are asked how certain they feel about their answers. While children play the decision-making game, we record their brain activity using an EEG system, which allows us to measure brain activity that is related to decision-making.

Becoming Aware of Uncertainty

Age Range: 3-7 year olds
Primary Investigator: Dr. Kristen Lyons

The goal of this study is to learn about how young children develop awareness of their feelings of uncertainty. Children will play simple guessing games in which they will or will not get feedback about whether or not their guesses are correct. Children will be asked to report how sure they feel about their guesses.

Decision-Making in Childhood and Adolescence

Age Range: 8-14 year olds
Primary Investigator: Dr. Kristen Lyons

This is an ERP study, in which participants wear a cap that measures brain activity so that we can look at age-differences in brain activity that are associated with decision-making. We are interested in age-differences and also personality differences that are related to decision-making styles (for example, risky versus cautious decision-making).

Developing a Battery of Executive Function Tasks for Use Across the Lifespan

Age Range: 3-7, 18-30, 65-85 year olds
Primary Investigator: Jacob Anderson
Other Investigators: Amanda Kesek, Nhi Thai

The study's goal is to develop a battery of standardized cognitive measures for use with individuals across the lifespan. Various sites are involved in the project, with each site responsible for developing or modifying tasks related to a different subdomain of cognition. At the Institute of Child Development, we are working to modify tasks in the subdomain of executive function. The tasks within this subdomain are the Dimensional Change Card Sort task (DCCS) and the Flanker task. In the DCCS, participants are required to sort a series of bivalent test cards, first according to one dimension (e.g., color), and then according to the other (e.g., shape). The Flanker task requires focusing on a given stimulus while inhibiting attention to stimuli flanking it.

The Development of a Functional Neural Network Underlying Flexible Rule Use

Age Range: 8-11, 14-16, 20-22 year olds
Primary Investigator: Donaya Hongwanishkul
Other Investigators: Nhi Thai

We are looking at the neural networks in the brain and how they relate to being flexible while performing tasks that require switching from one set of rules to another. This study requires two visits. The first visit involves training in the mock MRI scanner and answering questions relevant to the study. The second visit involves actually completing a computerized task that involves flexible switching while in the MRI scanner.

Development of Emotion Regulation

Age Range: 3- and 5- year olds
Primary Investigator: Dr. Kristen Lyons, Anna Johnson
Other Investigators: Willie Blechschmidt, Julie Hoye, Michael McGarrah

The goal of this study is to learn about how young children develop the ability to control their emotions. Children will see different kinds of emotional pictures (positive, negative, and neutral), and will be asked to say how the pictures make them feel. Participants will also be asked to perform simple tasks and we will see how their performance is affected by the emotional pictures.

Passive Avoidance Learning

Age Range: 3-7, 10-18 year olds
Primary Investigator: Dr. Kristen Lyons

The goal of this study is to learn about how different kinds of learning processes change with age. In particular we are investigating age-differences in how children learn from feedback about whether they have answered a question correctly or incorrectly. Children will play a computer game where they have to learn the rules by paying attention to feedback after each trial.

Ego Depletion in Children

Age Range: 3-7 year olds
Primary Investigator: Jason Cowell
Other Investigators: Bryan Cheng, Christine Jensen

Research with adults has shown that humans only have a limited ability to continue to control their actions. As we control our behavior, our future uses of control are affected by our previous uses. This is most aptly illustrated in anecdotal evidence from parents: Consider a usual trip to the grocery store. Your two, three, even four year old child desires candy or soda. You make a deal: behave in the store and he/she can have a candy bar at the end of the shopping trip. Your child does their best to behave the entire shopping trip, but at the end, you realize that the candy bars are too expensive and try to explain that to them. Often times, the result is predictable: a tantrum. Using the idea of ego depletion, that the control exerted at one time affects our ability to control our actions at a later time, Dr. Carlson and I are interested in testing children's limited capacity to control in a laboratory setting. We are giving children a direction task (e.g., Do play with these toys, etc..). Children then attempt to complete a very difficult tangram.

HCSM (Hierarchical Competing Systems Model)

Age Range: 3-5, 7-8 year olds
Primary Investigator: Jason Cowell
Other Investigators: Bryan Cheng, Christine Jensen

In this project we are particularly interested in how memory and past experience with a game influence an individual's ability to answer correctly. In this game, children (3-5 yrs of age, 7-8 yrs of age) and college students will be given a set of paired words of pictures (e.g., river and fast). Participants will see this pair of words, along with several other pairs of words for a varied amount of times (some one time only, some 16 repetitions). After seeing many word pairs, participants will be tested on the pairs of words. Essentially, we are interested in how memory and exposure influence children and adult's ability to concentrate and perform at a higher level of accuracy.

Moral Consistency

Age Range: 3-5, 7-10 year olds
Primary Investigator: Jason Cowell
Other Investigators: Bryan Cheng

This study is aimed at discovering how children transfer their reasoning in morality to their own behavior. In this study, children (3-5, 7-10) are given a set of moral dilemmas asking them basic questions about whether they feel actions like cheating, stealing, or lying are okay. We then have them in a room with the opportunity to perform mild versions of each (cheating and lying). We look at not only the behavior, but also the complexity of children's responses. This study is intended to replicate everyday circumstances for children and to see how they actually response, not just how we believe they respond.

Executive Function and Early Language Experience

Age Range: 3-4 year olds
Primary Investigator: Sabine Doebel
Other Investigators: Abbie Hause

We are currently conducting research investigating how early language experience might contribute to the development of executive function in childhood. The study involves two tasks: a simple card game where children are primed to think of different categories and a card sorting task.